Latin boogaloo

Latin Boogaloo
Stylistic origins	boogaloo, jump blues, mambo, chachacha, R&B
Cultural origins	1960s New York
Regional scenes
New York, Colombia

Latin Boogaloo aka bugalú (aka shing-a-ling) is a genre of Latin music and dance that was very popular in the United States, Central and South America from the mid to late 1960s. Latin boogaloo originated in New York City among teenage Cubans and Puerto Ricans. The style was a fusion of popular African American R&B, rock and roll and soul with mambo and son montuno.

History

In the 1950s and 60s, African Americans in the United States listened to a number of styles of music, including jump blues, R&B and doo wop. Puerto Ricans in New York City shared in these tastes, but also listened to genres like mambo or cha cha cha. There was much intermixing of Latinos, especially Puerto Ricans and Cubans, and African Americans, and clubs that catered to both groups tried to find musical common ground to attract both. Latin boogaloo was the result of this search, a marriage of many styles including the Cuban rhythms son montuno and guajira, guaracha, mambo and most uniquely, American R&B/soul.

The boogaloo was a marriage of Afro-American and Afro-Cuban rhythms. The sound was foreshadowed in early/mid 1960s hits such as the 1961 song, El Watusi by Ray Barretto, the 1963 cover of Herbie Hancock's, Watermelon Man by Mongo Santamaría and Joe Cuba's 1965 single, El Pito. The 1965 hit single, Boo-Ga-Loo by the Detroit R&B duo, Tom and Jerrio inspired the recording of dozens of copycat boogaloo songs amongst R&B musicians, though the fad was relatively short-lived.

John Storm Roberts notes 1966 as the year the bugalú (his spelling) was first recorded, in the Ricardo Ray (aka Richie Ray) album, Se Soltó.^p167 One of Ray's songs on that album, Lookie Lookie, created a basic template for the Latin boogaloo: a central rhythmic riff (known as a montuno), audience-friendly English lyrics and a catchy chorus, sometimes done in a call and response style.

1966 also produced several hit singles. The first million-sellin boogaloo was Joe Cuba's Bang Bang which used Lookie Lookie's bassline. This launched a string of major Latin boogaloo hits, including Pete Rodriguez's I Like It Like That, Hector Rivera's At the Party and Joe Bataan's Gypsy Woman. The same year as Latin boogaloo's breakout success, 1966, saw the closing of New York City's Palladium Ballroom, a well-known venue that had been the home of big band mambo for many years. The closing marked the end of mainstream mambo, and boogaloo ruled the Latin charts for about two to three years before the early development of salsa music began to take over.

One of the key factors in the boogaloo success was its use of English lyrics, or a mix of English and Spanish. This certainly helped its reception by non-Spanish speakers.^p336

The Latin boogaloo bands were mostly led by young, sometimes even teenage musicians from New York's Puerto Rican community. These included, but weren’t limited to, Bataan, Cuba, Bobby Valentín, The Latin Souls, The Lat-Teens, Johnny Colon, Willie Colón and The Latinaires. As such, Latin boogaloo can be seen as "the first Nuyorican music" (René López), and has been called "the greatest potential that (Latinos) had to really cross over in terms of music" (Izzy Sanabria). However, Latino musicians and composers also made a big contribution to doo-wop.

Latin boogaloo also spread throughout the wider Latin music world, especially in Puerto Rico, where top band El Gran Combo released many boogaloos. Latin music scenes in Peru, Colombia, Panama and elsewhere also embraced the boogaloo. Though the dance craze only lasted until 1968/69, Latin boogaloo was popular enough that almost every major and minor Latin dance artist of the time recorded at least a few boogaloos on their albums. That included boogaloos by long-time veteran, mambo-era musicians such as Eddie Palmieri and his Aye Que Rico or Tito Puente's Hit the Bongo.

The boogaloo was dead by the end of 1969.^p168 What caused the fairly rapid end of the boogaloo's reign is in doubt. According to several sources, jealous older Latin music artists colluded with record labels (in particular, Fania), radio DJs, and dance hall promoters to blacklist boogaloo bands from venues and radio. Alternatively, it was a fad which had run out of steam.^p168 Its demise allowed older musicians to make a comeback in the New York scene. The explosive success of salsa in the early 1970s saw former giants like Puente and the Palmieri Brothers return to the top, while most Latin boogaloo bands went out of business (Joe Bataan and Willie Colón being two notable exceptions).

Latin boogaloo remains popular to this day in Cali, Colombia, where the genre is played extensively, along with salsa and pachanga, in various FM and AM radio stations and hundreds of dance clubs. The Caleños prefer their boogaloo sped up, from 33 to 45 RPM, to match the city's fast dance style.It is also a list available through HLB - part of the WWAVRC group

References

• Busca Salsa article
• Flores, Juan (2000). "Cha-Cha With a BackBeat." ‘’From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity.’’ Columbia University Press.

External links

• Salsaroots.com article: "Boogalu"

Notes

This page uses content from New World Encyclopedia. The original content was at Boogaloo and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. The list of authors can be seen in the page history.