The Reality Check series highlights details about your Latin Jazz musicianship worth investigating. Take some time and be honest with yourself; these ideas will strengthen your overall Latin Jazz concept. Make sure that you’ve tackled the ideas in Reality Check #1 and Reality Check #2 as well - all these concepts combine to paint the “big picture.” I’d love to hear your thoughts on these concepts - we can all learn from each other!

1. Are You Keeping Up To Date on Current Latin Jazz Trends?
Coming into Latin Jazz anew leaves a musician with a wealth of studying. The basic musical elements of Cuban styles need to be covered - the function of clave, the interlocking percussion patterns, and the tension created between the piano and the anticipated bass line . . . just as a starting point. Then musicians must investigate the variety of traditions that accompany Cuban music in the “Latin” part of the equation - Brazilian Samba, Bossa Nova, Partido Alto, and Choro as well as Puerto Rican Bomba and Plena. The most important step to an understanding of Latin Jazz would be a study of the music’s history; every musician serious about Latin Jazz needs to take the time to listen to Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Machito, Cal Tjader, and many more. These artists laid the foundation for the style, and a study of their techniques is mandatory to building a solid Latin Jazz musician. When first encountering Latin Jazz, musicians need to firmly grasp the genre’s foundations.

Immersing ourselves in the style’s basics involves a major time commitment, but the modern Latin Jazz musician also needs to stay informed about current musical trends. Timba shook the whole roots of Cuban dance music in the 1990s and introduced a wealth of new aesthetics into Latin music performance. Since then, Cuban artists have integrated rap and reggaeton extensively into dance music. Latin Jazz artists have broadened their perspectives to balance Cuban, Brazilian, and Puerto Rican traditions with Argentinean, Dominican, Columbian, and Peruvian musics. Latin Jazz history has grown tremendously over the past twenty years, and many of its founding fathers have passed away. A new generation of musicians has taken the reigns, and their unique approaches demand serious listening. Papo Vazquez, Alex Garcia, Luis Bonilla, Bobby Sanabria, Bryan Lynch, and Conrad Herwig are just a small group of musicians moving the style into the twenty-first century. These trends represent the future of the music, and modern musicians need to stay abreast of each development.

Learning from the past while looking into the future requires a serious balancing act while maintaining a definite sense of perspective about your study. Generally newer developments make much more sense when examined with an understanding of the fundamentals. Yet, a narrow focus upon past history leaves the artist blind to current events, leaving them consistently behind the curve. Newer developments may bend the established rules, and lacking a comprehension of fundamentals leaves the artist without a reference point. At that point, a musician makes uneducated choices about aesthetics they don’t understand. A modern Latin Jazz artists needs to constantly look at both pieces of the music – past and present – and then find a balance between the two.

2. Do You Have a Thorough Understanding of Salsa?
The word “Salsa” often throws the balance of the serious Latin Jazz musician. Many people utilize the word to describe anything with Cuban music roots, regardless of the musical content. The word itself refers more to dance music, which includes limited amounts of improvisation. Most jazz musicians’ interest lies in a lack of commercialism; they seek freedom and a sense of identity through their creations. Labeling their music as “Salsa” misconstrues their intentions and confuses their listeners. Latin Jazz artists will generally take a firm stand on this issue – either their music touches on commercialism and reflects Salsa or they want to distance themselves as much as possible from it.

In reality, the music’s roots are deeply intertwined with Salsa and musicians need a thorough understanding of the style to effectively represent Latin genres. The roots of both salsa and Latin Jazz lie in popular dance music – the Cuban rumba, cha cha cha, and danzon; the Brazilian Samba; the Puerto Rican bomba. All these musics are strongly connected to dance traditions, and without knowledge of the authentic forms, the rhythms don’t hold a real meaning beneath jazz changes. Salsa and Latin Jazz share numerous conventions between them. Horn players need to be able to effectively execute mambos and moñas, and in many cases, they may need to improvise them. Rhythm section players need to play ponche figures at the beginning of piano or bass solos. They need to end descargas with traditional kicks on beats four and then one. There are a variety of common practices that are derived from Salsa and applied liberally to Latin Jazz. Many of today’s contemporary Latin Jazz masters built their skills playing salsa. Eddie Palmieri led a Salsa band for the majority of his career; Jerry and Andy Gonzalez supported a variety of Fania artists throughout the sixties and seventies including Palmieri; Paquito D’Rivera and Arturo Sandoval played dance music with Irakere and the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna; Papo Vazquez co-led the Puerto Rican superband Batacumbele for many years – the list stretches far beyond these mentions. A complete investigation of these musicians and their influences requires a Latin Jazz musician to spend extensive time listening to Salsa. The connection between the two genres are more than coincidental; they share a common heritage and both need to be studied.

Latin Jazz musicians hold different opinions about the extent they need to incorporate Salsa into their musical lives. Most artists would probably agree that extensive Salsa listening is a mandatory pre-cursor to Latin Jazz performance. Musicians need to explore all eras – the early twentieth century Cuban masters such as Ignacio Piñero; the Mambo bands of the 1940s and 50s like Tito Rodriguez and Machito; the Fania scene in the 1960s and 1970s; all the way up to modern Timba bands like Los Van Van and La Charanga Habanera. Artists share differing viewpoints on the amount of Salsa performance that a musician should undertake. For some musicians, the constrictions of a commercial dance music gig may seem distracting from their jazz focus. For others, the Salsa gig serves as research into the world of Latin music, which simply complements their Latin Jazz performance. Whether through listening or performance, Latin Jazz artists need to study Salsa and maintain an active connection to it throughout their career.

For more info and Latin Jazz and Salsa, check out:
The Blurry Line Between Latin Jazz and Salsa
Distinguishing Between Latin Jazz and Salsa

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