Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music
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development. Without them, this encyclopedia would not have seen the light of
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Preface
day. Special thanks are due to Paul Austerlitz, Thomas Rohde, Rebecca Stuhr, and
Ramón Versage Agudelo, all of whom took a special interest in this project. Also
very generous with their time and talent were Bonnie Robbins, Cindy Liparini, Gloria
Tackas, and Amy Gordon, all of whom supplied much technical and administrative
support. The Library at Lafayette College provided me with just about everything
that was needed to complete this project, and a special thanks goes to Librarian Neil
McElroy and his exemplary crew of talented staff for their assistance. Wise coun-
sel also came from Darren Abouyon, Katherine Restuccia, Robert West, Georgina
Rizk, and Maria Christensen. Raoul P. Torres and Georgina Torres, besides being
supportive parents, provided help with many translations from Spanish to English.
My son and daughter, Augustine and Genevieve, have been supportive in ways
they could never have imagined. I offer my greatest thanks to Marguerite Nicosia
Torres, who was highly influential in the realization of this work.
Introduction
For many years, the popularity of Latin American music as a topic of interest among
English readers has greatly increased. This interest reflects a rise in the number of
recordings and availability of Latin American music. The academic field of ethno-
musicology has also produced many important texts that have done much to spark
interest in Latin American music. And finally, the U.S. population has shown a
great increase in the demographic fact that more and more Latinos in the United
States participate in music making at various levels. Because of this level of high
interest, the present work addresses the need for an English language encyclopedia
of Latin American popular music. But what does it mean to say Latin American
popular music? Both of the terms require a bit of qualification in order to gain an
understanding of the intended scope of this encyclopedia.
Latin America
Traditionally, the term Latin America refers to both the geographical region that
is south of the U.S. border and countries where the main language is Spanish and
Portuguese. Geographically, this would include Mexico, Central America, the
Caribbean, and South America. Variably, scholars employ a definition of Latin
America that includes the Francophone West Indies where French and/or Creole
languages are spoken. This provides a more literal interpretation of the term Latin
American, as these are the countries whose main languages are derived from Latin.
Less frequently, a more broad-minded and culturally inclusive definition refers to
Latin America as all of the countries south of the United States, which includes
the English-speaking countries. This is especially useful when looking at English-
speaking countries like Dominica, whose colonial history shows an early occupa-
tion by France, but where a part of the population still speaks Antillean Creole.
One of the challenges in defining Latin America is that ultimately, we must
consider the influence of the Latin American diaspora, most notably, the United
States. Indeed, much of what we consider to be so-called Latin music comes from
the United States, including salsa, Latin jazz, and Latin rock. Thus, a geographic,
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political, cultural, or linguistic definition will not address all of the areas that are
important for the current study. Instead, this encyclopedia, by necessity, must have
a broader view of Latin America in order to include the cultural contributions from
United States where the Latin American population, which descended from Latin
America, has influenced the subject of Latin American popular music . Therefore,
for the purposes of this encyclopedia, Latin America is defined as the Spanish-,
Portuguese-, and French-speaking countries of the Western Hemisphere south of
the United States. Nevertheless, because of the transnational and reciprocal nature
of popular music, this work also includes Latin American styles that have their ori-
gins in the United States, such as salsa and Latin jazz.
The English-speaking Caribbean is not included in the general working defini-
tion of Latin America in this encyclopedia for several reasons. In doing so, this text
includes countries whose principal language is descended from Latin, thus stay-
ing in line with a standard definition of the region. Secondly, a recent Greenwood
publication, the comprehensive encyclopedia Caribbean Popular Music: An Ency-
clopedia of Reggae, Mento, Ska, Rock Steady, and Dancehall, edited by David V.
Moskowitz, allows this work to effectively complement the present encyclopedia.
Lastly, some genres and performers from the English-speaking Caribbean who are
important to the broader context of Latin American popular music are included to
the extent that they are influential to the broader region. Thus, topics such as ca-
lypso and reggae are included because of their popularity and performance within
Latin American countries.
Popular Music
The term popular music is much how Robert Cantrick referred to it as something that
“Everyone talks about . . . but no one knows what it is.” The handle popular music is
problematic in that definitions of the term popular may bring value judgments, often
dogmatic in nature, that provide little or no critical criteria in forming the definitions.
This is due not only to the tacit assumptions that we may bring to the experience (dis-
cussion), but also to the ways in which we choose to examine popular music based
on categorical declarations. Learned discussion on the distinctions between the three
broad categories of folk, art (in favor of the problematic term classical), and popular
music enhance our understanding of these differentiations, especially when the con-
texts of music making come into play. Nevertheless, even when given a set of criteria
as a basis for the current discussion, there will be some contestation over whether some
song or piece is indeed popular . In the case of Latin America, a significant challenge
lies in distinguishing between folk and popular music. For example, does the son jalis-
icence, the repertoire that gave birth to the mariachi ensembles from Western Mexico,
fall under a folk tradition or is it more of a popular music tradition? While it may be
determined that it belongs to the former, its appropriation by commercial mariachi
ensembles, which have become an international symbol for Mexican culture through
mass media, place its performance by those ensembles in the realm of popular music.
Distinguishing whether a repertoire, or song from a particular repertoire, is popular
while another may not be should not be assessed by value judgments based on how
a piece sounds, or whether there are aspects of the material culture of that reper-
toire that make it appear folkloric. Instead, it is the degree to which they display
their popular-ness based on more neutral criteria (e.g., what the music sounds like)
that will determine their function in the culture. This last point brings to mind the
idea that pop
ular music is related to popular culture and all of the varieties of mass
media that are related to popular culture. Proceeding from a methodology first in-
troduced by Booth and Kuhn, Tracy McFarlan’s entry on “Folk, Art, and Popular
Music” in this encyclopedia demonstrates the importance of how musics are cre-
ated, performed, and distributed. It provides a more neutral level of assessment
when considering how some music might belong more to a popular music system
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Popular
Music
than others. For the purposes of this encyclopedia, a popular music system shows a
transmission of the repertoire leaving its home turf, through mass media dissemina-
tion to cross over other boundaries, and that economically, the repertoire is dissemi-
nated through a system of indirect patronage. The benefit of looking at the music in
this way is that we will not be comparing folk sounding vs. urban sounding music.
Indeed, according to the criteria that McFarlan contextualizes, the folk-inspired
music of Intilli Mani will be considered popular music because of its global dis-
semination, while the music of the Panamanian tamborito, which is hugely popular
throughout that country, might remain under the realm of folkloric music.
If transmission and economic factors play heavily in the classification of folk
and popular music, then there should be some influences on the music tradition-
ally produced by a system of direct patronage, that is, art music. For the purposes
of this study, discussions of art music happen or take place only when those reper-
tories are connected to popular musics. For example, because of its connection to
popular music, the music of Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla is included in the
appropriate entries on tango and Argentina. On the other hand, the music of Alberto
Ginastera, while influenced by native music, is not covered, due to Ginastera’s lack
of significant ties to popular music.
The scope of the encyclopedia is limited to countries, genres, instruments, and other
related nonbiographical topics. While the addition of popular artists would enhance
the discussion of Latin American popular music, to do so in a one-volume encyclope-
dia would have limited the content of those other topics mentioned above. Addition-
ally, the inclusion of contemporary popular artists would possibly date the relevancy
of the work. It is safe to assume that the music of Tito Puente will be as relevant in
10 years as it is today, but it may not be as clear as to what the relevance of currently
popular Jennifer Lopez may be in 10 years. We can certainly see what the difference
of 10 years has done to the career of, for example, Ricky Martin, whose commercial
successes in the late 1990s would have seemed to have cemented his longevity as a
significant contributor to Latin American popular music for years to come. Neverthe-
less, in an effort to enrich the discussion of selected topics, the present work includes
short, relevant sidebars on representative artists, both soloists and ensemble perform-
ers, in an effort to enrich the understanding of certain repertories. A further discussion
on these sidebars in included in the section titled “How to Use This Encyclopedia.”
The main entries in this encyclopedia are organized alphabetically by topic.
Certain topics are highlighted by a sidebar on a particular performer, composer, or
group, which is meant to highlight the topic by providing information on related
practitioners. The sidebars are discussed below. There is also a chronology of Latin
American popular music included here that is intended to give a broad sequence
of significant events in their order of occurrence since the time of the Spanish en-
counter. The encyclopedia also includes two entry listings, one alphabetical and one
topical, which provide a quick reference to the entries and sidebars.
Popular Music Resources
This encyclopedia provides a broad collection of entries in one volume for the in-
terested student of Latin American popular music. As such, it is by design a broadly
conceived work, and there is no attempt to be either exhaustive or comprehensive
in its scope. Indeed, this work has relied on many authors whose research acknowl-
edges some of the more comprehensive studies of Latin American music, broadly
defined. The following will provide a short description of some of the more compre-
hensive and foundational studies of Latin American music that will be of use to the
student of Latin American music who wishes to pursue further study on the subject.
Dale A. Olsen and Daniel E. Sheehy, editors of The Garland Encyclopedia of
World Music, Volume 2, South America, Mexico, Central America, and the Ca-
ribbean, offer one of the few truly comprehensive and scholarly studies of Latin
American music. The study proceeds from an ethnomusicological method, and
rather than being an encyclopedia with alphabetical subject entries, the Garland
Encyclopedia consists mostly of articles grouped by country of origin. Within each
country’s article are discussions of folk, popular, and art music.
Malena Kuss, Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of North Texas, is
presently at work on a four-volume reference work entitled Music in Latin Amer-
ica and the Caribbean: An Encyclopedic History, to be published by University of
Texas Press. Currently, only the first two volumes are available: Volume 1: Perform-
ing Beliefs: Indigenous Peoples of South America, Central America, and Mexico
(2004) and Volume 2: Performing the Caribbean Experience (2007). Volume 4,
Urban Popular Musics of the New World, will be a collection of essays that focuses
on the transnational nature of Latin American popular musics. This work presents
comprehensive information through its scholarly essays.
Aside from the larger more comprehensive studies of music in Latin America,
there are also a handful of specialized studies that take up the subject of popular
music through particular regional studies. Of special note is Kenneth M. Bilby, Mi-
chael D. Largey, and Peter Manuel’s Caribbean Currents, which looks at the popular
music in the Caribbean. Besides being a useful panorama of Caribbean popular
music, there is much information on the transnational nature of Caribbean music,
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and the revised and expanded version in 2006 has taken into account more recent
trends in the region, such as timba and reggaetón. On the subject of Brazilian pop-
ular music, curious readers would do well to consult Charles Perrone’s Brazilian
Popular Music and Globalization, which is a collection of important essays that
provides a broad view of Brazilian popular music. Ned Sublette’s book Cuba and
Its Music takes on not only the importance of Cuban popular music, but also ex-
amines the transnational and cross-cultural effects of Cuban music’s influence on
popular musics across Latin America and the United States. On this last subject,
I must mention the highly innovative and strongly influential book by John Storm
Roberts, The Latin Tinge, as a required reading for anyone interested in the influ-
ence of Latin American music on the United States.
>
How to Use This Encyclopedia
For the benefit of multiple and varied forms of accessibility, the following will give
some ideas as to how readers may think about using the material in this encyclope-
dia. In many ways, an encyclopedia brings together a collection of ideas from many
different scholars and perspectives. Although the format is largely alphabetical, and
seemingly linear in its presentation, the material is connected through a variety of
links that make reference to other entries and resources in the text. For example, the
article on mambo by Ramón Versage Agudelo also points (through cross-references)
to related studies in locales such as Cuba and the United States, related genres such
as danzón and conjunto, and related sidebars on Arsenio Rodriguez, Dámaso Pérez
Prado, and Tito Puente. In the end, the reader will find many related articles that
enrich one’s understanding of the genre by examining the other related entries.
Additionally, such an approach also allows for an exploration of Latin American
popular music that goes beyond the definition of one item.
Whether beginning with the alphabetical entries, either by looking in the lists of
entries by topic or by beginning with the index at the back of the work, the reader
will find that this encyclopedia will serve as a preliminary reference on the most
common topics in Latin American popular music. Additionally, a scholar wishing
to find the essential literature on a particular area of study should consult the read-
ing lists for important writing on the subject.
Lastly, the chronologies and sidebars, while there primarily to accent the main
text, can be used as an introductory reference to some of the significant practitioners
within the area of Latin American popular music.
Entries
The entries include a heading, main body, and a further reading list. Their place-
ment in the document is alphabetical by heading, and where appropriate, in the
Popular Music Resources | xxiii
original language, without translation, unless the translation is a common English
equivalent. For example, claves remains in Spanish whereas guitar is listed under
the English rather than the Spanish guitarra. Foreign words, albums, newspapers,