Miguel Faílde
Creator of the danzón — Miguel Faílde composed Las Alturas de Simpson in 1879, the piece recognized as the first danzón, establishing Cuba's national dance form for the next half century.
About
Faílde was a cornet player and bandleader from matanzas"> Matanzas who transformed the contradanza/danza tradition into something new: the danzón. His innovation was structural — adding a new final section (the trio) to the dance form and giving the ensemble more freedom to improvise and develop themes. The danzón's characteristic structure (introduction, repeated sections, trio) and its refined, couple-based dance format defined Cuban ballroom culture from the 1880s through the early 20th century.
Matanzas — where Faílde lived and worked — was a center of both Afro-Cuban cultural life and refined European salon music, and the danzón emerged from that synthesis. The genre would later develop further through Antonio Arcaño's charanga innovations and the addition of the mambo"> mambo section by Cachao and Orestes López.
Mambo
In Cuban music, especially in salsa and son,
the " mambo" section typically refers to a brassy, rhythmically intense instrumental break,
often featuring repetitive horn lines, call-and-response patterns, and building energy toward the climax of a song.
Mambo
In Cuban music, especially in salsa and son,
the "mambo" section typically refers to a brassy, rhythmically intense instrumental break,
often featuring repetitive horn lines, call-and-response patterns, and building energy toward the climax of a song.
Son dance is the foundation of all Cuban popular partner dancing — smooth, intimate, grounded, and musical. Every Cuban dance style that followed ( mambo"> mambo, casino, timba"> timba) builds on the body vocabulary and structure established by son.
Lees meer >Dances
- Danzón – The quintessential Cuban ballroom dance, elegant and formal, often seen as the "national dance of Cuba."
- Danzonete – A sung variant of danzón that became popular in the 1920s–30s.
- Cha-cha-chá – Created in the 1950s by Enrique Jorrín while playing with a charanga; specifically designed for charanga orchestras.
- Pachanga – A playful dance and rhythm from the late 1950s/early 1960s, closely linked to charanga bands.
- Mambo (in its earlier Cuban form) – Before the big-band New York mambo"> mambo, charangas also played early mambo-style danzones.
- Charanga is a Cuban ensemble style and musical tradition that dates back to the early 20th century. It became especially popular in the 1940s–50s and played a crucial role in the evolution of salsa, timba"> timba, and Latin jazz.
Lees meer >Contradanza is the earliest Cuban salon dance — a Cubanized evolution of European contredanse that began transforming under African rhythmic influence in the early 19th century.
Lees meer >National dance of Cuba, evolved from danza.
Lees meer >The following dances have their origin in Matanzas:
Rumba is the most African-rooted of all Cuban music and dance forms — born in the streets, courtyards, and docks of Havana and matanzas"> Matanzas in the late 19th century, with no European instruments, no salon setting, and no pretense of European propriety.
Lees meer >Mambo was Cuba's first global music explosion — the form that put Cuban rhythms on dance floors from New York to Tokyo in the late 1940s and 1950s, and the direct ancestor of the Latin big band sound.
Lees meer >