Situating Salsa. Global Markets and Local Meaning in Latin Popular Music I

Abstract

The second section looks more closely at individual artists and their musical and social impact, and the third section provides case studies of salsa's impact in different parts of the world (the salsa diaspora). Some of the ways that socialist policy has affected Cuban music performance since 1959 has been described by Robin Moore, in chapter 3: 'Salsa and Socialism: Dance Music in Cuba, 1959-99'. From 'local meaning' - authentic (or ethnic) salsa, as part of the identity of Latin Americans and a means of protest - through migration and transnational diaspora, to 'global markets': a commercial product, sold through record shops, magazines, radio programs, clubs, and festivals worldwide.

- Situating Salsa. Global Markets and Local Meaning in Latin Popular Music I, edited by Lise Waxer. New York and London: Routledge, 2002. Photographs, musical examples.

'Salsa is not a rhythm, it's a concept'. (Willie Colon)

'Salsa is a rhythm, is a reality'. (Gerardo Resales)

'This to me is my entire life, it's like religion'. (Eddie Palmieri)

Salsa means different things to different people. The word means literally 'sauce', and reflects the mixing of musical cultures that has taken place over the years. In Europe it is a popular dance style, but there is more to it than that. The musical, social, economic and political aspects of salsa have led a number of scholars to study it seriously. This volume contains recently published and original new research on salsa and salsa-related styles, in a global perspective. The aim is to enlarge the scope of salsa research, which has concentrated primarily on salsa's Afro-Cuban roots and its New York and Puerto Rican creators.

Salsa developed in the Latino barrios of New York City during the 196Os and '70s. Based largely on Cuban forms of the 1930s, '4Os and '5Os, salsa also incorporated Puerto Rican elements, as well as influences from North American jazz and rock. Salsa's Cuban and Puerto Rican antecedents were themselves a fusion of African and European elements. Its lyrics reflected the experiences of the Latino and Latin American black and mixed-race working class and mirrored the violence and discontent of the inner city. Salsa spread rapidly through Latin America during the 1970s (especially Venezuela, Panama and Colombia), and has now grown into a global musical phenomenon with audiences and practitioners in Europe, Japan, and Africa.

Salsa's complex history and international expansion have given rise to much debate about its genesis and legitimacy as a musical category. This book is concerned with situating salsa as a musical style in which a social and cultural way of looking at the world (concept) is welded to praxis (making) through the creation and reception of musical sound. Style becomes intrinsically bound up with larger social values, beliefs, and practices, not only reflecting but also actively shaping human experience. Most of the authors approach local-global links through a historical perspective, analyzing salsa's global spread and local meanings in terms of specific historical conjunctures and context.

The thirteen essays of this book are organized in three parts: locating salsa (chapters 1-5), personalizing salsa (chapters 6-9), and relocating salsa (chapters 1013). The essays in the first section explore salsa as a simultaneously national and also transnational (pan-Latino) musical style. The second section looks more closely at individual artists and their musical and social impact, and the third section provides case studies of salsa's impact in different parts of the world (the salsa diaspora). Reviewing a book like this one, with essays looking at salsa from many different angles, is not an easy task.

Luckily, in the first chapter ('Situating Salsa: Latin Music at the Crossroads'), Lise Waxer positions the essays inside a general framework. Some of the ways that socialist policy has affected Cuban music performance since 1959 has been described by Robin Moore, in chapter 3: 'Salsa and Socialism: Dance Music in Cuba, 1959-99'. In chapter 5, 'Salsa Romantica: an Analysis of Style', Christopher Washburne analyses the arrangement of 'Me calculaste', representative of the dominant style of the late 1980s and '90s, known as 'salsa romantica'. In chapter 6 ('La Lupe, La India, and Celia. Towards a Feminist Genealogy of Salsa Music'), Frances Aparicio sketches a feminist genealogy of three of salsa's most prominent women performers. Salsa has gone through a dynamic process of globalization and relocalization. In chapter 13, 'Salsa no tiene fronteras. Orquesta de la Luz and the Globalization of Popular Music', Shuhei Hosokawa provides a good example of the adoption of a non-Western style by another non-Western country, without the necessary intervention of North American or European influence. This Japanese orchestra performed classic salsa as an exact mimicry of New York and Puerto Rican salsa bands, uncontaminated by Japanese elements.

This book gives a good overview of salsa's diverse, multiracial heritage and complex spread through the world. From 'local meaning' - authentic (or ethnic) salsa, as part of the identity of Latin Americans and a means of protest - through migration and transnational diaspora, to 'global markets': a commercial product, sold through record shops, magazines, radio programs, clubs, and festivals worldwide. For those who want to deepen their understanding of salsa, its structure, its composers and performers, and its international diffusion, this is a worthwhile book. The essays are followed by often very detailed bibliographies and discographies.