Uccelli [née Pazzini], Carolina Uccellini, Marco

(b) Caribbean American.

In contrast with the Mexican Americans, who have a long history in the Southwest and California, the various groups of Caribbean Hispanics have immigrated to the USA relatively recently, and the great majority have settled in the urban centres of the East Coast, Chicago and Los Angeles. The largest Puerto Rican communities are in New York (especially in East Harlem). Their music involves several genres, some inherited from Puerto Rico, others developed locally out of contact with other Latin and black American groups. African-related folkdance music of Puerto Rico’s coastal areas, such as the bomba, has been retained with a few changes. Typical of the bomba is its accompaniment by drums in sets of three, consisting of the conga, tumbadora and quinto (all types of conga drum), reinforced by idiophones such as cowbells and claves (fig.19). Responsorial singing prevails. It may involve song texts improvised by the soloist, who is answered by the chorus, or four-line stanzas sung alternately by soloist and chorus. The performance of such music by ‘conga groups’ (so called in New York) takes place in informal settings in Puerto Rican neighbourhoods. The interaction of Puerto Ricans with American blacks in New York is reflected in the ritual behaviour and musical practices of Latin Pentecostal churches. Religious music is provided by an instrumental ensemble consisting of drums, maracas, electric guitars and a melodic instrument such as a trumpet or clarinet, and includes the singing of coritos, songs of praise in strophic forms. Ritual dancing and spirit possession closely relate to Pentecostal religious practices.

Cubans in the New York area and in southern Florida especially have established Afro-Cuban religious groups known as santería. Whether of Yoruba (Lucumí) or Congo (Mayombé) derivation, these groups retain belief systems and practices closely related to West African cultures. Music functions as an essential and necessary element of worship and consists of extensive and complex song repertories and drum (especially batá) rhythmic patterns associated with the various deities or orishá. Each ritual gesture (sacrifice, offering, purification and initiation) is made meaningful by the performance of appropriate songs. Dances associated with particular orishá are an integral part of ritual performances. The majority of religious songs are monophonic and are performed in responsorial fashion, with much overlapping of call and response. The open, relaxed vocal style retains a strongly African character.

The rumba continues to be the principal secular dance and musical genre among Cuban Americans. Although better known in its urbanized, highly sophisticated version, as performed by Celia Cruz and Tito Puente, the rumba also enjoys great popularity as a folkdance, particularly in the form of the guaguancó and columbia. The guaguancó stresses improvised patterns on the quinto drum in contrast to the patterns of the tumbadora (larger conga drum) and the palitos (sticks); as revealed in the performances of such virtuosos as Mongo Santamaria, this creates the typical multilayered rhythmic activity of Afro-Cuban music (ex.6). The vocal parts of the guaguancó consist of a largely improvised solo part, answered by a set, harmonized choral part. This call-and-response practice is built on four- or eight-bar patterns equally divided between the soloist and the chorus. Both vocal and percussion soloists fluctuate in their improvisatory freedom. The other performers’ parts provide referential bases for the tension and release of the soloists’ improvisations. This effective contrast is one of the most distinctive qualities of the folk rumba.

The other major Caribbean presence in the north-eastern main urban centres is the Haitians, who, beginning in 1905, have brought to the area the black traditions of vodoun and Congo-Guinée religious music and dance, to name only the prevailing cult groups.

(c) Portuguese American.

Portuguese settlers are concentrated in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, on the New England seaboard and in northern California. Since the mid-19th century immigrants have come not only from Portugal itself but also from the Cape Verde Islands and the Azores. Their descendants retain folksongs and dances associated with bailados (social gatherings), and dramatic dances, such as the reisados and marujadas, narrating in popular theatrical forms Portuguese maritime exploits and the festivities of the Christmas cycle. Sea life is also the major topic of several folksong genres, such as the fade marítimo from the Azores, still performed in New England. As the main genre of urban vocal music in Portugal, the fado has been extended to the Portuguese American communities in New England with the arrival of new immigrants since the 1960s.

Among the various folkdances preserved by Portuguese Americans are the corridinho, a polka-like dance from southern Portugal, and the chamarrita, a square dance from the Azores, variously accompanied by string ensembles (including the viola, a Portuguese folk guitar) and by bands consisting of amplified strings, brass and percussion.

Beginning in the 1980s, Brazilians have settled in fairly large numbers in southern Florida and cities such as Los Angeles and Boston. They have gradually established Brazilian popular music celebrations, such as carnival samba parties, and have sponsored the more frequent appearance of Brazilian professional musicians in the USA.

USA, §II, 3: Traditional music: Hispanic American

(iii) Latin urban popular music.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, American popular musical trends, including jazz, have assimilated a number of Latin American urban musical styles. Such influences came primarily from Cuba, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. Starting with the tango, introduced to the USA by Broadway in 1913, a series of Latin American styles, some related to dances, swept American cities: the rumba in the 1930s, the samba in the 40s, the mambo and cha cha cha in the 50s, bossa nova in the 60s and salsa in the 70s. Tin Pan Alley, the American popular song industry, has always kept abreast of these cycles of fashion and has assiduously marketed the Latin popular songs associated with them. Similarly, Hollywood and Broadway have frequently promoted Latin music, as with the Brazilian singer and dancer Carmen Miranda in the 1930s.

Beginning in the 1970s, mariachi ensembles and their music have taken on additional significance for Mexican American identity. With the recognition of multiculturalism in the 1980s, mariachi groups have been established in many high schools and universities as regular scholastic activities. Official festivals and conferences (e.g. the ‘Mariachi Spectacular’ in Albuquerque, New Mexico) have been sponsored more frequently by cities of the Southwest. Mariachi music functions in many different contexts, from the traditional restaurant setting to social events of all sorts and even in the Catholic church, where mariachi masses are celebrated.

Salsa music has become especially emblematic of ‘Hispanidad’ throughout the country because of its syncretic nature. Cuban musicians who flocked to Miami and New York City during and after the Revolution (1959) cultivated the Cuban son, guaracha and rumba, among others, but also salsa and other forms. Interacting with other Spanish Caribbeans and Central Americans, they contributed, with Puerto Rican musicians, to the salsa phenomenon in the 1970s and beyond. A ‘mixture of mixtures, the results of a long process of syncretization’ as Jorge Duany (1984) characterized salsa (literally ‘sauce’, i.e. with many different ingredients), the trend developed primarily in New York City, created by both Puerto Rican and Cuban musicians and reflecting the life, culture and socio-political aspirations of the ‘barrio’ or poor urban neighbourhoods of East Harlem, the Bronx and Brooklyn. The musical genre that served as the basic model for salsa (the barrio sound par excellence) was undoubtedly the son cubano, with its driving, multi-layered ostinato patterns, followed by the guaracha and the guaguancó, but it also incorporated aspects of Puerto Rican plena and bomba, Dominican merengue, and sometimes Colombian cumbia and vallenato.

Concurrently with these Latin influences in American popular music, specific Latin stylistic fusions such as Latin jazz, Latin soul and Latin rock represent the genuine expressions of the bicultural world of Hispanic Americans in the USA and are an integral part of contemporary American popular music. In the 1990s the mixing of various Latin and Anglo American pop styles by some young Latin pop stars, such as Ricky Martin, Jennifer López, Marc Anthony and Shakira, symbolizes the biculturalism of the new generations of Hispanic Americans.

USA, §II: Traditional music