Afro-Cuban jazz
Afro-Cuban jazz combines jazz harmony and improvisation with Afro-Cuban rhythmic traditions, especially son clave, percussion, and dance forms.
Son clave: A two-bar rhythmic pattern that organizes many Afro-Cuban and Latin music styles. Its uneven two-bar cycle provides the rhythmic framework for much Afro-Cuban jazz.
Cuban son: A Cuban music genre combining Spanish guitar traditions with African-derived rhythm and call-and-response. Son supplied rhythmic patterns and ensemble practices that entered Afro-Cuban jazz.
Tito Puente: An American bandleader, composer, and percussionist known for Latin dance music and jazz. His timbales-led orchestras carried Afro-Cuban rhythms into jazz and popular dance music.
Afro-Cuban jazz standard: A jazz composition built around Afro-Cuban rhythms, often combining a written theme with improvised sections. These compositions make the fusion’s structure audible in a repeatable form.
Bebop: A modern jazz style built around fast tempos, complex harmony, and virtuosic improvisation. Afro-Cuban jazz shares bebop’s language but foregrounds Cuban rhythmic patterns.
Tumbao: A repeating bass pattern characteristic of Cuban popular music. Its syncopated bass line links the groove to Cuban dance music.
Machito: A Cuban bandleader and singer who led the Afro-Cubans, a foundational New York Latin jazz orchestra. His orchestra helped establish the sound in the 1940s.
Arturo O'Farrill: An American pianist, composer, and bandleader associated with contemporary Latin jazz. His work continues the big-band and compositional traditions of Afro-Cuban jazz.
Manteca: A 1947 composition by Dizzy Gillespie, Chano Pozo, and Gil Fuller, widely recognized as an early Afro-Cuban jazz landmark. Its contrasting jazz passages and Cuban rhythmic section became a model for the style.
Salsa: A popular dance-music genre developed from Cuban and other Caribbean traditions, especially in New York. Salsa and Afro-Cuban jazz share rhythms and musicians but emphasize different performance aims.