SAMUEL A. FLOYD JR.

Black Music in the

Circum-Caribbean

In most circum-Caribbean locations,' the influence of Africa is evident

in the musics that emerged from various mixtures of Yoruba, Bantu,
Fon, Kongo, and other African peoples with Spanish, Portuguese,
English, and French musical forms, structures, and genres. These in-
termixtures can be heard in the polyrhythms of the three bata drums
and the call-and-response invocations of Cuban Santeria ceremonies;
in the singing and drumming of Haitian vodun rituals; in the percus-
sion-driven song of Honduran dugu rites; in the three drums, metal-
lophones, and call-and-response singing of Brazilian candomble; in
the percussion-supported harmonized song of Surinam Winti; in the
polyrhythmic and cross-rhythmic virtuosity of the salves of the Do-
minican Republic's Africanized interpretations of Roman Catholic tra-
ditions; in the call-and-response, puya drum-accompanied singing of
Afro-Venezuelans; and in varieties of African-derived or African-in-
fluenced music-making from Panama, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Bel-
ize, Mexico, Peru, Jamaica, Antigua, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Nica-
ragua, Colombia, and other locations.
In studying this music, its constitution as a large, complex, and tan-
gled array of musical genres fraught with formal and stylistic con-
tradictions becomes apparent. For example, versions of merengue re-
side in the Dominican 'Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and
Venezuela, each differing in some ways from the others. Likewise,
there are various boleros in Brazil (set in 3/4), Cuba (set in 4/4), and

Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., is Director of the Center for Black Music Research at Co-
lumbia College Chicago. His most recent publications include The Power of
Black Music (Oxford University Press, 1995) and the International Dictiona y of
Black Composers (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999). He is currently complet-
ing a book-length study entitled "Music in the Black Diaspora" for Oxford.
Amertcan Mtrsic Spring 1999
0 1999 by the Board o i Trustees of the University 'of Illinois
other places. Still other quite distinctive but identically named genres
reside simultaneously in other geographical locations. While the con-
cert-hall music of this region does not present the same kind of prob-
lem, its stylistic range is wide and varied. Gerard Bkhague, in his dis-
cussion of the rise of nationalism in Latin America, treats nationalist
composers of European classical music in Brazil, Mexico, Cuba, Ven-
ezuela, Colombia, and other countries, citing their inclusion in their
works of Afro-Latin traditional music, dance rhythms, vocal charac-
teristics, and native instrument^.^ Among these nationalists (some of
whom are not mentioned by Bkhague) are the late nineteenth- and
early twentieth-century mulatto and black composers Amadeo Roldan
(1900-39) from Cuba, Juan Morel Campos (1857-96) from Puerto Rico,
and Robert Geffard (1860-94), Ludovic Lamothe (1882-1954), and Jus-
tin Elie (1883-1931), all from Haiti. Although these and other com-
posers from the Caribbean had been trained in the European way,
they brought into their European-derived musical structures elements
of negros, negrillos, guineos, negritos, and other traditional and not-so-
traditional genres of their various Latin American and West Indian
cultures.
In exploring the music of these composers and, first of all, the ver-
nacular and concert-hall musics of the greater Caribbean, I develop
an outline of a conceptual approach to the study of all of this mu-
sic-traditional, popular, and concert hall. This approach is conceived
as a means of negotiating some of the problems that arise in attempts
to understand such a large and variegated complex of genres and
cultures. I approach this subject as a nonspecialist, casting a wider
net in order to better inform myself about the music of the circum-
Caribbean and to help other nonspecialists connect with the musics
of that large geographical region.
The traditional and popular musics of the Caribbean are usually
described as products of a process known variously as syncretization,
creolization, creolite', and culture metissage, all of which signify the
hybrid character of the cultural products of the region. Often, how-
ever, what is called syncretism has been, for Africans, "something that
corresponds more to the concept of 'appropriation' in the sense of
taking over for one's own use and on one's own initiative the diverse
and even the hegemonic or imposed elements, in contrast to assum-
ing an attitude of passive eclecticism or ~ynthesis."~ Such embracing
and transforming of European form and content by African and Af-
rican-derived people was accomplished through the power of Afri-
can myth and ritual, both within and outside the ritual trappings of
these practices. For in the making of the African D i a ~ p o r athe
, ~ myths
and rituals that enslaved Africans brought with them to the Ameri-
cas served as abiding connectors to their religious past. In the Amer-
 Black Music in the Circum-Caribbean 3

icas, Africans transformed these practices into new forms fraught with
a new cultural richness and functional aesthetic power. Thus, a com-
pelling continuity existed between and among the African-derived
and -influenced musical genres of this large region-a continuity per-
petuated by African cosmologies that in some cases eventually lost
their functional value but left behind their aesthetic residue.

The Cinquillo-Tresillo Complex

In the circum-Caribbean, African-derived rituals often were, and still
are in many cases, two-part structures such as those observed by
Martha Ellen Davis, Walter F. Pitts, Alberto Pedro, and other schol-
ars. Davis gives as one instance of such structures the Haitian vodun
ceremony, which
opens with Catholic prayers of the rosary (the cantique), recited
or sung in French to invoke the spiritual presence and blessing
of European deities. Upon its conclusion, the ritual moves into
the next phase, sung in Creole and accompanied by drumming,
in which the same is done for both the African-derived or Afri-
can-influenced deities and invites them to present and express
themselves through spirit posse~sion.~
Davis suggests that such a ritual "provides the context for the pres-
ervation of both European and African cultural elements; indeed, each
may be present in conservative, even archaic, forms within single
Caribbean religious musical eventsu6
The same kind of structure governs other Afro-Caribbean rituals.
In his book Old Ship of Zion: The Afro-Baptist Ritual in the African Di-
aspora, Pitts has described the binary-structured ritual of the Afro-
Baptist church in the Caribbean as a somber devotion followed by a
more exuberant service, constituting
two distinct metaphoric frames. . . that join to produce the ritu-
al syntax, or structure. . . . By shifting the metaphoric predication
from disparagement at the ritual's beginning along a continuum
of emotion until adornment is reached at the ritual's end, the
participant is borne along an affective span during the rite, finally
being transformed from an initially miserable state of mind to one
of emotional sati~faction.~
Pitts's first frame, like Davis's, is a prayerful devotion in which Eu-
ropean language forms prevail, the second a celebratory event in
which African-American sermonic speech forms predominate, lead-
ing in some cases to possession. In the first frame, heterophonic, ho-
mophonic, lined-hymn singing prevails; in the second, percussive folk
song, polyrhythm, and ostinati p r e d ~ m i n a t eIn
. ~ this joining, the rit-
ual moves from abstractness to concreteness; in speech, song, and
behavior alike, its first phase is derived from European practices, its
second from African.
In his article "La Semana Santa Haitiano-Cubana" ("The Haitian-
Cuban Holy Week), the Afro-Cuban author Alberto Pedro describes
a two-part secular ritual that takes place among Haitians and Cubans
during preparations for Holy Week, caolina~:~
One of the participants would begin to sing a merengue. The im-
provising vocalist, after singing the first verse, which tells a sto-
ry, would be joined by the group in the refrain, establishing the
antiphonal dialogue between the soloists and the chorus, char-
acteristic of the merengue. The same person who sang would per-
form the rara dance, executing small rhythmic leaps with his feet
together and his arms extended casually from his trunk. The
dancer's steps would intensify as the music and rhythm reached
a crescendo. The text the soloist/dancer sang became shorter and
the chorus would repeat more as the music intensified.
As the song picked up speed, the dancer would turn faster,
dancing on one foot and then the other, and jumping back. He
would stop briefly, he would jump and spin in the air, falling on
one knee with his arms extended to the sky. If this step was well
executed, the crowd would sing with even more enthusiasm,
cheering the dancer on so he would dance even more spectacu-
larly, which he would do until another singer/dancer took his
place in front of the caolinas.
. . . The texts to these merengues is in creole. . . . The soloists who
danced and sang were Haitian. . . . The Cuban descendants would
sing only the chorus of the merengues and mark the beat of the
danceable numbers. The picaresque nature of the merengues con-
trasted sharply with the religious nature of Holy Week.lo
In this performance, several disparate elements converge: a song-form
called merengue; a dance called rara; call-and-response singing with-
in the context of a two-part, slow-to-fast, relaxed-to-frenzied perfor-
mance style; and the performance of popular song and dance within
the traditional structure of a sacred ritual. The two-part structure de-
scribed by Pedro, Pitts, and Davis is common throughout the Ameri-
cas in a family of "danced" religions that derive from the same or sim-
ilar sources and include, in varying degrees in various places, vodun
(Haiti), macumba and candomblk (Brazil), Santeria/Lucumi (Cuba),
Kumina (Jamaica and other locations), and Shango and Shouter rites
(Trinidad)." The latter group, Spiritual Baptists or Shouters, have
much in common with African-American charismatic sects in the
 Black Music in the Circum-Caribbean 5

United States12and share traits and practices with Afro-Cuban and

Afro-Brazilian religions.13For example, in the Trinidadian Shango and
Shouter religions, the African gods are called "powers," and mark-
ings similar to Haitian vodun v i v i s are employed as "spiritual" writ-
ing symbols that record, on the floors or walls of Shango and Shout-
er churches, divine messages received by church officials during
services. Among both sects, possession is common, as it is in Haitian
vodun and in some Protestant religions in the United States.
All of the rituals I have mentioned are accompanied by a wide va-
riety of "rhythm" instruments. The caolinas described by Pedro, for
example, are accompanied by one or two caolinas (instruments con-
sisting of a single string attached to a sound box), a vaccine (a tube,
made of material at hand, which is blown into), and several tambou-
ras (small hand drums). Sometimes rara bands include the marimba,
the lambi (small drum made of a conch shell), and a papaya-stem in-
strument. Other rites, such as vodun, may employ various rattles and
any number of small percussion instruments.
These and similar rituals exist alongside African-derived secular
dances. In the colonial period, dances with names such as calenda,
ckica, bamboula, and juba were ubiquit~us.'~ PPre Labat saw the most
popular of these, the calenda, in 1698 while visiting Martinique, and
reported that it "came from the coast of Guinea," probably Ardra, and
was "the commonest dance and the one the slaves enjoy most. . . . The
Spanish have learned it from the Negroes and they dance it all over
America just as the Negroes do." Although the calenda (also spelled
calinda, kalenda, and kaIinda)15 was banned by slave owners in parts
of the Caribbean in the same year in which Labat's comment was
published, the dance continued to be performed throughout the West
Indies.16Janheinz Jahn has described it as follows:
The spectators and those who are waiting their turn form a cir-
cle around the dancers and the drums. Some specially talented
person among them sings a song which he composes on the spur
of moment on some theme that he considers appropriate, and the
refrain, sung by all the spectators, is accompanied by hand-clap-
ping. The dancers themselves hold their arms somewhat after the
fashion of people who dance while playing castanets. They hop,
turn to right and left, approach one another until they are two
or three feet apart, and withdraw in the same step, until the
sound of the drums indicates that they should come together and
touch thighs. This is done by each pair, that is, a man and a wom-
an. It looks as if the bodies meet, although in fact it is only the
thighs that make contact. They at once pirouette back again, and
repeat the same movements.. . as often as the drum gives the
 signal, which it does several times in succession. Occasionally
they fold their arms and turn two or three times in a circle, each
time striking thighs and kissing.17
Here again we encounter the aforementioned two-part structure
(note the term "refrain"), this time within the ring,ls that counterclock-
wise-moving circle of singing and dancing participants accompanied
by drumming, which sometimes led to aesthetic and spiritual climax-
es. What is not described, however, is the nature of the drumming and
the manner in which the movements and hand clapping of the partic-
ipants were related to the rhythms of the drums. But if we extrapo-
late from other ring-derived music, including some of the secular danc-
es of the colonial and later periods, we can, appropriately, draw certain
conclusions. In a chapter entitled, "Rumba: The Meaning of the Danc-
es," Jahn mentions three dances-the calenda, the Congo-derived yuka,
and the rumba-and establishes that they were performed through-
out the Antilles.19 According to Jahn, the rumba (specifically, the
guaguanco version), a pantomime dance like the yuka, is a "represen-
tation of courtship u p to the achievement of orgasm; highly. . . styl-
ized and executed with subtle c o ~ r t e s y . "Among
~~ several Brazilian
vernacular dances, which apparently paralleled the early Caribbean
dances observed by Labat, was the lundu. The music for this dance
featured the rhythm in example 1.According to Peter Manuel, the lun-
du "appears to have expired in the early nineteenth century";21thus
comparison extrapolations are difficult, if not impossible.
The rhythms of many such Caribbean dances were multifaceted, but
most probably had in common two motives that have come to be
known as cinquillo and tresillo. Cinquillo (see ex. 2 ) has been noted by
the Cuban musicologists Emilio Grenet, Alejo Carpentier, Gerard
Behague, John Santos, Peter Manuel, and others; tresillo (ex. 3 ) has also
been noted by Grenet and Behague, as well as by large^.^^

Example 1. Rhythm for the lundu

Example 2. Rhythm for the cinquillo

Example 3. Rhythm for the tresillo

 Black Music in the Circum-Caribbean 7

Scholars have noted the presence of cinquillo in Haitian and in Cu-

ban music, showing the relationships between the musics of these two
locations. They have shown that large numbers of Haitian refugees
from the revolution of 1804 settled in Cuba, bringing with them (1)
their large drum, called tumba francesa, which its namesake Tumba
Francesa societies used in their singing and dancing activities on Sun-
days, sometimes performing throughout the day and night; (2) their
knowledge and memory of African vodun and the dance ring; and
(3) their use of the call-and-response and other song-style devices. The
Tumba Francesa societies combined their big drums with bells and
rattles to accompany call-and-response singing.2%ccording to Fred-
erick Starr, the rhythms of this society "show the direct influence of
the African cinquillo, the 'de-dum-de-durn' cadence that vitalizes and
transforms any four-beat melody under which it is placed."24On oc-
casion, "vigorous Afro-Haitian drumming" and singing also accom-
panied the stylized European colonial dances (e.g., minuet, contre-
danse) of the Haitian ref~gees.~"ome of these practices entered the
music of Cuba. "El cinquillo" became "slowly incorporated into many
folkloric genres of the island,"26perhaps with tresillo foregrounded as
one-half of the clave beat (see ex. 9a below) that quickly became par-
amount in the musics that were performed informally and within so-
cieties such as the Tumba Francesa.
Both cinquillo and tresillo, which are ubiquitous in black music-mak-
ing in the Americas, had their origins in an African time-line pattern
of sub-Saharan Africa. Included among Gerhard Kubik's "pyramid
stump" time lines,27this pattern (shown as "universal" in ex. 4) and
its variations and derivatives constitute the shortest of the African
time lines.2sSpecifically, it is an eight-pulse pattern that is frequently
found in African asymmetric time lines. Even a quick look at the two
basic rhythms that appear in this pattern, as they appear in Kubik's
notational system in which x is used to denote a stroke and a rest
(see ex. 4), will reveal them as the source, indeed the manifestations,
of the cinquillo and tresillo rhythms.
Kubik points out that in both African and African-American tradi-
tions these rhythms "appear with different starting points, i.e., re-
shuffled," and in interlocking, complementary configurations, with
the variations having "no effect upon their ~tructure."~' In one of the
"reshuffled" forms of the basic time line, we get the configuration,
with tresillo derived from it, shown in example 5. These patterns ap-
pear also in Alfons Dauer's discussion of computer-crested prolifer-
ation lists of rhythm patterns on identical time lines.30
Other evidence supports a theory that cinquillo was brought to the
Americas by Bantu peoples, privileged and refined in Haiti in the
boku3' and the rne'ringue, and spread from there to the rest of the cir-
 Notation Predominant geographical
distribution

[XX. universal

[X.XX. Guinea Coast, west-central

Africa, Zambezl valley
[X.X.XX. Central and west-central
Africa
[X.X.X.XX. (no data available)
I
[X*X*X*X*XX* X*X*X*X*X*XX.]- PygmiesoftheUpperSangha
(Central African Repubhc,
Congo)

Example 4. African time-line patterns

Example 5 . Cinquillo and tresillo figures

cum-Caribbean in the early nineteenth century.32The tresillo rhythm

often appears alongside cinquillo and may have derived from it.33
These two rhythms are so widely used throughout the circum-carib-
bean that I have chosen to recognize the entire complex of genres in
which they appear as a compelling cinquillo-tresillo rhythmic matrix,
a complex of rhythmic configurations that I view as a conceptual
frame that can be used not only for understanding the Caribbean com-
plex of musics but also for the negotiation of certain boundaries that
exist within it and for the discovery of implications for the analysis
of its music.
I do not claim that all of the black music from these and other di-
asporic locations is based on, or contains, cinquillo and tresillo ele-
ments; nor do I wish to oversimplify a phenomenon that is sometimes
much more rhythmically complex. But the number of examples of this
 Black Music in the Circum-Caribbean 9

music in which cinquillo and tresillo do appear gives some indication

of the near-ubiquity of their presence throughout the Americas. As
my examination of these rhythms in many different musical contexts
confirms, they bind together conceptually the black musics of the en-
tire Caribbean and beyond, in spite of the musical, cultural, and po-
litical divergences of the societies from which they spring.
Related to the cinquillo-tresillo matrix is Peter Manuel's notion of a
"cellular structure" that pervades much Afro-American and Afro-Car-
ibbean music. He suggests that
pieces tend to be constructed by repetition and variation of a
short musical cell or ostinato. Variety is provided by altering the
pattern or by combining it with another feature, such as a narra-
tive text. . . . Pieces using this format are open-ended, additive
entities, loosely expandable or compressible in accordance with
the desires of the performers, the audience, or the occasion. This
sort of structure contrasts with that of most European-derived
music . . . in which a song or piece has a finite, symmetrical struc-
ture, such as the thirty-two bar AABA form typical of American
popular song.34
Shabazz Fare1 Johnson and John Miller Chernoff call such cells "stan-
dard patterns," relating them to their identification of twenty-five fun-
damental figures that "could characterize and anchor almost every
African and African-American rhythm or musical style."35Example
6 shows four of their notated patterns, which are somewhat related
to, or suggestive of, cinquillo and tresillo.
The cinquillo and tresillo motives, or variations of them, are promi-
nent in the rhythmic constructions of musics all over the Caribbean.
They provide the base for multirhythmic stews in which the two
rhythms blend and contrast with one another and with other rhythms
derived from the same and similar sources. Found in the melodic lines
and in the accompanying parts of most circum-Caribbean music, they
are sometimes prominently present and at other times sparingly and
subtly employed. These rhythmic motifs can be heard to good effect
in the audio compilation Africa in America: Music from Nineteen Coun-
particularly in the examples of Martinican b212, Guadeloupe gwo
ka, and Belize (Belice) calypso musics. With their probable origins in
the ring, cinquillo and tresillo are essentially dance rhythms. Played
in different meters or reversed in their various additive constructions
and cross-rhythmic incarnations, they "dance" at a crossroads of du-
ple-triple rhythm, sometimes disguised by their interactions with oth-
er rhythms. In much Cuban music, for example, cinquillo and tresillo
are often accompanied by the rhythmically transformative beat of the
conga drum's tumbao ostinato (see ex. 7), and in many other genres
 a. Standard Duple-Time Rhythm

b. Standard Duple-Time Rhythm

c. Standard Triple-Time Rhythm

d . Rumba clav6

Example 6. Standard rhythmic cells

they all are placed at various and varying points within or across "bar
lines."37Tresillo may also appear (see ex. 8a, or even 8b). An abbrevi-
ated cinquillo may appear (as shown in ex. 8d and 8e), or in other
configurations, and clave might appear in reverse fashion (ex. 9b), or
in one of its more elaborate cdscara forms (ex. 9c). They appear vari-
ously as "Esu's rhythm," "Esu's dance," "Anansi's dance," and "Un-
cle Bouki's dance," exhibiting clear connections with such African and
African-derived mythic and rhythmic traditions and figures as signi-
fyin', off-timing teasers, and "liars" (signifyin' storytellers).
Cinquillo and tresillo rhythms exist on a continuum of variations that
range, for example, from the straight and bold pattern of the cinquil-
lo proper in the Cuban son to the subtle, reversed pattern of the North
American Negro spiritual. In many cases, cinquillo and tresillo tend
to morph, moving smoothly into and out of each other and also in
and out of rhythms derived from and related to them; this accounts
for the chameleonic character of much of the music of the cinquillo-
tresillo matrix.
In addition to these rhythmic devices, other African-derived musi-

Example 7. Tumbao ostinato

 Black Music in the Circum-Caribbean

d. f J J J J Jw

f f f
Example 8. Variations of cinquillo and tresillo

h. Reversed clave rhythm: I $ 1J 7 J J $

c cascara variation: J J oK b I J e T b
7 7 7 J'

Example 9. Clave rhythm and variations

cal practices are heard prominently and prevalently throughout the

circum-Caribbean. African song style, for example, has contributed
to the vocal character of the music. This song style, according to Alan
Lomax, is vocally relaxed, textually repetitious, lacking in melodic
embellishment, noncomplex, relaxed, cohesive, multileveled, and
leader-oriented-in other words, he says, "distinctly African," al-
though in many Caribbean locations the melodic and cadential struc-
tures may be distinctly Spanish, English, or F r e n ~ h . 'As
~ far as the
general character of the music as a whole is concerned, Peter Man-
uel has recognized that many African musical traits are still promi-
nent in contemporary Latin American and Caribbean popular musics,
including "an emphasis on rhythm and percussion; overlapping call-
and-response vocal format; linear, open-ended forms as opposed to
closed, sectional 'song' format; repetition of short melodic and/or
12 Floyd

harmonic units; frequent association of music and dance; and the use
of certain Africa-derived instruments such as conga drum~"~~-and,
I might add, batd drum and agogd, plus guiro, maracas, and other per-
cussion instruments.
For a broader and fuller understanding of this music, our knowl-
edge of these musical traits can be supplemented and illuminated by
aural examples from the Africa in America compilation of songs. The
Jamaican mento example from this set of recordings, for instance, is a
blend of African and British elements and is based on the rhythm
shown in example 10.

J J J J ; nl J n n
Example 10. Rhythm for Jamaican mento
etc.

"Canto a Chango" from Brazil has a solo-chorus call-and-response

figure laid over rhythms played by three drums and clapperless bells
that are governed by a time-line pattern. The song "Canto Winti" from
Surinam features solo-group call-and-response between women's and
men's voices and singing in thirds over cinquillo-based drum rhythms.
The Dominican "Salva" consists of a time line laid over a drummed
clave rhythm that is improvised on by other drums and a scraper play-
ing straight eighth notes over which male and female voices sing in
a call-and-response format. The Cuban columbia on this recording is
based on a drum-sounded time line accompanied by other drums and
a metallophone that plays various other patterns, over which is laid
a solo-chorus call-and-response structure. Most of this music makes
use of cinquillo, tresillo, and variations of them-matrixed rhythms that
link many circum-Caribbean genres together rhythmically and, in
some cases, structurally.

The Son Complex

In his liner notes to the album Septetos Cubanos: Sones de Cuba, Edu-
ardo Llerenas cites musicologist Argeliers Le6n's notion of a "son com-
plex" in which are included not only the son proper but also the Cu-
ban danzdn, the Colombian porro, the Haitian mkringue and Dominican
merengue, the Puerto Rican plena, and the Cuban sucu-sucu and
changuiPOlater in the same notes Llerenas refers to a bolero-son, guara-
cha-son, afro-son, pregdn-son, and other members of his son complex.
After pointing out that the primary genre of each of the named con-
structions appears in the introduction section of the son structure, he
contends also that "there is no doubt that the Cuban son has provid-
 Black Music in the Circum-Caribbean 13

ed the basic structure for the salsa."41Peter Manuel, going further,

refers to a son/guaracha/rumba c0mplex,4~both confirming and ex-
tending Leon's formulation to include other genres. What seems to
be common to all or most of these subgenres is the presence of
strummed instruments, additive rhythm, and two-part structures in
call-and-response format.
Derived from the yuka, the son,43which Grenet identified as origi-
nating in Cuba as early as the sixteenth century,44was "the first Cu-
ban musical genre to feature musical and vocal improvisation and to
incorporate [the bongo], an Afrocuban drum performed with bare
hands."45By the nineteenth century, the son was strophic, featuring
duple meter, African words and phrases, and simple I-V and I-IV-V
progressions. Between strophes, short instrumental interludes were
played on the guitar-like tres, with its three double strings, or on the
trumpet. The clave rhythm was paramount and a syncopated bass
pattern characteristic. By the late nineteenth century, the son ensem-
ble had been expanded to include-in addition to the tres-tho gui-
tar, maracas, giiiro, and botijuela (jug bass), with occasional use of cello,
flute, violin, and timbaL4'jIn its early form, the son was a flexible struc-
ture consisting of two sections (perhaps reflecting its probable lineage
in the two-part structure of Afro-Caribbean ritual): a European-ori-
ented introduction made up of four eight-syllable stanzas and an Af-
rican-oriented montuno in which some of the instrumentalists impro-
vise. In the montuno section, the bass becomes more syncopated and
a n t i ~ i p a t e d the
, ~ ~ rhythm more flexible, and the rhythmic pattern
shown in example 11 is sometimes emphasized.
Llerenas describes the sound of the son as a sonic blend of plucked
strings, bongo drumming, bass-range harmony, and clave-and-mara-
cas percussion accompaniment, and its structure as a stanza-refrain
performed in solo-chorus call-and-response format with African and
Spanish motivic elements.48Others have referred to the son as char-
acterized by additive rhythm, a textual couplet format, and a struc-
tural format comprised of alternating sections of verse and call-and-
response refrain, performed on tres, cuatro, or guitar, with marimbula,
botija (jug aerophone), bongos, claves, and other hand p e r c u ~ s i o n . ~ ~
According to musicologist Robin Moore, the Cuban danzdn descend-
ed from the danza and contradanza of polite eighteenth-century Cu-
ban society, emerged by the 1840s among working-class blacks, and
was transformed in the 1860s by middle-class blacks into a ballroom

J. J. J I J. J. J I etc.
Example 11. Rhythmic pattern in montuno section
dance.50After 1879 it became celebrated as the "National Dance of
Cuba."51Later danzones were performed by bands called orquestas tipi-
cas, which played a more developed form of the genre with three sec-
tions-introduction, clarinet trio, and brass trio-which implied the
performing ensemble's instrumentation and the means by which that
instrumentation outlined and enhanced the form of the son. While the
danzdn may have been part of the Cuban musical landscape as early
as the 1850s, the first danzo'n to be published, "Las Alturas de Simp-
son" ("Simpson Heights," the name of a neighborhood in Matanzas,
Cuba), was written in 1879 by the black composer and cornetist
Miguel Failde Perez (1852-1921).52In this frequently cited piece, the
cinquillo rhythm appears first in the third full measure, then again in
measures 5, 6, and 7 (see ex. 12), and is frequently sounded in the
accompaniment, sometimes persistently, as it is, for example, in the
brass trio sections. In traditional recorded performances, the cinquil-
lo pattern is usually played throughout the piece. "Las Alturas de Sim-
pson" may be one of many manifestations of the transition of Carib-
bean musical genres from the two-part structures spawned by
Afro-Caribbean religious rituals to three-part forms-not the ternary
forms of European dance derivation but structures of three contrast-
ing sections.
For present purposes, I have also placed within the son complex
the Brazilian samba, although the term samba is treated generically
in Brazil. I have placed it within the son complex, however tentative-
ly, because it has several characteristics in common with many sones,
including a two-part verse-chorus/call-and-response format, drums
and hand percussion, additive rhythms, and distinctive rhythmic pat-
terns frequently used in the son (see ex. 13).
The samba as a complex of ritual, choreography, and text with
music dates from colonial times.53Developing from the lundu and the
maxixe, with their syncopated ostinatos and other elements from Af-
rica and from Europe, the samba became popular in the late nine-
teenth century, was standardized in the 1920s, emerged as a ballroom
dance in the thirties, and was transformed into bossa nova in the late
fifties,54and into other refined versions that made use of jazz-like
chords and harmonic progressions played by band and orchestral in-
struments. Concurrent with these various transformations of the tra-
ditional samba there emerged Carnival sambas in duple meter and
strophic form, with short texts performed in solo-chorus call-and-re-
sponse format accompanied variously by syncopated rhythms played
on hand- and stick-played drums, friction drums, and rattles of vari-
ous kinds.
In nineteenth-century aristocratic Puerto Rican creole culture, the
European-derived danza was king;55in African-derived communities
 Black Music in the Circum-Caribbean 15

_ otra.

Example 12. "Las Alturas de Simpson" Primer Danzon

Example 13. Son rhythmic patterns

of the island, however, such as Ponce, it was the bornba, the most Af-
rican of dances and "almost exclusively a Negro t r a d i t i ~ n . Proba-
"~~
bly named after the large drum employed for its accompaniment (the
term is also used for drums generally), the songs of this genre are top-
ical and laden with double entendre. The drumming is vigorous,
played on two barrel drums-one high and one low-and the per-
formance is a challenge between an improvising dancer and a lead
drummer who must follow her steps.j7 Also out of Ponce came the
plena, the first recordings of which appeared around 1926. According
to sociologist Juan Flores, its most "towering practitioner was a black
working class Puerto Rican named Joselino Oppenheimer [1884-19291,
the first 'king' of plena, the forger of the style and creator of some of
the all-time favorites of Puerto Rican song." Known as Bumbum af-
ter "the thudding beat of his pandereta," a "tambourine-like hand
drum," Oppenheimer contributed mightily to "the musical features
of plena, with its boisterous syncopated rhythms, improvised instru-
mentation and vigorous call-and-response vocal cadences." Flores
points out also that
the real roots of plena are in the bornba. . . . All of the early plener-
us, including Bumbum, were originally bornberos, and the most
basic features of plena derive directly or indirectly from bornba. . . .
The varied musical expression of the slave population, the peas-
antry from the mountainous inland and the national elite make
up the direct context for the birth and growth of plena, while the
imported elements brought by 10s ingleses constituted a spark ig-
niting the appearance of a new genre.j8
The plena recorded in the Africa i n America audio set includes a mel-
ody containing what is known in Cuba as a danzdn clave, the rhythm
of the second measure of which is what I call a "soft" reverse cinquil-
lo (ex. 14). This rhythm is accompanied by a clave (extended tresillo
or a reduced cinquillo time line) pattern on the high drum and a ha-
banera (ex. 15) variation on the low drum. The bornba on the same re-
cording consists of vigorous drumming of patterns such as those
shown in example 16. Variations of these patterns are played on the
two barrel-shaped bornba drums, plus rattles.
On other recordings, cinquillo rhythms are played by percussion
 Black Music in the Circum-Caribbean

1imn I

Example 14. "Soft" reverse cinquillo

nn
Example 15. Habanera variation

Example 16. Bornba rhythmic patterns

instruments, particularly in the lower drums, to support the voice and

enhance the overall rhythmic structure of the performance.
At various points in the histories of the Dominican Republic and
Haiti, the Dominican merengue and the Haitian me'ringue (mereng in
Creole)-both commonly thought to have emerged as fusions of the
dance music of enslaved Africans and of European contredanse music
in folk and stylized versions-have been highly popular. The coun-
try merengue, also part of the son complex, was in its mid-nineteenth-
century form a 4 / 4 dance with an instrumentation of tambora, giiiro,
and guitar; in a salon version violins and flutes are added to the fore-
going instruments. In the late nineteenth century, the guitar was some-
times replaced by the melodeon or the accordion, depending on geo-
graphical location, and in other cases the marimba was added as a
bass instrument. Manuel describes the traditional merengue as consist-
ing of "the merengue proper, containing vocal stanzas sung over vari-
able chord patterns, and the jaleo, which generally features call-and-
response vocal and instrumental patterns sung over oscillating tonic
and dominant harmonies."j9 He cites as its "most distinctive feature"
the "fast composite rhythm produced by the continuous sixteenth-
note giiira (giiiro) pattern and the tambora ostinato." In more mod-
ern merengues, he points out, "sophistication is generally most evident
in the saxophone jaleos, which often consist of intricate, high-speed
arpeggio patterns employing staccato attack, repeated pitches and
other technically difficult effects; tight (apretado) execution of the ar-
rangements is essential." Although the Haitian me'ringue derived in
part from the confredanse, as did twentieth-century Haitian genres
such as compas, a large part of its foundation, particularly rhythm,
resides in African-derived religious and artistic expression.
The son complex also encompasses music in Mexico, where free
Africans settled as early as the Spanish conquest and lived well into
the colonial period in Veracruz, Tuxpan, and Campeche. Intermarriage
created an Afro-mestizo population, some of whose music, with its
African roots, is performed even today at a major festival called Yan-
ga. Celebrating annually the founding of the town of the same name,
which was the first free black township in the Americas, Yanga also
has a secondary purpose-to revitalize African culture in Mexico,
whose African-derived population is now tiny. Although the precise
meaning of the Mexican son is tied to its "association with a particu-
lar region or state,"60and although the three Mexican pieces record-
ed in the Africa i n America set show few traces of African influence,
cross-rhythms abound in one of the later pieces, "Son de arpa cachet-
eada," and the harp playing in another, "Son Jarocha," recalls Afri-
can kora playing. Clearly African-influenced, in my opinion, the lat-
ter son type-which Stanford says has "a particular affinity with the
Caribbean areaU6l-is found in Veracruz, one of the last strongholds
of African culture in Mexico.
Sones de Mexico, a Chicago "all-Mexican'' music ensemble special-
izing in Mexican son, includes in its CD jQue Florezca! a "Negritud"
section in which they explore, in rather free interpretations, "the in-
fluence of Black music in the [Mexican] son"62 through chilena musi-
cal practice^,^^ the use of the wooden box drum called cajdn, the pres-
ence of the harp and the marimba, and the performance of mimetic
animal dances. As in nearly all black musics of the circum-caribbe-
an, hand percussion instruments, the fresillo and cinquillo rhythm, oc-
casional hemiola, and other elements mark the six songs on the al-
bum as having been influenced by African music. "Entrada de Jarabe"
("Enter the Dance") is introduced by a bell-playing fresillo against
drums and shakers, followed by a main section in which harp, then
voices, predominate, accompanied by hand percussion, some of which
play the predominant rhythm shown in example 17. "El Toro Rabon"
("The Tailless Bull") uses small guitars called jaranas, drums, cajdn,
donkey jaw, and cowbells, and features an occasional hemiola; and
in "El Zopilote/La Iguana" ("The Buzzard and the Iguana"), a son de
tarima (platform dance), the same underlying rhythm as that in the
preceding piece is heard. At the beginning of "Zapateado/Agua-
nieve," a son jarocho (peasant dance) from Veracruz, the rhythm in
 Black Music in the Circum-Caribbean 19

example 18 is heard, then later that in example 19 appears; the feet

are used as accompanying instruments. "La Bamba," no doubt the
most famous of all sones, also features human feet as instruments, to-
gether with the bell, and a box drum plays the tresillo rhythm as an
accompaniment to the harp; a chanted poem called pregdn praises fu-
gitive slaves, and a conga drum solo is featured at the end of the verse.

n n1
Example 17. Rhythm in "Entrada de Jarabe"

JL JJ n nn

Example 18. Rhythm in "Zapateado/AguanieveU

Example 19. Later rhythm in "Zapateado/Aguanieve"

In the foregoing, I have attempted to adduce additional evidence

that a son musical complex exists and that it consists of the son prop-
er, the danzdn, and other Cuban genres; of Puerto Rican bornba and
plena; of Haitian rne'ringue and Dominican merengue; of Brazilian sam-
ba; and of other genres from throughout the Caribbean. Let us now
turn to the West Indies and the musical genres of a different musical
complex.

The Calenda Complex

In the West Indies, tresillo and cinquillo are used more sparingly and
are manifested differently from the way they are used in the son, or
they may be entirely absent. But in virtually all West Indian locations,
African-derived cultural practices are present in musical forms de-
rived from danse calenda.
Many Latin American and most West Indian musical genres prob-
ably derived from the calenda and thus could be said to form a calen-
da complex, an array of music-and-dance forms that are related to one
another through similar textual, rhythmic, and melodic tendencies.
The calenda was performed in a ring that surrounded drummers and
dancing pairs. Accompanied by singing and hand clapping, the danc-
ers, in man-woman pairs, moved about each other in various steps