Afro-Cuban Insurrection

Afro-Cuban rhythm is kicking my butt at the moment. I grew up in what can only be generously called suburban America during the wasteland of the 70’s when homogenized disco ruled the airwaves and polyester clad sales reps poisoned dance floors with their own personal funky chicken funk. Put simply, 4/4 tempo pretty much was all I experienced.


When disco died and rock and roll returned it was the Motor City variety: Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen, and the like. Still 4/4 timing, still homogenous, and worse yet – dance had almost died at the hands of the polyester menace.

The 80’s and 90’s passed with dance totally out of the mainstream. When I finally got up the desire to learn to dance I went through the most typical channel for new dancers: ballroom. It was an awakening – I discovered rumba, cha-cha, and salsa and the Latino world of dance opened its mahogany doors.

Since then, we’ve veered mostly toward the world of swing. It’s the music both Kelly and I love not to mention one of the most common types played at the dances we attend. But the Latin rhythm has always lingered, waiting for an opportunity to be expressed. As Kelly mentioned in her previous posts that opportunity came in the past few weeks.

In the coming weeks I’ll get into the roots of Afro-Cuban rhythm and all the sundry arguments that surround its origin and implications. For this post just let me say the rhythmic structure essentially is 1-2 and 1-2-3 with the ‘and’ representing a pause. It’s also called the clave style – if you’re listening to a salsa tune and you hear the clave in the rhythm section, that’s the beat I’m talking about. The thing is, clave is present in most Latin music – but it’s buried, it flows under the music like an underground stream and you have to douse to follow its motion. American ears aren’t naturally attuned to this sort of rhythmic introspection. We like our beats fat and up front – SUV beats with chrome rims, air conditioning, and fold-down rear seats. Clave shows up at corner cafes, wearing shades and sipping strong coffee late into the night. Americans don’t trust that sort of beat – we get suspicious; there’s danger of dance insurrection in its casually halting way.