Title: Salsa music
Headings: Salsa music
Salsa music
2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Musical genres, styles, eras and events
The word salsa
Characteristics
Songs and instrumentation
Rhythm
Lyricism
History
Origins
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s to the present

Content: Some doubt that the term salsa has any precise and unambiguous meaning. Peter Manuel describes salsa as "at once (both) a modern marketing concept and the cultural voice of a new generation", representative of a "crystallization of a Latino identity in New York in the early 1960s". Manuel also recognizes the commercial and cultural dichotomy to salsa, noting that the term's broad use for many styles of Latin pop music has served the development of "pan-Latin solidarity", while also noting that the "recycling of Cuban music under an artificial, obscurantist label is but one more example of North American exploitation and commodification of third world primary products; for Latinos, salsa bridges the gap between "tradition and modernity, between the impoverished homeland and the dominant United States, between street life and the chic night club, and between grassroots culture and the corporate media". The singer Rubén Blades once claimed that salsa is merely "a concept", as opposed to a definite style or rhythm. Some musicians are doubtful that the term salsa has any useful meaning at all, with the bandleader Machito claiming that salsa was more or less what he had been playing for forty years before the style was invented, while Tito Puente once responded to a question about salsa by saying "I'm a musician, not a cook" (referring to salsa' s original use to mean sauce ). Celia Cruz, a well-known salsa singer, has said, " [s]alsa is Cuban music with another name. It's mambo, chachachá, rumba, son ... all the Cuban rhythms under one name". Music writer Peter Manuel claims that salsa came to describe a specific style of music in the mid-1970s "when a group of New York-based Latin musicians began overhauling the classic big-band arrangements popular since the mambo era of the 1940s and '50s", and that the term was "popularized" in the late 1960s by a Venezuelan radio station and Jerry Masucci of Fania Records. In contrast, Ed Morales cites the use of salsa for a specific style to a New York-based editor and graphic designer named Izzy Sanabria.