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On Generic Complexes 227 ESSAYS On Generic Complexes and Other Topics in Cuban Popular Music Leonardo Acosta Translated by Daniel Whitesell and Ral Fernþndez The author of the article below, Leonardo Acosta, is a distinguished Cuban musicologist, writer, and literary critic. As a jazz musician, he ...

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On Generic Complexes and Other Topics in Cuban Popular Music Leonardo Acosta Journal of Popular Music Studies

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T he origin of Cuban music. Myt hs and Fact s Armando Rodriguez Ruidiaz T he ‘rout es’ and ‘root s’ of danzón: a crit ique of t he hist ory of a genre Het t ie Malcomson Cont radanza Cubana Het t ie Malcomson

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ESSAYS

On Generic Complexes and Other Topics in Cuban Popular Music Leonardo Acosta Translated by Daniel Whitesell and Ral Fernþndez

The author of the article below, Leonardo Acosta, is a distinguished Cuban musicologist, writer, and literary critic. As a jazz musician, he played saxophone (tenor, alto, and occasionally baritone) with all the important jazz groups in Cuba in the 1950s. He also played for popular dance bands, including a stint with the famed Giant Orchestra of Beny More´. In 1958, Acosta and a few friends, among them Frank Emilio Flynn, Cachaı´to Lo´pez, Gustavo Mas, and Walfredo de los Reyes, Jr., founded the Club Cubano de Jazz. For the next three years, the Club Cubano de Jazz sponsored jazz concerts in Havana featuring invited US jazz musicians such as Stan Getz, Philly Jo Jones, and others. In the 1960s and 1970s, Acosta worked indefatigably as a jazz musician, as a leader of several jazz ensembles, and as a promoter of jazz performances in Cuba. By the late 1970s, writing occupied most of Acosta’s time. His articles on music and literature appeared in newspapers, journals, and anthologies in Cuba, Colombia, Me´xico, Argentina, the United States, Italy, Spain, France, England, and other countries. Acosta has published more than a dozen books on music and literary criticism as well as his own fiction and poetry. Internationally, his best-known works include Mu´sica y Descolonizacio´n (1982), a theoretical analysis of the relationship between European art music and ‘‘other’’ musics of the world, and Del Tambor al Sintetizador (1983), a critical account of the evolution of Cuban music that has been translated into French and Italian and, in condensed form, into English. More recently, his book Cubano Be, Cubano Bop (2003), the product of thirty years of research and active participation in the world of jazz in Havana, was published in English by Smithsonian Institution Press. The article ‘‘On Generic Complexes . . .’’ was first published in Spanish, appearing in Clave (An˜o 4, Nu´mero 3/2002) the journal of the Instituto Cubano de la Mu´sica (released at the end of 2003). In the article,

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Acosta critiques contemporary Cuban musicologists for their uncritical adherence to inherited pronouncements of earlier generations. In particular he calls into question the usefulness of the concept of ‘‘generic complexes’’ in Cuban popular music, a concept that first surfaced in Cuban academic discourse in the early 1970s. Acosta also questions the emphasis that musicologists place on the clave rhythm and problematizes the concept of clave itself. For Acosta, the compartmentalization of Cuban popular music by means of constructs such as ‘‘generic complex’’ and even ‘‘genre’’ tends to obscure the close affinities between all types of Cuban dance music as well as the pan-Caribbeanist and Afro-religious roots of many Cuban musical forms. The article is of great significance not only because it critiques earlier approaches and calls for fresh thinking, but also because it offers the broad outlines of a new model for the evolution of Cuban popular music. In this ‘‘archeology’’ of music proposed by Acosta, the relationships between the Afro-Cuban polyrhythmic ‘‘arsenal’’ and Afro-Cuban religious and ritual manifestations and Afro-Caribbean rhythmic traditions are no longer obscured. Raul Fernandez In the attempt to develop new approaches in researching the history of Cuban popular music, we find above all problems of historiographic nature such as arbitrary dating—or dates that are reinforced arbitrarily in deference to supposedly ultimate and final authorities—or myths that are very difficult to overcome such as the one on ‘‘new rhythms’’ and their supposed ‘‘creators’’ (Acosta, ‘‘Los inventores’’). But there are also certain theoretical difficulties in musicology that—although they seem to be of little importance—in the long run are not only annoying because unfounded but also constitute a hindrance to research: one of them is the concept of ‘‘generic complexes’’ that today weighs like a ball and chain on the rumba, the son, and the danzo´n.1 Son, danzo´n, and rumba happen to be the three historical pillars of our popular danceable music, from which arise a number of variants, subgenres, hybrids, styles, and even ‘‘intergenre’’ tendencies and modalities such as mambo, danzonete, danzo´n de nuevo ritmo, guaracha-son, boleroson, and even salsa or timba, to mention only a few. The root manifestations were always considered ‘‘genres’’ or ‘‘modalities’’ of our popular music— although today some musicologists are beginning to question the very concept of genre, as we shall see. But one fine day somebody began to call them ‘‘complexes’’ (complejos), which at first seemed to be a simple question of

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terminology to be accepted or rejected, but harmless just the same. Nevertheless, what we accepted as a novelty or even a conceptual discovery has turned into a dogma, and authors from Cuba and other Spanish-speaking countries use the term repeatedly, without any previous analysis or critical reflection.2 An unnecessary term can be overlooked, but a dogma can prevent a clear understanding of the historical process that gives rise to our most deeply rooted genres and practically all of our popular music, particularly danceable music. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze dispassionately the problem of complexes—which in reality is simple enough—and to get rid of this problem in short order so that we might open the way to a historiography and a musicology that is at least complex-free. Among the different meanings found in a relatively reputable dictionary such as the Diccionario manual e ilustrado de la lengua espan˜ola, we find: ‘‘Complex (Complejo): adj. Said of what is composed of diverse elements.//m. Set or union of two or more things.’’ Although it is not much, considering the fact that the ineffable Academy is just as lavish in absurdities as it is in arrogance, we will accept in principle these two definitions, at least in gratitude for their economy and relative modesty, although they do not tell us a lot—for clearly a person ‘‘is composed of diverse elements,’’ as is a machine in general. But as we shall see, to qualify as a real complex, these ‘‘diverse elements’’ should come together under some kind of principle, order, hierarchy, or—more precisely— organization. If we observe other bigger and more specialized repertories, we will see that there are ‘‘industrial complexes,’’ such as our sugar mills (the sugar plantation is a typical agro-industrial complex), but there are also ‘‘complex numbers’’ in mathematics as well as an alarming number of complexes in psychology and psychoanalysis. The word is therefore a catchall for designating many different things that are complicated, as complex in turn is a synonym for complicated, despite the elemental simplicity that we have attributed to it. With a judgment that is perhaps more empiric than bookish, to me a complex is a set of clearly differentiated factors that assume and carry out distinct yet complementary functions, i.e., distinct functions that have a common objective. This would be the case with agro-industrial or tourist complexes, or with the cultural complexes that are so in vogue and that may consist of a cinema theater, an art gallery, a bookstore, a conference room, and more recently a video room or Internet cafe´.

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With respect to our musical complexes, I believe the term is sometimes applicable when we refer to a ‘‘rumba complex,’’ as long as we apply it to the rumba or timba as a fiesta or social activity. Because what is traditionally designated as a rumba (or timba) fiesta is an activity that implies diverse functions, including the preparation of food and drink (even served according to gender) as well as singing, dancing, and playing the drums, and that also implies the social action of inviting the neighbors in the solar or barrio and groups of players who participate in the celebration in fraternal competition with the host group (Blanco, ‘‘La fiesta cubana’’). The term is also applied strictly to musical manifestations, and it is this erroneous application that seems to have created the ‘‘complex mania.’’ When the ‘‘rumba complex’’ is identified simply or naı`vely as the sum of its principal variants (yambu´, columbia, and guaguanco´), the term is being applied inappropriately to designate what constitutes, without further detail, a genre with distinct variants, coming from common roots and with similar functions (not identical, but also not complementary nor sufficiently differentiated). The error is greater when the concept is mechanically applied to genres such as the son, and even worse, to the danzo´n. If the concept of son as a rural celebration existed in the past, it has not been used that way for some time; today, it is more common to talk of a guateque, in which you can hear a son montuno or any rural variant of the son, as well as puntos and tonadas. But the dogma tells us that what we have here is a ‘‘son complex,’’ which would consist of elements such as son montuno, changu¨´ı, sucu-sucu, son urbano, son prego´n, guarachason, etc., although there are those who reduce it to three or four, as they see fit. In this jumble, regional variants are confused with historical variants or at least ones that are clearly diachronic, because obviously the son montuno preceded the son urbano, and the son oriental comes before the son habanero. The inclusion of certain son hybrids that appear much later seems to be based more on ‘‘cocktail mixing’’ than it is on theory or logic itself. That is, temporal simultaneity (synchrony), spatial and regional diversity (created by spreading, i.e., diachronic), and the historical evolution and development (diachrony) are all mixed into one category (a complex). In addition to all this, the concept of genre itself is being questioned today, and musicologists such as Danilo Orozco suggest a different, perhaps more complicated terminology—one that is, nonetheless, more accurate.3

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The error is even greater when a ‘‘danzo´n complex’’ is conceived that would include the ‘‘genres’’ contradanza, danza, habanera, danzo´n, danzonete, mambo, and chachacha´. The first thing that sticks out is the inappropriateness of putting two genres (rumba and son) and their variants in the same category or type, all of the variants having emerged—or better yet having been discovered—around the same period (more or less developed), along with a series of supposed genres or subgenres, or whatever you want to call them, that constitute a long and gradual historical process spanning a century and a half, in which—as far as we know—each genre would generally come from the previous. In the case of the rumba and the son, one tends to establish hypothetical chronological schema, although tentatively synchronic, while in the case of the danzo´n, we are not dealing with a genre and its variants, but rather a genre and its genealogical predecessors and its descendants or derivations. Here, we have a genetic and chronological schematic of a historically documented phenomenon that in addition is not an oral tradition, but rather a written one. Hence, what we are dealing with is another category or classification. It is therefore arbitrary to select the genre name danzo´n and use it as a title for the supposed complex, for it is neither a generator of the others nor a final result. But the basic contradiction here is the matching of two more or less synchronic phenomena with another that is essentially diachronic. and there are other contradictions as well. We might say that there are two fundamental differences between the danzo´n phenomenon on the one hand and those of the son and rumba on the other: the first is that while the latter two genres are born and develop in Cuba from polyrhythms of African origin (with various European elements), the danzo´n is the result of a gradual process of criollizacio´n or cubanization of a European musical form (country dance-contredanse-contradanza). The second difference, obviously, is that here we have a music that from its origins has been written in Western notation and therefore should not be arbitrarily matched up with other music that clearly belongs to an oral tradition, and that was not written down for the first time until about the 1920s. We find other inaccuracies as well in the ‘‘genealogy’’ or supposed filiations of the ‘‘danzo´n complex,’’ for if on the one hand the family ‘‘contradanza-danza-habanera-danzo´n-danzonete,’’ for example, does not present too many problems, the mambo on the other hand does; it comes from successive grafts of rhythmic patterns of son in the final part of the danzo´n, which ends up being called mambo and finally gains

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independence as a dance genre and which cannot be considered a variant nor a ‘‘child’’ (legitimate or illegitimate) of the danzo´n. To me, it represents a kind of incredible offspring, unexpected and brilliant, originating from actual Afro-Cuban music, generated through its own dynamic in the minds and practice of some of our brightest and most innovative musicians. Said in another way, the mambo is a typical modern fusion genre that may derive its rhythmic essence from the son, but with a strong rumba resonance and characteristics of danzo´n, guajira, and jazz. As for the chachacha´, here we have another hybrid, in this case the combination of ‘‘danzo´n cantado,’’ ‘‘danzo´n de ritmo nuevo,’’ and mambo itself, and capable of incorporating other completely different modalities such as Cuban bolero and Spanish cuple´—another great creation coming from the alchemy of Cuban musicians.4 Fortunately, the theology of genre complexes has been taken with skepticism by researchers from different countries, including Cuba, where quite a few musicologists have oscillated between rejection, incredulity, and ridicule. If this were not the case, we would probably have to deal with a complex for ‘‘plena and bomba,’’ another one for ‘‘cumbia and porro,’’ and yet others for jazz, calypso, and samba. As an example, a nice Dominican merengue complex would include merengues from the South and East of the country, as well as from the Northeast Region and of course the cibaen˜o (from the northern Cibao region). Other popular dishes from this Dominican culinary complex would be the bolemengue, the merecumbe´, the perico ripiao, the merengue palo echao, and of course, the variants found outside the borders of the Dominican Republic such as the Venezuelan, Colombian, and Puerto Rican versions as well as the Haitian meringue, which some musicologists believe to be the predecessor of all the others. But all joking aside, the problem lies in the fact that the emphasis on forming complexes, whether it be fad or dogma, has serious negative consequences for the research of Cuban popular music for the not very obvious reason that the underlying unity of our danceable music and its essential African quality based on common Caribbean roots is obscured when we break up the music and its fundamental pillars into segments or try to compartmentalize it, producing separate and autonomous worlds, like ghettos. The research field becomes foggy when we attempt to divide it up in this way, and as a result, we are left with only the illusion of having solved a problem. Nothing more. Nominalism? We should remember that the three ‘‘crucial’’ genres are in turn the result of previous

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transformations, part of some other process, a process which is still not very well understood and which is characterized by empty spaces that we have only been able to fill with conjecture. When the musicologist Danilo Orozco (Nexos) refers to ‘‘proto-genres,’’ ‘‘intergenres,’’ ‘‘genre types,’’ ‘‘transition genres,’’ and practically a whole nomenclature that is new to us, the average reaction is usually one that ranges from irritation to sarcasm, as if we were dealing with a case of flatus vocis, when in reality he is providing us a solution to this historical vacuum that we have not been able to fill due to inertia,5 and it is precisely this ‘‘empty space’’—thus its transcendence—that connects our popular danceable music in two fundamental directions: with the liturgical (and secular) Afro-Cuban music on the one hand and with popular Afro-Caribbean music on the other.

Collateral Fetishes: the Cinquillo and the Clave

Furthermore, the schema of complexes reinforces other controversial ideas and misunderstandings with respect to the basic rhythm patterns of our primary genres, transformed sometimes into pure fetishes: I am referring particularly to the cinquillo danzonero and the clave sonera, which along with the guaguanco´ clave (not that of the rumba in general), have been put forth as characteristic elements of these three modalities. Here, the problem consists of separating these rhythm cells or patterns as if they were totally independent entities, each one within the corresponding ghetto in which they tend to transform each genre. The musicians themselves, basically the percussionists, show the falsity of this theoretical compartmentalization when they go from one rhythm to the other and/or combine them with astonishing speed and subtlety. This is possible because these rhythms come from the same sources, from common roots, as we have indicated. The danzo´n appears with the rhythmic figure of the cinquillo as part of a gradual and almost natural process. Cuban musicology (Carpentier, La mu´sica; Gonza´lez, Contradanzas) has shown that the cinquillo was present in Saumell’s contradanzas, along with other rhythm patterns such as the tango or tango-congo—later also called ‘‘habanera’’—rhythm. We should point out here that the presence of these patterns in the work of Manuel Saumell proves that these rhythms, proto-genres etcetera, were already being heard in the streets of Havana earlier than we have assumed. As for our cinquillo (which of course, as with everything ‘‘ours,’’ is not really ours), the primary discrepancies stem from the assumption, held by Carpentier among others, that the contradanza ‘‘criolla’’ came across from Haiti to Santiago, Cuba. Hence, the

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commonly held idea that the cinquillo was a rhythmic figure of Haitian origins invariably associated with the cocoye´ and the tumba francesa. If this were true, however, the first news of the danzo´n would have come to us from Santiago and not from Matanzas. At least this is what the most elementary logic would suggest. But the notion that the contradanza (and the cinquillo) came to Cuba exclusively via Haiti has already been successfully refuted by Zoila Lapique (‘‘Aportes franco-haitianos’’), among others. In an important study, and a real milestone in our musical historiography, Lapique convincingly argued that: . . . in the island’s Eastern Province (Departamento Oriental) the French-Haitian musical influence remained confined until shortly after the middle of the nineteenth century, when, with great jubilation, the Haitian cocoye´ cinquillos, which had become acclimated in that zone through an extended stay of more than fifty years, invaded Havana, where they found already fertile ground with that same rhythmic cell and combination—which we have also seen in the liturgical music of the C...