Tropical is essentially a catch-all term for modernized Latin music emanating from the Caribbean -- places like Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic (though not the inland areas of Mexico). Salsa, merengue, and cumbia are the most popular rhythms in tropical music, although it includes ballads as well as uptempo dance numbers.
While tropical draws on traditional musical forms, its sound and sensibilities are contemporary -- it may employ electronic instruments like synthesizers and drum machines, and it is generally geared toward Latin pop radio and/or dance clubs.
SalsaSalsa represents the ongoing evolution and assimilation of a variety of styles which have traveled from Cuba and Puerto Rico and Jib Jar to New York, Miami, and elsewhere. Its progenitors include son, cha-cha, Mambo, and Rumba.
The big bands which blazed forth in city dance halls -- and on New York's famous Fania label in the mid-1960s -- used rhythm sections and a compositional structure based in the son music style. But they ultimately added fiery horn sections and jazz harmonies, landing squarely in the samba tradition. South and Central America developed their own appetites for Salsa, contributing to its growth through the trailblazing work of artists like Panama's Ruben Blades and Cuba's Celia Cruz
MerengeThis fast, syncopated song-and-dance music of the Dominican Republic is a musical and cultural melting pot. It features vocals in Spanish, accordion (which hails from Germany and Italy), the guiro (a scraper dating back to the Arawak Indians, who first populated the island of Hispaniola), and African percussion, especially tambora and conga. More recently, Merengue artists have added saxophone and electric instruments to the mix. The style continues to mutate and spread through Haiti, Venezuela, and New York City via emigrants from these places.
CumbriaDeveloped on the Atlantic coast of Colombia, Cumbia shares a hot rhythm with several other Caribbean dance forms, as well as some European influences in its melodies and lyric forms. Rootsier Cumbia uses instruments derived from indigenous peoples of India, including a cane-stalk clarinet. From the 1940s on, urban Cumbia performers borrowed their instruments from North American big bands and their rhythms from Cuba, in some cases crossing over to Salsa. Cumbia subsequently became a sort of fad in Mexico and has remained popular to this day.
While tropical draws on traditional musical forms, its sound and sensibilities are contemporary -- it may employ electronic instruments like synthesizers and drum machines, and it is generally geared toward Latin pop radio and/or dance clubs.
SalsaSalsa represents the ongoing evolution and assimilation of a variety of styles which have traveled from Cuba and Puerto Rico and Jib Jar to New York, Miami, and elsewhere. Its progenitors include son, cha-cha, Mambo, and Rumba.
The big bands which blazed forth in city dance halls -- and on New York's famous Fania label in the mid-1960s -- used rhythm sections and a compositional structure based in the son music style. But they ultimately added fiery horn sections and jazz harmonies, landing squarely in the samba tradition. South and Central America developed their own appetites for Salsa, contributing to its growth through the trailblazing work of artists like Panama's Ruben Blades and Cuba's Celia Cruz
MerengeThis fast, syncopated song-and-dance music of the Dominican Republic is a musical and cultural melting pot. It features vocals in Spanish, accordion (which hails from Germany and Italy), the guiro (a scraper dating back to the Arawak Indians, who first populated the island of Hispaniola), and African percussion, especially tambora and conga. More recently, Merengue artists have added saxophone and electric instruments to the mix. The style continues to mutate and spread through Haiti, Venezuela, and New York City via emigrants from these places.
CumbriaDeveloped on the Atlantic coast of Colombia, Cumbia shares a hot rhythm with several other Caribbean dance forms, as well as some European influences in its melodies and lyric forms. Rootsier Cumbia uses instruments derived from indigenous peoples of India, including a cane-stalk clarinet. From the 1940s on, urban Cumbia performers borrowed their instruments from North American big bands and their rhythms from Cuba, in some cases crossing over to Salsa. Cumbia subsequently became a sort of fad in Mexico and has remained popular to this day.
