The New Year Case of the Barefoot Latin Dance Party

Happy New Year, XRAY nation. Let's make the best of it.

Today I am back in the US after another trip to Cuba... what better way to celebrate than another case of the barefoot latin dance party? This is my genre devoted to some of the sounds of Cuba coming from outside the metropolitan sophistication of Havana, featuring sounds that originated in the eastern part of the country. The east is where you will find the sugar plantations that once made Spain rich, and which were the center of Cuba's slave culture.

Several important Cuban musical traditions began in the east, most notably the son. Today son is played almost exclusively by septets featuring one tres guitar, a trumpet, bass, bongos, and maracas. The time signature for the piece is played on the claves, a pair of wooden sticks that make a sharp noise when struck against each other. This musical style took its current form near the beginning of the 20th century, around the same time that small group jazz bands were becoming popular in New Orleans. Early audiences were thrilled by the loud, sharp notes of the bongo drums, which seemed as wild and revolutionary in their time as electric guitars would seem to American audiences during the early years of rock and roll.

A second major musical form with roots in the east is guaguanco, which would later be branded "rumba" for American audiences. This musical form featured conga drums, even louder and more dangerous than bongos. These drums were used for African religious ceremonies, and were also associated with violent slave uprisings. White Cuban audiences in the early 20th century were still very concerned about the possibility of an uprising in Cuba similar to the infamous slave rebellion in Haiti a century earlier, and conga drums were commonly banned from public gatherings as recently as the 1920s.

I will start today's set with a mix of son and Cuban country music. We'll hear some torchy ballads and some carnaval music before we progress to a pair of sets dedicated to guaguanco and rumba. Rootsy, rustic fun today.