Son (music) - Evolution and Legacy of Cuban Son

Evolution and Legacy of Cuban Son

The original son ensembles of guitar, tres, claves, bongos, marímbula, and maracas. The tres plays the typical Cuban ostinato figure known as guajeo. The instrumentation was expanded to include, keyed cornets or trumpets, forming the sextets and the septets of the 1920s. Later these conjuntos added piano, other percussion instruments, more trumpets, and even dance orchestra instruments in the style of jazz big bands.

By the late 1930s, the heyday of “classic son” had largely ended. The sextetos and septetos that had enjoyed wide commercial popularity increasingly lost ground to jazz bands and amplified conjuntos. The very music that son had helped to create, was now replacing son as the more popular and most requested music in Cuba. Original son conjuntos were faced with the option to disband and refocus on newer styles of Cuban music or go back to their roots to perform solely in the Afro-Cuban community.

By the late 1940s, son had lost its controversiality even among conservative Cubans which made it even less appealing to Cubans. A development that led to the decrease in popularity of the original son occurred in the 1940s. The son grew more sophisticated as it was adopted by conjuntos, which displaced sextetos and septetos. This led to big bands replacing the conjuntos, which managed to keep its flavor despite elaborate arrangements.

During the 1940s and 1950s, the tourism boom in Cuba and the popularity of jazz and American music in general fostered the development of big bands and combos on the island. These bands consisted of a relatively small horn section, piano, bass, a full array of Cuban percussion instruments and a vocalist fronting the ensemble. Their polished sound and “cosmopolitan” – read “commercial” – repertoire captivated both Cuban and foreign Audiences.

The commercialism of this new music movement led Cuban nightclub owners to recognize the revenue potential of hosting these types of bands to attract the growing flow of tourists. Additionally, as a result of the increasing popularity of big band music and in an effort to increase revenues, the recording industry focused on producing newer types of music and essentially removing son from their music repertoires. These developments were a big blow to the prospects of son and its popularity even amongst Cubans.