Bigi Pokoe is lively Surinamese-Caribbean dance music. Early bigi pokoe bands found inspiration in New Orleans Dixieland Jazz, though today the form has enveloped more Caribbean styles, especially salsa.
COUNTRY: Suriname
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Banjo, Keyboard, Maracas, Snare drum, Trumpet, Trombone, Tuba
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Kaseko is Suriname’s own Caribbean dance music that arose from a local genre called Bigi Pokoe which sounds whole lot like New Orleans dance-hall jazz. Kaseko first became internationally known in the 1970s when Surinamese expatriates living in the Netherlands–home to Suriname’s previous colonial power, the Dutch–brought their music and musicianship to Europe.
COUNTRY: Suriname
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Drum kit, Saxophone, Trombone, Trumpet
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Porro began as a variant of Cumbia but has developed into a distinct form of music and dance. The style originated as folk music from Colombia’s Caribbean region but has developed into a public and celebratory music and couple/ballroom dance. Some of the most energizing porro ensembles are composed of brass, brass and more brass–trumpets, trombones and tubas aplenty.
COUNTRY: Colombia
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Bombo, Clarinet, Gaita flutes, Snare drum, Trombone, Trumpet, Tuba
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Tejano music has its roots deep in the Meixcan-American experience. In the 1930s and ’40s, while “working class” Mexican-Americans were listening to and dancing to conjunto music, Mexican-Americans from “upper” classes were enjoying “musica orquestra”–music performed by Mexican and Mexican-American orchestras that, like their popular Cuban counterparts, featured Latin dances like danzones, boleros, mambos. Unlike Cuban orquestas these ensembles also dabbled liberally in American dances such as the boogie, swing and foxtrot, as well as German dances such as redovas, waltzes, mazurkas and polkas. [Let U. Texas teach you about “Orquesta Tejana,” audio samples and all]
In the 1960s and ’70s, the Mexican-American children of the generation that had enjoyed musica orquestra infused conjunto music with more orchestral instrumentation, adding keyboards, brass instruments and percussion. They even replaced the bajo sextos with electric guitars! Vocal styles became more complex, with bands layering multiple harmonies and embracing performance styles that were much more theatrical than the salt-of-the-earth delivery of traditional conjunto singers. This next generation fusion of conjunto music with orquestra instrumental flair became known as “tejano.”
While tejano music is an offshoot of conjunto, “tejano” has become a blanket term that covers three kinds of music:
— Conjunto: traditional conjunto music played on accordion, bajo sexto, bass and drum. There are many well-respected conjunto musicians today including “King of Accordion” Ramon Ayala (watch him perfom “Mi Tesoro“) and Flaco Jimenez, son of congjunto pioneer Santiago Jimenez (watch Flaco perform “Hasta La Tumba“). Accordionist Esteban “Steve” Jordan–known as “The Jimi Hendrix of the Accordion–passed away in 2010, but his musical legacy lives on. [Watch Steve Jordan perform with Valerio Longoria.]
— Orchestra: a more fully instrumented band that might include bass, drums, electric guitar, synthesizer, a brass section (very important!) and sometimes even an accordion. [Watch Ruben Ramon and the Mexican Revolution performing a set of tejano orchestra classics in 2011.]
— Modern: synthesizer-focused dance-pop bands that also have drums, electric guitars, bass and sometimes an accordion. [Watch Grupo Mazz perform modern tejano in the mid-80s | Watch Selena perform “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” and also “Missing My Baby.” (Let SelenaForever.com introduce you to the too-short life of Selena.)]
NEW-TEJANO:
Since 2000 artists such as A.B. Quintinilla and The Kumbia Kings have created a new tejano music, either by taking current forms and blending them with contemporary forms like hip hop and reggaeton [Watch The Kumbia Kings perform “Boom Boom” at the 17th Annual Tejano Music Awards or like frequent “Tejano Music Award Female Vocalist of the Year” award winner Elida Reyna, producing tejano pop that comfortably crosses musical boundaries. [Watch Elida Reyna and Avante performing, “Playa del Sol” and “Ya Basta” in 2010.]
More information:
The Smithsonian introduces us to Tejano and Conjunto music | The Roots of Conjunto & Tejano music | Watch a clip from the inspiring 1976 documentary, “Chulas Fronteras,” which shows how music weaves into the daily Mexican-American life in the Southwest (and read a very positive review of the film)
COUNTRY: Mexico, U.S.
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Accordion, Bajo sexto, Bass, Drum kit, Saxophone, Synthesizer, Trombone, Trumpet
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Regional Carnaval music from Brazil’s northeast, “frevo” means “fever,” which implies that the rhythm of frevo music is so hot that it could literally boil those who are performing it.
COUNTRY: Brazil
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Saxophone, Trombone, Trumpet, Tuba
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CALYPSO is Trinidadian folk music that most likely derived from a West African musical/narrative style called kaiso and developed as a way for slaves to communicate. CALYPSO musicians sang in French creole and told stories with their songs–often with off-color lyrics full of double entendres. The style originated in the 1830s and was well-known throughout the Caribbean but only became internationally popular in the 1950s when Jamaican-born Harry Belafonte brought it to America. Enthusiasts accused Belafonte of watering down the genre and pointed to lyrically bolder (and much more awesomely named) artists such as Lord Kitchener, Mighty Sparrow and Roaring Lion as the true “calypsonians.” CALYPSO emphasizes the first half of the 3-2 son clave, putting special focus on the clave’s second beat. Or, if you want to count it out, “1 & 2 AND 3 & 4 &”.
More information:
A guide to traditional CALYPSO: “The best calypso options” | Exetempo: an improvised CALYPSO “war” | Check out this 1987 extempo battle between Relator and Superior | Mighty Sparrow’s “Maria” | You too can dance the Caribbean CALYPSO
More information:
National Geographic on Calypso | A guide to traditional calypso: “The best calypso options” | Exetempo: an improvised calypso “war” | Check out this 1987 extempo battle between Relator and Superior | Mighty Sparrow’s “Maria” | You too can dance the Caribbean Calypso
COUNTRY: Martinique
Drum biguine vs. orchestrated biguine.
Salsa is Puerto Rico’s most danceable musical export. The musical progeny of Cuban son from which it borrows its signature 3-2 and 2-3 clave patterns, the genre may have started in Cuba and Puerto Rico but really took root in the ’60s and ’70s in New York City where Puerto Rican immigrants fused son, mambo and little guaracha to make an extraordinary new musical form. Stars like Frankie Ruiz, Willie Colon, and Panamanian superstar Rubén Blades brought the music to the U.S., to Latin America, and by the mid ’70s to the world. Salsa bands are usually ambitions affairs, featuring many percussion instruments and horns, though the basic stripped-down ensemble consists of just claves, güiro, timbale, cowbell and congas. If you want to build your own rhythm, take a look at Stephen’s salsa page or the Salsa Beat Machine where you’ll be able to turn on and off the instruments as if you were leading your own big band. Speaking of which, see Colon and Blades together make a powerful duo on “Tiburon.”
COUNTRY: United States, Puerto Rico (U.S.), Cuba
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Bass, Bongo, Claves, Congas, Cowbell, Guiro, Maracas, Saxophone, Timbales, Trombone, Trumpet
SONG ON AATW: LATIN AMERICA CD: Un Barco Chiquitito (Cuban salsa)
Plena, also nicknamed “el periodico cantado (“the sung newspaper”), formed as a distinct Puerto Rican musical genre in the late 1800s when sugar cane plantation laborers, manual workers and former slaves moved to the urban areas and communicated the news of the day to each other through music and dance. A plena ensemble consists of a variety of percussion instruments such as guiros, congas, timbales, maracas and panderos (small tamborines), as well as a 4-stringed Puerto Rican guitar known as a cuatro. The plena has no fixed rhythmic form, but, unlike bomba which is primarily African, weaves in a multitude of rhythms from Puerto Rico’s Spanish, African and Taino cultures. Enjoy the plena by grooving along with these gentlemen, who obviously are celebrating after having just came back from a great day together shopping at the red shirt store.
COUNTRY: Puerto Rico (U.S.)
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Accordion, Bass, Cuatro, Guiro, Pandeiro, Saxophone, Trombone
SONG ON AATW: LATIN AMERICA CD: La Luna
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COUNTRY: Jamaica
A slower form of ska that arose in the rough urban neighborhoods of Kingston in the mid-’60s, rocksteady formed somewhat of a bridge between dancehall ska and the more rootsy grooves of reggae. Wikipedia on rocksteady.
