Don't Judge a Song By Its Title
I recently showed up for a “practice” for a performance with a band, and had submitted a salsa piece to them to learn, as requested by the organiser. The band decided it was too difficult to play and we were told that we were going to dance to “Mambo No.5” instead. There are SO many things wrong with that. There are very few times that I vehemently oppose a plan, but given my deep-rooted passion for Latin dance and music, I had to turn this on its head.
I decided not to slam the organiser for their absolute ignorance in thinking that Lou Bega’s “Mambo No.5” is considered salsa (or worse, mambo). I even got past being personally insulted by the fact that the organiser thought it would be ok to “dumb down” the music and therefore the resulting performance. Yay me for not throwing a tantrum right there, as the top 40/pop/rock band fumbled around with a clave, a warbly piano montuno and some version of a conga rhythm on a drum kit. All 48 hours before the show. It’s an excellent band mind you, but ill-prepared for the task of learning a piece of music of a genre they are not accustomed to playing for four finnicky dancers.
I don’t blame the event organiser, or the band for this mockery of Latin music. I blame TV shows like Dancing With the Stars that bastardize Latin music and feed watered-down, pumped up commercial versions of classic pieces to the masses. Call me a traditionalist, but over-produced basses, drum kits where there should be none, and synthesized pianos from the 80s have no place here. The thing that really annoys me how the general non-dancing, unaware public just eats this stuff up: awful renditions of “Oye Como Va” (probably one of the most reproduced Latin song in history) just make my skin crawl. Tito Puente would surely roll over in his grave at these injustices. To blatantly disregard the musical techniques, styles and traditions laid down by artists long gone is something of a sin to me. How someone can call “Mambo No.5” (and “Lambada”) salsa is a mystery only explained by lack of understanding of the roots of the genre.
Just because “Mambo” is in the title of a song, does NOT make it salsa. Or mambo. “Cha Cha Slide” has nothing to do with cha cha, nor does it sound like it. Just because a song is sung by a Latino artist, does NOT automatically qualify it as salsa. And finally, “salsa” and “samba” are NOT interchangeable terms.
Rant over.
:)
I decided not to slam the organiser for their absolute ignorance in thinking that Lou Bega’s “Mambo No.5” is considered salsa (or worse, mambo). I even got past being personally insulted by the fact that the organiser thought it would be ok to “dumb down” the music and therefore the resulting performance. Yay me for not throwing a tantrum right there, as the top 40/pop/rock band fumbled around with a clave, a warbly piano montuno and some version of a conga rhythm on a drum kit. All 48 hours before the show. It’s an excellent band mind you, but ill-prepared for the task of learning a piece of music of a genre they are not accustomed to playing for four finnicky dancers.
I don’t blame the event organiser, or the band for this mockery of Latin music. I blame TV shows like Dancing With the Stars that bastardize Latin music and feed watered-down, pumped up commercial versions of classic pieces to the masses. Call me a traditionalist, but over-produced basses, drum kits where there should be none, and synthesized pianos from the 80s have no place here. The thing that really annoys me how the general non-dancing, unaware public just eats this stuff up: awful renditions of “Oye Como Va” (probably one of the most reproduced Latin song in history) just make my skin crawl. Tito Puente would surely roll over in his grave at these injustices. To blatantly disregard the musical techniques, styles and traditions laid down by artists long gone is something of a sin to me. How someone can call “Mambo No.5” (and “Lambada”) salsa is a mystery only explained by lack of understanding of the roots of the genre.
Just because “Mambo” is in the title of a song, does NOT make it salsa. Or mambo. “Cha Cha Slide” has nothing to do with cha cha, nor does it sound like it. Just because a song is sung by a Latino artist, does NOT automatically qualify it as salsa. And finally, “salsa” and “samba” are NOT interchangeable terms.
Rant over.
:)
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