The Cuban Son

The Cuban Son is the root of most Salsa music today.

The first time that the Clave rhythm was played in public was in the Cuban Son. After the Salve revolution and later emancipation in La Hispañola many rich French Caribbean families and their house slaves emigrated to the Oriente province in Cuba from what is now Haiti. Some of these slaves were educated in music and knew both European music and African secular music.

Around 1917 when the "Danzon" was the most popular national dance in Cuba, a new musical style known as the Cuban Son appeared in Havana. The Son was accepted with such enthusiasm that soon it became very popular without taking anything away from the "Danzon". The "Danzon", which had been the national dance of Cuba since 1879, could be found everywhere from the popular dance halls to upper class social clubs. The Son had the same elements as the "Danzon" but was different in its form. It is due to the Son that the African instruments came to light to animate the orchestras that were prevalent and typical at the time in Havana.

There is evidence that suggests that the Son was born at the end of the nineteenth century in the mountains of the Oriente Provence and acquired its distinctive musical personality in Havana in the 1920s. Some musicologists attribute the Son’s arrival in Havana to members of the Cuban army from the Oriente Provence that were transferred to Havana and the Matanza Provence. The musical movement of the Son was so creative and convincing that it was capable of producing its own instruments, interpreters, authors and even its own original choreography. This dance is similar to the way that people dance Salsa today.