Latin Jazz Overview: A Brief History of Latin Jazz Music

Latin jazz is a type of jazz music that swaps out straight-ahead swing-based rhythms to make way for Latin American rhythms drawn from Cuba, Brazil, and the Caribbean. A vast swath of the music is categorized as Afro-Cuban jazz, which leans heavily on clave bell patterns found in traditional Cuban music such as mambo, rumba, and son Cubano. Another subset, Afro-Brazilian jazz, borrows rhythmic patterns from samba and bossa nova.

Although Latin jazz owes a debt to the traditions of Latin rhythms, it was created by Latin-American artists who moved to New York City and injected new musical ideas into an existing jazz scene. Leading Latin jazz musicians were born in both the United States—including Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, and Dizzy Gillespie—and in Latin America—including Chano Pozo, Mongo Santamaria, and Arturo Sandoval.

Latin jazz exploded in the United States in the 1940s, but its origins date even farther back.

• Early tinges of Latin influence: Traces of Latin American influence can be heard in the music of New Orleans jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton, who used the Cuban tresillo-habanera rhythm (which he called the "Spanish tinge") on 1910s tunes like "New Orleans Blues" and "The Crave." The tresillo-habanera pattern also appears in 1914's "St. Louis Blues" by Memphis legend W.C. Handy. In 1936, "Caravan," penned by Juan Tizol and made famous by bandleader Duke Ellington, also featured a tresillo rhythmic pattern.
• The clave arrives in New York: The clave is a repeating bell pattern, or ostinato, that characterizes a great deal of Afro-Cuban music. In the late 1930s and 1940s, a number of prominent Cuban musicians—such as Machito, Graciela, Mario Bauzá, Chano Pozo, Mongo Santamaria, and Arturo Sandoval—decamped from Havana to New York City where they interacted with stars of big band music and New York's nascent bebop scene. In addition to Cuban rhythms, they brought Afro-Cuban percussion instruments such as bongos, congas, and timbales. Of this group, Mario Bauzá was particularly impactful in defining the characteristic sound of Latin jazz music.
• Buy-in from jazz stars in the United States: Latin jazz reached new heights when bebop stars like saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie embraced the genre. Gillespie famously co-composed "Manteca" in 1947 with Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo. Today the song is considered the first jazz standard to be written around a clave pattern. Gillespie would continue to mine Afro-Cuban ideas in his post-bop career. Pianist and arranger Stan Kenton also dove into Latin jazz with songs like "Machito" and "The Peanut Vendor," both released in 1946.
• Brazilian connections: Similar connections occurred between jazz artists in the United States and Brazilian musicians. Perhaps most famous was the collaboration between American saxophonist Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto. Their Grammy-winning record Getz/Gilberto merged jazz with bossa nova and turned "The Girl from Ipanema" (composed by Antônio Carlos Jobim with lyrics by Vinícius de Moraes and Norman Gimbel) into a global hit. American guitarist Charlie Byrd also made deep explorations of bossa nova with his jazz band and demonstrated how it worked as a template for improvisation. Bossa nova jazz did quite well with US audiences, while samba jazz thrived in Brazil thanks to groups like Sambalanço Trio.
• Continued presence in jazz: Latin jazz remains an integral part of the overall jazz music scene. Rare is the jazz festival that does not feature at least one Latin jazz collective, and many artists vary their sets among Latin jazz, swing-based traditional jazz, and avant-garde experimental jazz.

Latin jazz has spawned many legendary musicians.

1. 1. Mario Bauzá (1911–1993): Trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader Mario Bauzá is often credited with inventing Latin jazz as we know it. Bauzá was born in Havana but decamped for New York City where played in the Chick Webb Orchestra and collaborated with Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald early in their careers. His 1943 composition "Tangá'' is often cited as the first true Latin jazz tune. It uses a 2:3 clave pattern, which Bauzá would turn to time and again throughout his career. He also frequently employed 3:2 clave patterns, and both remain integral to the sound of Latin jazz.
2. 2. Tito Puente (1923–2000): Dubbed "El Rey de los Timbales" (The King of the Timbales), Tito Puente was born in New York City to Puerto Rican parents. In his lifetime he was a pop culture celebrity and brought Latin jazz (along with Latin American genres like mambo and cha-cha-cha) to the masses. His most famous composition is "Oye Cómo Va," which was made famous by Mexican-American guitarist Carlos Santana.
3. 3. Eddie Palmieri (1936–present): Piano legend Eddie Palmieri has helped make the piano montuno—a repeating piano ostinato based on a clave pattern—an essential part of Latin jazz. His signature sound involves "quartal harmony," which means stacking intervals of fourths to create chords with a suspended, modal character.
4. 4. Ray Barretto (1929–2006): A percussionist and bandleader of groups like Charanga La Moderna, Ray Barretto kept son Cubano (the key Cuban genre behind Afro-Cuban jazz) in the spotlight all the way into the twenty-first century. He is remembered for hits like "El Watusi" and "Cocinando."
5. 5. Cal Tjader (1925–1982): St. Louis-born Cal Tjader is often remembered as the most prominent Latin jazz musician to have no Latin American heritage. He made an early name for himself performing with Dave Brubeck, but he found his calling in Afro-Cuban jazz and later acid jazz. He won a Grammy for his 1980 record La Onda Va Bien.

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