Scholarly Framework: A Personal Statement by Wilson Valentin

The underlying purpose of this Salsa tour is to provide an intepretive analysis of various musical moments in Salsa music history, with an emphasis on processual events in New York City. While there are many histories and definitions of salsa music presented by musical scholars and musicians, our account is rooted in the diasporality and transnationality of this musical genre, higlighting specific moments in salsa performance and composition.

It is important to keep in mind that all documented histories depend upon various factors -- who is telling the story, the information available, and the time and place of its telling. Of course historical constuctions are always shaped by issues of power, race, gender, age, sexuality, class, and social status of both narrators and their audiences. These factors of course shape this online account of salsa music. Our work reflects the multiplicity of salsa as a transnational cultural practice rooted in the processes of labor migration, technological and cultural exchanges, and diasporic identity formations.

The dialectical formations of salsa must incorporate the creative ways in which various historical actors -- in this case musicians, dancers, and audiences--reformulate the basic "DNA" of salsa musical arrangements, and the new meanings that accompany the transporation of this music in these localities. Also of importance are the memorical accounts of both collective and personal subjectivities and their links to social history, providing a window through which we can understand the many stories of diasporas, nations, social movements, hybridity, and local communities.

Our infrastructure is as follows:

• First, we will delineate the many definitions of salsa offered by musicians, audience participants, and musical scholars. This will also include a brief account of the historical geneology of this music, discussing the various Carribbean and Latin American musical styles that comprise its musical structure and style.
• Second, with a time frame begining at the turn of the century after the Spanish American War (1898), we will present the musical formation of salsa in the States, particularly New York City. It is important to note here that New York City was home to one of the largest Cuban and Puerto Rican comunities outside of the Caribbean since the 1900s. These communties were comprised of laborers, artists, intellectuals, and political exiles formingthe seeds for what followed in the later period of the 1950s and 60s.
• Third, the emergence of the Mambo and Bebop era of the 1950s, highligting the works of some musicians, such as Israel "Cachao" Lopez, Frank "Machito" Grillo, Mario Bauz‡, Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, and Dizzy Gillespie.
• This will be followed with the ermegence of what is commonly known as the era of ÒSalsaÓ music in the 1960s and 70s. The explosion of salsa was largely propelled by Puerto Rican and other musicians living in New York City, such as Eddie Palmieri, Ray Barretto, Larry Harlow, Richie Rey, Bobby Cruz, Manny Oquendo y Libre, Celia Cruz, Guadalupe Victoria Yoli (La Lupe), Mongo Santamaria, Willie Colon, Hector "Lavoe" Rodr’guez, Joe Cuba, Johnny Colon, Johnny Pacheco, Bobby Valent’n, Luis "Perico" Ortiz, Ruben Blades, and Tipica Ô73.
• Finally, in order to help facilitate a comprehensive discussion and understanding of this music, we offer a glossary of terms in order to assist readers and educators.

We hope that this tour will go beyond the artificial stereotypes that are often inscribed in the histories of salsa, Afro-Caribbean musics, and the national and diasporic communities of this geographical community. We are confident that the educational resources provided here will help illuminate and further provide a musical education for the student, lay person, and instructor interested in the musics of the Afro-Caribbean and its diaspora.




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