218 | Joropo
Washburne, Christopher. “The Clave of Jazz: A Caribbean Contribution to the Rhythmic
Foundation of an African-American Music.” Black Music Research Journal , no. 1 (Spring
1997): 59–80.
Williams, Martin T. The Jazz Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.
Chris Washburne
Joropo
Joropo is a popular folkloric dance and its accompanying music is representa-
tive of the plains culture of Venezuela and Colombia. Its adoption as a symbol of
Venezuelan national identity throughout the first half of the 1900s contributed to
ensuring its place within present-day Venezuelan and Colombian popular music.
Joropo’s contemporary significance is evidenced by its media presence and sub-
stantial music sales, by the ongoing demand for live performances, as well as by its
impact on the region’s art music, rock, pop, and contemporary jazz styles.
Several historical processes converged in the evolution of joropo as an autono-
mous cultural activity. The unsuccessful search for el Dorado (the legendary city
of gold) brought about the predominance of agriculture, particularly cattle ranch-
ing, and the slave trade as the area’s principal economic activities. The presence
of Catholic missionaries also played an important role in setting the stage for the
development of joropo. From this socioeconomic backdrop emerged the way of life
of the transient Creole horsemen, workers of the large haciendas. Joropo was their principal form of cultural expression, identity, and entertainment.
Joropo is no exception to the tricultural character of most Latin American folk
music, with traits drawn from European (predominantly Spanish), African, and
Amerindian cultures. Examples of its direct lineage to Spain can be observed in
various ways: the musical and choreographic gestures shared with the Spanish fan-
dango; the various styles of bandurrias and guitars that were introduced by the Spanish colonists (which in time evolved into the present-day bandolas and the cu-
atro ); and the introduction of the copla and décima poetic forms. Other European characteristics are represented by the creolized waltzes and the adoption of various
French classical dance-form terms. Its African character manifests itself in the mul-
tilayered polyrhythmic nature of the rich metric framework and rhythmic phrasing.
The principal indigenous inheritance is the obligatory presence of maracas in the
traditional joropo ensemble.
Traditional joropo ensembles include the harp or bandola as the principal melodic instrument. In many areas, the bandola was the more common of the two, but
progressively, the harp has taken over as joropo’s principal iconic instrument. The
other instruments utilized in joropo are the maracas , the cuatro , and the compara-tively recent addition of the electric bass.
Joropo
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219
Colombian joropo dancers take part in festivities for the 468th anniversary of the city
of Bogota in 2006. (AFP/Getty Images )
Traditional joropo is made up of three regional styles: joropo llanero (of the
plains) , joropo oriental, and joropo central. Of the three regional styles, joropo
llanero is the most popular and can be further divided into two substyles: the pasaje
and the golpe. Pasajes are characteristically romantic and lyrical. Their tempos are
relaxed and their forms more rigid. These qualities favored the pasaje’s more vigor-
ous commercialization during the emergence of radio and the recording industry in
the region, and thus, the pasaje gained more popularity among the general popula-
tion than the golpe. In contrast, the golpe is characterized by faster tempos, a more
percussive texture, and high degrees of improvisation, resulting in a more intense
and aggressive character. There are presently over 30 golpe song forms, identified
principally by their harmonic structure and cyclical forms. Examples include the
zumba que zumba, the periquera, quitapesares, and el carnaval. A parallel can be drawn between golpe performance and the jazz idiom regarding the relationship between harmonic form and improvisation, and its relevance within both genres: as a
blues progression provides a framework and point of departure for jazz performers
to improvise over, so do golpe forms provide a framework for joropo players. The
golpe is a favorite choice of performers during competitions and festivals. Musi-
cians can showcase their skills through joropo’s inherent dramatic virtuosity.
220 | Joropo
Fundamental to joropo’s stylistic identity is a polymetric pulse of 3/4 and 6/8.
This interlocking rhythmic duality dominates all aspects of joropo and is some-
times referred to as its clave (key): the upper accents fall on the third and sixth
eighth notes of the 6/8 note groupings while the lower accents fall on the first and
third quarter notes of the bar of 3/4. A variation of this clave shifts the pattern back-
wards (in relation to the downbeats) by one beat. Additional superimpositions of
binary sequences over the clave produce an infinite range of rhythmic variations
and relationships vital to joropo’s dynamic and infectious character.
Some of the most important joropo artists and groups (past and present) from
both Colombia and Venezuela include: Reynaldo Armas, Fulgencio Aquino, Hugo
Blanco, Arnulfo Briseño, Los Hermanos Chirinos, Juan Farfan, el Indio Figueredo,
Raúl Gonzalez, Anselmo Lopez, Lila Morillo, Eneas Perdomo, Luis Ariel Rey,
Luis Silva, Isaac Tacha, Juan Vicente Torrealba, Orlando Valderrama, and Aries
Vigoth.
Further Reading
Calderón, Claudia. “Estudio analítico y comparativo sobre la música del joropo, ex-
presión tradicional de Venezuela y Colombia.” Revista Musical de Venezuela 39 (1999):
219–58.
Gerard Béhague, et al. “Venezuela.” Grove Music Online. Online, November 2010. Ox-
ford Music Online website, www.oxfordmusiconline.com.
Bernardo Padrón
K
Konpa
Konpa refers to a style of Haitian music that developed in the 1950s and evolved
into the 1980s through different manifestations, which include the genres of konpa
direk, kadans ranpa , and mini djaz , to eventually become influential in the creation
of zouk music.
During the 1950s, a style of Dominican merengue called perico ripiao or
Cibaeño -style became extremely popular in Haiti. Many bands and personalities
traveled to play in Haiti and the music was prominent on Haitian radio. At the height
of the popularity merengue in Haiti, a local variation on the Dominican archetype
emerged through the work of Nemours Jean-Baptiste, who altered the merengue
beat. Nemours’s ensemble instrumentation consisted of vocals, accordion, bass,
guitar, saxophones, trumpets, tanbou (a Haitian barrel drum), and a percussion sec-
tion. This new variation on the Dominican merengue became known as konpa direk
(later konpa for short). The term means direct rhythm or straight ahead rhythm, and
was so dubbed by Nemours’s guitarist, Raymond Gaspard. Nemours’s altered me-
rengue beat along with Creole texts distinguished the new sound, which Haitians
claimed as their own creation. His konpa was slower than its Domincan prototype,
and the ensembles that played konpa in the late 1950s and e
arly 1960s resembled
the American big band instrumentation. Around the same time that Nemours’s
newly created music sensation was becoming popular among Haitians, a former
member of Nemours’s orchestra, Weber Sicot, came up with his own variation of
the merengue very similar to Nemours’s konpa. Sicot called his new dance kan-
dans rampa, which is roughly translated as rampart rhythm. While the differences
between these two styles of konpa are slight, there was enough of a distinction for
the creators and their ardent supporters to create a dual fan base, which was fueled
by a fiercely competitive rivalry between the two artists. Even after a reconciliation
between Nemours and Sicot in the 1960s, this rivalry remained apparent.
With the advent of small group rock ‘n’ roll from the United States and Great
Britain in the 1960s, the instrumentation of konpa ensembles began to reflect a bias
towards a smaller, guitar-based sound. As the name of the big band dance orchestras
in Haiti were known as djaz, these smaller ensembles became known as mini djaz,
a term that was believed to have been coined by Haitian DJ, Rico Jena Baptiste.
The make-up of these smaller ensembles did away with the larger horn sections,
but continued to maintain a trumpet, saxophone, or accordion as one of the lead
221
222 | Konpa
instruments, a leftover from the earlier style of konpa instrumentation. Notable art-
ists associated with two distinct styles in mini djaz included Shleu-Shleu and Tabou
Combo. The popularity of mini djaz continued until the mid 1970s, when dynamic
foreign influences from the Creole-speaking Antilles outside of Haiti began to
dominate trends in popular music that eventually would shape the sounds of Hai-
tian konpa in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The music of the other Creole -speaking nations in the Caribbean began to influ-
ence the sounds of popular music in places where konpa and kadans had previously
dominated. The genre of cadence-lypso, with origins in Dominica, was especially
influential on konpa music of the late 1970s. The sound of bands such as Exile
One and Gramacks, both from Dominica, began to achieve great popularity among
Haitian youth at this time. Exile One’s use of horn sections in their arrangements
was especially influential, and many Haitian mini djaz bands began to reintroduce
the fuller horn sections into their ensembles in an effort to emulate the sounds of
the foreign bands.
By the 1980s, the genres and musical styles of konpa and mini djaz had given
way to emerging musics such as nouvelle jenerasyon (new generation) and mizik
rasin , both of which sought to find a closer connection to Haiti’s folk roots, and
an emphasis on Creole references, if not explicitly in the sung texts, then at least
in the titles of the songs themselves. Nevertheless, the legacy of konpa was great
on the emerging sounds in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and, is evident as one of
the main ingredients in zouk music, which through the works of bands like Kassav,
became the most internationally famous music to come from the Creole -speaking
Caribbean.
Further Reading
Averill, Gage. A Day for the Hunter, a Day for the Prey: Popular Music and Power in
Haiti. Chicago studies in ethnomusicology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
Averill, Gage. “ ‘Toujou sou konpa’: Issues of Change and Interchange in Haitian Popu-
lar Dance Music.” In Zouk: World Music in the West Indies, edited by Jocelyne Guilbault.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Bilby, Kenneth M., Michael D. Largey, and Peter Manuel. Caribbean Currents: Ca-
ribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2006.
George Torres
L
Lambada
Lambada is a couple dance of Brazilian origin that enjoyed international popularity
during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The lambada’s modern origins are from the
1970s in the city of Belém in the northern Brazilian state of Pará at a time when salsa ,
merengue, and electrified carimbó were in heavy rotation over northeastern Brazilian radio stations. Journalists began to refer to such music as lambada, which in Bra-
zilian Portuguese means lash, whip, or slap. The style consisted of a syncopated 2/4
rhythm in a fast tempo with repeated motives on guitars or horns accompanied by a
rhythm section. As a dance, the lambada also was the result of a mixture of styles in-
cluding merengue, maxixe , samba, and forró. Characteristics of the dance include a tight body contact, inserting the right leg between the partner’s legs, spinning, turning,
and dips. The dance is very sensual and the female partners wear short skirts mak-
ing the spins and the turns very provocative. By the late 1980s, the dance had spread
well beyond the region and lambaterias, clubs where enthusiasts went to dance lam-
bada, opened up throughout the country’s urban centers. International success of the
lambada occurred when the band Kaoma, under the influence of French impresario
Olivier Lamotte d’Incamps, took lambada music and dance from a visit he made to
Puerto Seguro back to France. Through a successful media blitz, Kaoma popularized
lambada internationally. Kaoma’s success was thanks to their hit “Chorando se foi,”
which later turned out to be an unauthorized translation and reinterpretation of a Boliv-
ian song “Llorando se fue” by Los Kjarkas. Previous to Los K’jarkas interpretation it
had been made popular by Márcia Ferreira, a successful lambada chanteuse from Pará.
Kaoma’s version of the song sold over five million copies worldwide. As a result, Los
K’jarkas sued Kamoa. Since the early 1990s, the lambada dance broadened out to be
performed over other more current styles of music, including the flamenco rumba
styles of groups like the Gypsy Kings as well as other more modern Arab-Andalusian
styles. Eventually the dance became associated with Caribbean styles such as soca,
merengue , salsa, konpa , and zouk , the latter becoming a hybrid form that still enjoys popularity among dancers: lambazouk, Rio style zouk or Carioca zouk.
Further Reading
McGowan, Chris, and Ricardo Pessanha. The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova,
and the Popular Music of Brazil. Revised and expanded edition. Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press, 2008.
George Torres
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224 | Latin Jazz
Latin Jazz
Latin jazz is a musical style that integrates rhythms derived from various Latin
American dances with the harmonic practice and improvisation of jazz. A mixture
of instrumental timbres can also be a factor where most frequently standard jazz
instruments are combined with Latin percussion. Two important rhythmic charac-
teristics that distinguish Latin jazz from straight jazz are the former’s use of even
rather than swung eighth notes and its foundation in the son clave and rumba clave
rhythmic patterns.
Latin American influence in jazz has traditionally been undervalued by histori-
ans, but it has been present since the music’s inception. W. C. Handy’s use of haba-
nera rhythm in “St. Louis Blues” and Jelly Roll Morton’s reference to the “Spanish
tinge” in jazz are the two most fr
equently cited early examples. The association of
jazz with dancing meant that many early jazz bands were also playing Latin reper-
toire to accommodate popular Latin dances in the United States such as the tango
in the 1920s and the rhumba in the 1930s. The latter was popularized by the Don
Azpiazú’s Havana Casino Orchestra’s hit “The Peanut Vendor,” which was also
recorded by Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.
The birth of true Latin jazz, as opposed to Latin influence in jazz, is gener-
ally traced to New York City in the 1940s. Trumpeter Mario Bauzá, a veteran of
several jazz groups, teamed with bandleader Frank “Machito” Grillo to form the
Afro-Cubans in 1942, a group that featured jazz soloists in Latin Big Band set-
tings. The Afro-Cubans’ “Tanga” has been described as the first work of what
came to be called Afro-Cuban Jazz. Dizzy Gillespie, who had played with Bauzá
in Cab Calloway’s band, began an important and lifelong role in Latin jazz by hir-
ing Cuban conga player Chano Pozo. The Gillespie/Pozo collaboration, including
a 1947 recording of their “Manteca,” inaugurated a style known as cubop, a fusion
of bebop and Cuban music. The later 1940s witnessed the participation of many
other prominent jazz musicians in Latin jazz styles, including Charlie Parker, Fats
Navarro, and Stan Kenton. Cuban-born Chico O’Farrill, who moved to New York
in 1948, drew on his formal training and knowledge of both jazz and Cuban music
to become a significant Latin jazz arranger and composer with works such as Afro-
Cuban Jazz Suite.
The most popular Latin dance of the late 1940s and 1950s was the mambo , which
was of Cuban origin. The popularity of the mambo helped to bring Latin jazz into the
jazz mainstream in the 1950s. One of the most important musicians in this regard
was bandleader/percussionist Tito Puente, whose group played both Latin dance
numbers and Latin versions of jazz tunes. Pianist George Shearing and vibraphon-
ist Cal Tjader formed Latin jazz combos, and by the end of the 1950s, most jazz
musicians were including Latin jazz in their repertoire.
Latin
Jazz
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Machito (Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo)
Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music Page 39
