films, TV programs, musicals, operas, and zarzuelas are italicized. Song titles and
portions of larger works are in quotations.
The entry headings are in boldface without italics. Cross-referenced entries are
also in boldface. The entries begin with a brief and clear identification of the topic
that provides a quick summary for that entry. The size of the entries ranges from
200 words to about 2,500 words, depending on the content. The choice of entry size
was decided in consultation with the authors and the advisory board. While it is
certainly true that some entries merit more space than others, the challenge in decid-
ing which entries would be larger is a matter of preference among those working on
the encyclopedia. There were targeted entry sizes that increased or decreased in their
actual length in the completed writing. That is, in some cases a projected 1,250-word
entry was expanded to closer to 2,000 words, while in some cases the same projected
size entry was left at only 850 words. For those entries that the reader may feel war-
rant a longer treatment, it is my sincere hope that the quality of the writing, rather
than quantity, will prove to be more important to the reader in the end.
In general, the entries in this encyclopedia set out to convey the generally ac-
cepted viewpoints on the subjects, and there has been an effort to keep the material
free of special considerations or pleading on the part of the authors, as generally,
this sort of reference work is not the locus for the presentation of novel ideas or
original theses.
Every entry in the encyclopedia presents at least one reference for further reading.
Each of these bibliographies presents sources that would lead readers to additional
information on the topics. They provide a next step for accessible investigation, and
as such, they were chosen as much for their authority as for their availability. For
that reason, there are few if any unpublished dissertations or theses in the bibliog-
raphies, usually only included when they represent the only significant research on
the subject. Additionally, every effort was made to include, where appropriate, En-
glish language sources. In some cases, a World Wide Web resource is included. No
attempt has been made to provide exhaustive or comprehensive coverage in these
lists. Instead, they should be considered a starting point for further investigations.
A selected, general bibliography at the end of the book directs users to broad print
and electronic resources suitable for student research.
Sidebars
The sidebars that are included in this encyclopedia provide examples of signifi-
cant practitioners of their art. It was never intended that the encyclopedia provide
a comprehensive biographical component. Thus, there may appear to be gaps in
xxiv | Popular Music Resources
the coverage of significant performers. Inevitably one may ask why one performer
was chosen over another to represent a particular genre or musical style. There is
no doubt that almost any of the chosen sidebar entries may have been replaced by
another equally qualified representative. What seemed important for this study was
to provide illustrative examples, by way of these sidebars, of representative practi-
tioners. Thus they are not a declaration of the most important performers, compos-
ers, or artists. A suggestion for further reading is provided for each sidebar entry.
Chronology
In order to provide a broader context concerning popular music in Latin America,
a chronology of events related to popular music in Latin America is provided
before the main body of entries. There was no attempt at providing a comprehen-
sive coverage of musical events; rather, the aim of the chronology is to place certain
significant events within the context of a wider view of events in order to recognize
larger relationships between related events and achievements in Latin American
popular music.
Lists and Indexes
There are several lists in the front matter that will aid in the accessing of informa-
tion contained in the encyclopedia. The first is an alphabetical list of the entries
that form the main body of the text. There is an additional list of entries grouped
under the following broad categories: Countries, Genres and Ensembles, Con-
cepts and Terminologies, and Instruments. There is also a list of the sidebars that
accompany some of the entries. Lastly, there is an index of names and subjects
at the end of the text that provide references to where in the encyclopedia these
terms are located.
Further Reading
Appleby, David. “Folk, Popular, and Art Music.” The Music of Brazil, 94–115. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1989.
Behague, Gerard. “Music, c. 1920–c. 1980.” In A Cultural History of Latin America: Lit-
erature, Music and the Visual Arts in the 19th and 20th Centuries, edited by Leslie Bethell,
311–67. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Bilby, Kenneth M, Michael D. Largey, and Peter Manuel. Caribbean Currents: Carib-
bean Music from Rumba to Reggae. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006.
Booth, Gregory, and Terry Lee Kuhn. “Economic and Transmission Factors as Essential
Element in the Definition of Folk, Art, and Pop Music.” The Musical Quarterly 74 (1990):
411–38.
Colburn, Forrest D. Latin America at the End of Politics. Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 2002.
Popular Music Resources | xxv
Hamm, Charles. “Popular Music.” The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, edited by Don
Michael Randel, 646–49. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1986.
Kuss, Malena. Music in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Encyclopedic History .
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004. Currently, only the first two volumes are available:
Volume 1: Performing Beliefs: Indigenous Peoples of South America, Central America,
and Mexico (2004) and Volume 2: Performing the Caribbean Experience .
Manuel, Peter. “Perspectives on the Study of Non-Western Popular Musics.” Popular
Musics of the Non-Western World: An Introductory Survey. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1998.
Moskowitz, David V. Caribbean Popular Music: An Encyclopedia of Reggae, Mento,
Ska, Rock Steady, and Dancehall. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006.
Nettl, Bruno. “Folk Music.” The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, edited by Don Mi-
chael Randel, 315–19. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1986.
Olsen, Dale A. and Daniel E. Sheehy, eds. The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music,
Volume 2: South America, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. New York and
London: Garland, 1998.
Perrone, Charles A. and Christopher Dunn, eds. Brazilian Popular Music and Global-
ization. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Roberts, John Storm. The Latin Tinge: The Impact of Latin American Music on the
United States. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Shaw, Lisa, and Stephanie Dennison. “Introduction: Defining the Popular in the Latin
American Context.” Pop Culture Latin America!: Media, Arts, And Lifestyle, 1–7. Santa
Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005.
Sublette, Ned. Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo. Chicago: Chi-
ca
go Review Press, 2004.
Whitehead, Laurence. Latin America: A New Interpretation. New York: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2006.
Chronology of Latin American
Popular Music
The following chronology outlines some of the significant achievements in Latin
American popular music. The chronology begins with the introduction of European
culture in the Americas, and as such does not attempt to account for a chronology
of music in the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans. During much of the
colonial period, there is scant information regarding popular music outside of the
strongly dominant European occupation. The Haitian Revolution (1794–1804) saw
a mixing of classes and cultural groups, which led to a creolization of European
music. This freedom allowed also for a migration of cultural groups across bor-
ders that resulted in cultural hybridizations through music. Hence, the period after
the first quarter of the 19th century shows the first strong wave of popular music
in Latin America. Throughout much of the chronology, the major Latin American
centers (Mexico City, Havana, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires) emerge as the
source for much of the popular music. Specific dates of events are provided when
appropriate while references to decades and centuries may be more appropriate for
historical events that occurred over a broader range of dates.
1492
Christopher Columbus arrives in Latin America, which marks the
beginning of a fusion of indigenous Latin American and European
cultures, a hallmark of Latin American popular music.
1550s
The African slave trade begins. Traditional African music that the
slaves brought with them to the New World becomes an important
underlying component of Latin American music that is still incorpo-
rated into the rhythms, style, and instrumentation of popular music
today.
late 1700s
The contredanse and the quadrille, popular European styles of song
and dance, are introduced to Latin America but enjoyed solely by the
elites. Over time, these dances became creolized to create authen-
tically Latin American genres of music and dance including con-
tradanzas, habaneras and danzones.
xxvii
xxviii | Chronology of Latin American Popular Music
1800s
The 1800s through the 1820s is a time period characterized by the
push for freedom on the part of many Latin American colonies who
achieve their independence such as Haiti (1804), Brazil (1815), and
Mexico (1821). Freedom leads to the emancipation of slaves and a
mixing of races, cultures, and styles of music that had historically
been separated by the structure of slavery.
The corrido becomes a distinctly Mexican style of narrative song
used to tell stories of national or local interest during the Mexican
struggle for independence.
1840s
Military-style wind bands become popular across Latin America and
spread traditional European song and dance styles that were previ-
ously limited to the elites to urban working classes, smaller towns,
and rural areas, many of which formed their own municipal bands.
1860s
German immigration to Latin American countries such as Mexico
and Argentina introduces new dance forms like the polka and instru-
ments such as the accordion.
1870s
The Brazilian choro develops as musicians, long dominated by Euro-
pean ideas, strove to find their own artistic style strongly influenced
by nationalistic sentiments. The popularity of the Brazilian choro
continues into its golden age in the 1920s.
1880s
The habanera rhythm is exported from Cuba and like other Latin
American dances it was originally derived from the European
contradanse.
1897
Rosendo Mendizábal’s El entrerriano (the man from Entre Ríos
Province) becomes the first published tango. In the beginning of the
1900s the tango reaches an increasingly wider audience and, due to
its growing popularity, 20 years later Carlos Gardel makes the first
recording of a tango in 1917.
1898
Gaspar Vargas forms the musical group Mariachi Vargas. Through
the use of the son jaliciense Mariachi Vargas demonstrates the pro-
fessionalism and changes in instrumentation that would come to
characterize the modern mariachi. In 1907 the first known phono-
graphic recordings of mariachi music are made.
1917
“Pelo telephone,” considered to be the first Brazilian samba, is re-
corded. Samba would become the most important Brazilian popular
music genre, closely associated with the Brazilian Carnival even to
this day. In 1928 the first escola de samba is formed in Brazil and in
1932 the first samba competition takes place during Carnival.
Chronology of Latin American Popular Music | xxix
1927
Rita Montaner records “El Manisero” (“The Peanut Vendor”) by
Cuban composer Moises Simone, which becomes enormously pop-
ular leading to the rhumba fad in the United States and Europe.
1930s
With the advent of radio, music is spread throughout Latin America
like never before. In 1930 Emilio Azcarraga establishes Radio XET
in Monterrey, Mexico, and Radio XEW in Mexico City. Over time,
XEW becomes the most influential radio station in Mexico.
1933
President Fanklin Delano Roosevelt establishes the Good Neighbor
Policy, which initiates an era of unprecedented cultural exchange
between the United States and Latin America.
1935
Narciso Martínez makes the first commercial recording of Tex-Mex
music with his piece “El Huracán del Valle.”
1936
Merengue is declared the national music of the Dominican Republic.
Radio
Nacional is established in Brazil. While it is used by Getúlio
Dornelles Vargas, dictator of Estado Novo, to spread government pro-
paganda, ample funding is also allotted to popular music. In the 1940s
and 1950s Radio Nacional is one of the most listened to radio stations.
1940s
The 1940s marks the beginning of a widespread fusion of North
American and Latin American popular music as a result of immi-
gration and mass communication. New genres of music develop and
become popular intersecting with styles of traditional music. Big
Bands begin to incorporate Afro-Cuban rhythms and sounds into
their arrangements and jazz musicians start to collaborate with Latin
American musicians that immigrate to the United States, such as
Machito.
Brazilian baião achieves prominence in the popular music scene
through singer-accordionist Luiz Gonzaga.
1943
“Tanga” written by Mario Bauza and performed by Machito and his
orchestra is considered to be the first Latin jazz composition. Fur-
ther collaborations with Dizzie Gillespie, Stan Kenton, and Charlie
Parker lay the foundation for the Latin jazz movement.
1944
Trío Los Panchos has its first concert in the Teatro Hispano in New
&nb
sp; York city establishing the genre trío romántico and internationaliz-
ing the bolero as a popular song.
1947
Dizzy Gillespie and Afro-Cuban conga player Chano Pozo compose
the influential “Manteca.”
1950s
The 1950s is characterized by innovations in popular music and the
rising popularity of rock ‘n’ roll all over the world. It was in this
xxx | Chronology of Latin American Popular Music
decade that Luiz Gonzaga develops the trio nordestino, Pérez Prado
writes the first mambo, and bossa nova evolves in Brazil among other
new musical genres.
Cumbia, a dance developed on Colombia’s Atlantic coast during the
colonial period, spreads throughout South and Central America and
is adopted and transformed in Mexico, El Salvador, and Nicaragua
in to the 1960s.
1954
Raphael Cortijo forms his group, Cortijo y su Combo, which incor-
porates the Puerto Rican folkloric traditions of bomba and plena into
popular music.
1955
The cha-cha-chá is introduced in Cuba by director Enrico Jorrín. The
first piece in the cha-cha-chá genre is “La engañadora,” composed
by Jorrín sometime between 1949 and 1953, but, at the time, it was
registered as mambo-rumba.
1956
The first jam session to be known as descarga takes place in Cuba
with singer Francisco Fellove. His recordings “Descarga Caliente”
and “Cimmarron” are taken from that first session and sell over one
million copies.
1958
Vinicius de Moraes and Antonio Carlos Jobim release the influential
bossa nova recording “Chega de Saudade.” A year later, the movie
Black Orpheus is released with music composed by Jobim, which
makes his music internationally popular.
1959
Fidel Castro comes to power in Cuba initiating the exodus of many
artists from Cuba. The United States, in response, cuts ties with Cuba
ending the long standing reciprocal popular music exchange.
1960s
As a result of the civil rights movement, a strong Latino identity con-
sciousness develops in the United States as musicians try to recon-
nect with their roots in Latin America.
In response to the military dictatorships that arise in South America
Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music Page 3
