Son Music In Latin American Culture

Music always has strongly diverse backgrounds. It can bring people together or tear them apart. Son bands were largely popular throughout Latin America and the world. It influenced many different styles of music such as Rumba and Samba. The Son music image, shown in class, helps show some of the history and importance of Son music. The image features a sextet, a group of six musicians, of African descent playing music well wearing clothing traditional to the times and using more traditional instruments. They are shown playing what is presumed to be an up-right bass, bongos, maracas, and a Tres, a three string Cuban guitar, along with some other instruments. They are all seated in front of a record and the title reads “Orthophonic records by

Its main goal was to produce sales and earn money. Cuban sextets were popular with many people for most of the 20th century. From Son music sextets to salsa sextets such as Joe Cuba’s band (Wang 1). The artist of this cover used the popularity of Afrocuban music and sextets to help sell the records of these artists. The clothing they are dressed is classier and cleaner then what many other Son musicians would be wearing at the time which helps cross the bridge between having just a Afrocuban market to having a more worldwide market. This is because many people didn’t want to listen to African music and having them dress in cleaner and classier clothing helped make them seem “whiter” or more relatable to the communities outside of Afrocuban or African communities around the world. When the cover states the latest Cuban Victor records have arrived shows how the marketer wanted to portray the music as Cuban. This shows how Afrocuban people are being considered as Cubans and their traditions are now a part of Cuba’s traditions. These records were most likely sold worldwide and sold as Cuban records and were meant to represent Cuban culture. Many people may have had issue with this type of music and representation of African culture being popularized. With this genre of music being sold next to a Mozart or Beethoven record may cause unrest in certain

In Latin America it can be viewed as Son music, Rumba, Salsa and Samba. In the United States it can be seen with Jazz, Blues, and even Rock and Roll. Son music and Jazz were both influenced by African traditions and songs sung by slaves and both were originally performed by people of African descent. This is seen with people such as Lewis Armstrong and many Afrocubans in Cuba. Jazz and Blues originated from the city of New Orleans. New Orleans was a perfect because it was a port city so it could spread and gain new ideas very quickly. This lead to the new musical style of Jazz to take shape which may be one of the most important music styles to ever take form (“What is Jazz?” 1). This is very similar to Cuban Son music. The island of Cuba was very similar to New Orleans in its accessibility to outside influences and spread of ideas. The similarities between Son music and other African based music can be seen around the world. This record of Cuban Victor sextets is very similar to many other records around the world. Jazz records originally were predominately African males preforming the music. These records also were difficult to sell to people of non-African descent. Eventually Jazz and Blues began to gain popularity and it opened up a whole new market. This is almost identical to the popularity of Son music in Cuba and Latin