Latin Jazz Research Paper

Latin jazz research

Latin jazz is a form of jazz that was inspired by Afro Cubism and has been affected by amazing jazz artist like Dizzy Gillespie and Mongo Santamaría. Latin jazz got its big start between 1940-1950 in New York City. Latin jazz is a mixture of classic jazz and Afro-Cuban music. One of the great jazz artist was DIzzy Gillespie an extraordinary trumpeter who was one of the founders of latin jazz. Another Latin Jazz artist, Mongo Santamaría was a Latin Jazz percussionist who wrote the song Watermelon Man which is a song that is played all over the world by jazz bands.the third and final jazz artist is Stan Getz a Jazz tenor saxophonist who grew up loving music and eventually made careers in latin jazz music. Latin jazz has

A jazz article by Raul Fernandez talks about Latin jazz and says “Latin jazz, also called Afro-Cuban jazz, a style of music that blends rhythms and percussion instruments of Cuba and the Spanish Caribbean with jazz and its fusion of European and African musical elements”(Fernandez). The quote explains that rhythm combined with influences from all around the world prove once again that music is the language spoken by all and when it comes together it makes one amazing sound. One of the big factors that brought Latin jazz to be such a great and amazing music was the percussionist or to be more specific, the drummers. “Afro-Cuban drummers played a fundamental role in the development of Latin jazz from the late 1940s through the 1960s, giving the genre its seemingly inexhaustible stream of rhythmic patterns, phrasing, and styles”(Fernandez). Latin jazz continued to gain popularity as big bands started to break apart and get smaller. And play lighter music and different kind of style that had never been heard of

He has always loved jazz and what it stands for, the new york times says “Mongo Santamaria, a Cuban conga player and percussionist who arrived in New York at the beginning of the jazz-Latin fusion and was arguably the most popular Latin musician of the 1960's, died on Saturday. He was 85”(Ben Ratliff). This quote from the New York Times tells us that Mongo was one of the founders of Latin Jazz in New York. He is an amazing percussionist who has brought together different cultures into music and dance because he was big into dance as a young kid in Havana, Cuba. The New york times article also says “His given name was Ramon Santamaria. After establishing himself as a professional musician in his hometown of Havana, performing at the famous Tropicana Club with Conjunto Matamoros and Conjunto Azul, he toured Mexico with a dance team. In 1950 he arrived in New York and began working with Gilberto Valdés, playing charanga music, with its recognizable, courtly flutes-and-violin mixture in the frontline”(Ben Ratliff). The second quote says that when he was a kid he loves music and being in a family with little money he did it to make a career out of it. This also proves how he learned different styles of music traveling around mexico and seeing different cultures. That's how he formed the wonderful music of latin jazz. The final quote from the new york times article says “Mr. Santamaria retired from