Jazz Corner: The Charm Of Latin Jazz

The long, winding tale of jazz is full of twists and turns of the most unexpected types. Jazz has perhaps grown in parallel to the history of the places it has traveled through and has reflected the nuances of it’s times and locales as it has developed over the last 120 or so years. These have been years both peaceful and turbulent and the music has resonated some of these ups and downs quite emphatically.

Let’s go back in history to the nasty times when a group of mercenaries from America, both North and South, went to Africa and kidnapped thousands of the locals to be sold as slaves in America.

The centuries of slavery in the ‘new world’ is a matter of great shame. Mercifully it came to an end in around 1865 following the American Civil War, in the United States.

The spoken voice in the form of singing was a strong means of communication among the enslaved groups in the United States.

The rhythm of manual work helped create a unique type of singing which emerged in the sound which is the motherlode from which the blues and jazz have evolved. With the passage of time this sound has changed, almost resonating the changes in the society in which it has thrived.

There is a fascinating sociological aspect of the despicable slave trade that needs clarification. Only a small fraction of the enslaved Africans were brought to the United States. A majority of them were taken to countries in Central and South America to work the rich natural resources in those lands. Brazil, the Caribbean countries including Cuba and other fertile regions received a great number of African indentured or enslaved laborers. In time, this population became a part of the social mainstream.

The music and rhythms they were inherently blessed with became a part of the music of their new homelands.

It would seem inevitable that the music of jazz — as it took root in the U.S. — and the varied sounds and rhythms of the neighboring regions to their south would find each other.

It happened when a Cuban musician, Mario Bauza (born in 1911) moved to the U.S. He composed  “Tanga,” which is believed to be the first Afro-Cuban jazz number. The Cuban musical style of ‘descarga’, essentially a  free jam was the basis of “Tanga.” Bauza utilized jazz soloists in this mambo rhythm-based composition to come up with a new sound with jazz trumpets and saxophones, bringing about a feel of the blues sound.

This fortuitous meeting of jazz with its freedom to improvise and the rhythms and exuberance of Cuban music has opened up an aspect of jazz that has come to stay and delight millions.

Bauza introduced jazz trumpeter John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie to a Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo. This meeting resulted in some delightful jazz compositions in the 1940s which have become part of the mainstream jazz sound. Dizzy Gillespie’s compositions “Manteca,” “Tin Tin Deo,” “Con Alma” and several others have stood the test of time and sound contemporary till this date.

A little later, in the 1960s, jazz saxophonist Stan Getz collaborated with Brazilian musicians like Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim and brought to jazz the sound of the Bossa Nova, another genre that has become part of the mainstream sound. Getz and Gilberto combined to create the classics, among others, “Desafinado” and “The Girl from Ipanema.”

Earlier, Brazilian composer and musician Luiz Bonfa had produced “Manha de Carnaval” for the film Black Orpheus, which is also part of jazz standards list.

The coming together of the music of North and South America has enriched jazz immensely.

Other examples of Latin confluences with jazz come from Horace Silver, who came from Cape Verde in the Atlantic, and from Danilo Perez from Panama. The Puerto Rican sounds of Salsa and some other Latin rhythms have also come into jazz music.

Jazz flows on and integrates into its repertoire the most wonderful sounds and rhythms from other musical cultures as no other form of music does. This is the charm of jazz.

Just listen and enjoy these charming sounds!