There is often a misguided assumption that jazz is an American thing which the rest of the world may or may not have adopted. When I first began conventionalizing this episode of Momentos Musicales, I thought I would kick off with saxophonist Dexter Gordon and pianist Chick Corea, both of whom I heard while I was living in Mexico City. At that concert, I looked around the audience as Dexter Gordon took the stage at the historic Teatro de la Ciudad thinking what it must be like to be hearing America's jazz for the first time. I confess! I was later lectured on what a true mixing bowl jazz truly is, with roots going back to Africa, then crossing to South America, where at times it was cross-pollinated by indigenous rhythms. Exotic percussion instruments were adapted as they arrived in the New World from Old World Africa. Cuba became a hot bed of innovation, such that when American musicians began spending time in Havana, they were enamored by the rhythmic cacophony.
The story goes like this: George Gershwin spent two weeks in Havana in February 1932. He was fascinated by the Cuban dance bands and their rhythmic complexity. He returned to New York with Cuban percussion instruments, including bongos, claves, maracas, and a güiro, which he then incorporated into his own orchestration.
Gershwin's “Cuban Overture” was introduced at Lewisohn Stadium in New York to a sell our crowd of 17,845 paid admissions while an additional 5,000 lingered outside the stadium, likely grooving to the sounds wafting up and out of the stadium into the night air.
Little known to most was that they were hearing not only an exotic trio of previously unknown percussions – bongos, claves, and güiro, but also musical phrases from Ignacio Piñeiro's "Échale Salsita," which Gershwin had heard in Havana. By the way, Piñeiro is cited by many histoians as the first to mention “salsa” in a song. It goes like this:
One night I left home in search of adventure
looking for a taste of pleasure and fun
Oh my God what a whirl,
left behind the lights of home
and found myself in a real party
In Catalina I found something unexpected
a voice that cried out like this:
put a little sauce on daddy
put a little sauce on daddy!
If you go back a half century before Gershwin and Pineiro, you can find evidence of African and Caribbean elements hybridizing with European music. Louis Moreau Gottschalk, born in New Orleans, but trained as a pianist in Paris, returned to the Caribe and others places in Pan America, from which he drew upon Creole, Caribbean and Latin American musical traditions he encountered in New Orleans and throughout his travels. He created a distinctive concert style that anticipated later developments in American music.
Jazz in the 21st century does not belong to America, just as it is not the property of Cuba or Argentina or Brazil. Dizzy Gillespie, who had worked with the Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo in the 1940s, surely acquired some of his skills by collaborating with Cuban musicians. In 1989, Gillespie punctuated this discussion by forming the United Nations Orchestra, celebrating the musical connections among the Americas, Africa and other regions.
