Utter the word mambo in a community of dancers and more often than not, you will find individuals define this word in a myriad of different ways. To some it is synonymous with New York style salsa; to others, it is associated with a particular style of music, and to a further group it will be something they will define as distinctly Cuban.
There is a lot of debate surrounding what should
define “Mambo” as a dance, and the aim of this article is not to provide a
“correct” version but rather to provide some background information as to the
various dance styles that have become associated with this word.
Origin of the word mambo
The word mambo is thought to be a Bantu word (part of
the Niger-Congo linguistic family) and is thought to mean a host of things
involved in communication. Certain definitions within a Bantu dictionary can
define it as meaning a song, a story or action which would be consistent with a
culture where the primary form of communication was through song.
There are various theories about how and when this
word started to be used commercially, both to describe a dance form and musical
style. Some argue that Dámaso Pérez Prado popularised the word and the musical
style behind it and attributed the meaning “conversation with the gods" in
the Kongo language, spoken by Congolese.
In one article, Arsenio Rodriguez was quoted as saying
“The word mambo is of the Congo dialect. When one singer says to the other-
“abre cuto guiri mambo” meaning “open your ears and listen to what I am going
to tell you”.
However, it is likely that this word was being used
centuries before there was any association with what we now label as modern
mambo music.
Musical
style
Prior to its
commercialization, mambo is thought to have developed in the late 1930s and
early 1940s and involved new ways of playing and dancing to Cuban genres of
music such as danzón and son. This new music form incorporated the use of short
and syncopated rhythmic patterns at specific parts of an arrangement-typically
during the finale. One of the most influential charangas of
the late 1930s at the time was Antonio Arcano’s group Arcono y Sus Maravillas.
Most historians agree that
Arcano's cellist, Orestes López, was the one who first composed a song that
could be classified into the music genre of mambo. However, the first mambo
that was actually recorded was called "Rarezas" by bassist and
composer Cachao López. It was not until the mid 1940s that records which
incorporated this style started to openly be labelled as mambo (Notably,
Arsenio Rodriguez also incorporated similar rhythmical structures in to his son
music but called this section “Diablo”).
The origins
of the dance in Cuba
Similarly,
the term mambo was not attributed to a particular dance style during the early
1940s. Rather, it, identified a new trend in dance choreography.
The mambo that became popular in Cuba during this period was more of a
freestyle dance with no organised sequence of steps and with fast, complicated
foot-work. Dancers in Cuba would invent steps based on how the music made them
“feel” and their movements were the embodiment of the new sound and rhythmicity
that the mambo section provided.
As can be
seen, there does not seem to be one simple way of summarising what mambo is,
but subsequent articles will explore this topic and more, including mambo in
the United States during the mid 90’s.
