PagesVideoclave #5 “The spanish tinge”
We at Radioclave are fond of clave-based music, especially in its Cuban flavour. As you might all know already, the clave in Cuba is a rhythmic phrase, played or just in the minds of the musicians, which acts like a common denominator for the simultaneous playing of different rhythms, which is common in Cuban music. You can say that the clave is the swing pattern of this music in the same sense that traditionally swing music, like Duke Ellington in the 30-ties. Comparing the swing music, with its steady beat on the 2 and 4 of the measure, to the clave-based music, the former swing like pendulum while, I sense that the latter is more like a steady stream of stirring bubbles. Saul, my dance teacher, always says that “the whole body must dance”, but as a late comber in Cuban dancing its hard to accomplish albeit the music makes me whish I could.
My conception of world music is that it is a fabric, woven of influences from many sources. In this videoclave I present some examples where traces of the Cuban music, itself a fusion of sources, can be found in anglo-saxian popular music. I will not bring up the rhumba and cha-cha of ballroom dancing which of course stems from bolero-son and cha-cha-cha, instead you will be given some examples from the early jazz and rock’n’roll and why not European schlager, like Abba.
The legendary jazz composer and pianist, Jelly Roll Morton, said that you have to spice your music with the Spanish tinge. Here’s what he said:
“Now take ‘La Paloma’ which I transformed in New Orleans style. You leave the left hand just the same. The difference comes in the right hand – in the syncopation, which gives it an entirely different color that really changes the color from red to blue. Now in one of my earliest tunes, ‘New Orleans Blues’, you can notice the Spanish tinge. In fact, if you can’t manage to put tinges of Spanish in your tunes, you will never be able to get the right seasoning, I call it, for jazz”. (The quote is taken from wikipedia ”Spanish tinge” but its origin is Alan Lomax biography about JRM.)
What Jelly Roll Morton was referring to was not a special Spanish rhythm but a rhythm coming from the Spanish Americas that is, Cuba which New Orleans had close connections to. (See for example Sublette’s book about New Orleans) The rhythm Jelly Roll Morton spoke about was the Habanera. But before you listen to an old Jelly Roll Morton tune spiced with the Spanish tinge I want you to get grisp of some Habanera. In the video clip below you will see a boy playing a much older tune composed by another New Orleans pianist, Luis Moreau Gottschalk. The tuned was composed by Gottschalk in 1859 after he had visited Cuba and there got acquainted to Cuban music with the help of the Cuban composer Manuel Samuell (Source: Sublette Cuba and its music). The piece is called Ojos Criollos or Danse Cubaine and was referred as a contradanza .
The Habanera rhythm had its source in the French contra danza. Cuba orchestras in those days, often consisted of people of color, free men of color or slaves, as one of the permitted occupations for those. Of course they played and sang all kind of stuff but when playing they in turn “seasoned” with African rhythms. These musicians often referred what became the Habanera rhythm with the kikongo word “tango”. This special beat is also called “tresillo” and consists of three accented parts in 4/4-meter where the first accent lies at the one and the second between beat 2 and beat 3 and finally the third accent lies at the fourth beat or slightly before. The link below opens a new window with a clip where you can listen to Jerry Roll Mortons “New Orleans Blues”.
The Tresillo accentuation can be said to be an afro/cuban form of rhythm but there is a discussion whether this origin really is unique. The Tresillo-pattern can be traced in gypsy music from Balkan to Andalusia and also it can be found in Arabic music (Source: Maya Roya Cuban Music 2002).
Let’s move on. An New Orleans heir to Jelly Roll Morton was Henry Roeland Byrd a.k.a Professor Longhair. If you never heard of him you will have some good stuff to discover. My opinion is that the modern dance music of boogie woogie, soul and r’n’b starts with Prof Longhair!
The Tresillo is as you might know one side of the clave-pattern used in an older type of Cuban Rumba, the Yambu, common referred as the son-clave because it’s the one which was put to use in the Son-music in the end of 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.
Everyone know how infectious the Son-clave is and of course it influence pop music. Surely you have listen to, Little Darling with The Diamonds, one of the hits from the 1960-ties.
And here is another one. Bo Diddley, one of the fathers of rock’n roll builded many of his hits on, yes, the furious beat of the clave-rhythm. Well it is not exactly the Cuban way of managing rhythm but it swings!
I guess if you are willing enough you hear habanera or clave-patterns in almost all kind of music. By the way ABBA’s tune, Fernando has a habanera beat or doesn’t it?
On the clave!
Lars
Sources:
Wikipedia: Spanish tinge
Ned Sublette “Cuba and its Music – From the first drums to the mambo”
Maya Roya “Cuban Music”
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