Mambo (music) facts for kids

Mambo is a lively style of Cuban dance music. It was first created by the orchestra Arcaño y sus Maravillas in the late 1930s. Later, Pérez Prado made it very popular with his big band sound.

Mambo started as a new, faster version of the danzón, which was another Cuban dance. This new style was called danzón-mambo. It had a special, improvised ending part. This part used musical phrases called guajeos, which came from son cubano music.

When big bands started playing mambo, they focused on these guajeos. They mixed them with sounds from swing and jazz. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, mambo became a huge "dance craze." People loved its dance in Mexico and the United States. Musicians like Pérez Prado, Tito Puente, and Tito Rodríguez helped make it famous.

In the mid-1950s, a slower dance called cha-cha-cha became more popular. But mambo still had fans into the 1960s. New styles like dengue even appeared. By the 1970s, mambo sounds were often part of salsa music.

History of Mambo

How Mambo Started in Cuba

The first ideas for mambo came from a style called danzón de nuevo ritmo. This means "danzón with a new rhythm." The orchestra Arcaño y sus Maravillas, led by Antonio Arcaño, made it well-known.

Orestes López and his brother Israel López "Cachao" were important composers for the Maravillas. They were the first to call the fast, improvised ending of the danzón a mambo. This change helped the danzón music grow and become more flexible for dancers and musicians.

Before this, in 1910, José Urfé added a montuno to his song El bombín de Barreto. A montuno is a repeated musical phrase. It brought some sounds from son music into the danzón. In the late 1930s, some musicians in Arcaño's group would say "vamos a mambear" (let's mambo). They meant playing the montuno or the final improvised part of the danzón.

Orestes López, who played the cello, created the first danzón called "Mambo" in 1938. In this song, he mixed quick, syncopated parts from the son style with improvised flute melodies.

Antonio Arcaño described mambo as a special kind of montuno. He said it had the fun rhythm and free spirit of the Cuban people. He explained how each instrument played its part. The piano starts, the flute improvises, violins play chords, the double bass adds a tumbao, and drums keep the beat.

Mambo in Mexico City (1940-1952)

Dámaso Pérez Prado was a pianist and arranger from Cuba. He moved to Havana in the early 1940s and played in nightclubs. In 1949, he went to Mexico to find more work. He became very successful with a new style of music. He also called it mambo, a name Antonio Arcaño had used before.

Pérez Prado's mambo was different. It had more influence from North American jazz. His bands were bigger, with many trumpets and saxophones. They also had double bass, drums, maracas, cowbell, congas, and bongoes.

Pérez Prado's music was for people outside Cuba. So, he used many international sounds in his songs. This included American "swing" rhythms mixed with Cuban rumba and son. He had big hits like "Mambo No. 5" and "Mambo No. 8" in 1950. Mambo became very popular in the US in the early 1950s. Pérez Prado even had a number one hit with a cha-cha-chá version of "Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)". He played many international songs, like "Cerezo Rosa" and "Tea For Two."

His mambo songs, like "Mambo No. 5," quickly became popular with a wider audience in the US.

Cuban singer Beny Moré also lived in Mexico from 1945 to 1952. He recorded mambo songs with Mexican orchestras. Some of his famous songs were "Yiri Yiri Bon" and "Bonito Y Sabroso." Beny and Perez Prado recorded 28 mambo songs together.

Mambo in New York City (1947-1960)

Mambo arrived in New York City in 1947. Soon after, mambo music and dancing became very popular. Record companies started labeling their music "mambo." Dance lessons were advertised in newspapers. New York City helped make mambo famous around the world.

In New York, mambo was played in an exciting, fancy way. The Palladium Ballroom, a famous dance hall, became known as the "temple of mambo." The best dancers in the city, like the Mambo Aces and Augie and Margo Rodriguez, danced there. Augie and Margo were still dancing 50 years later in Las Vegas.

Some of the biggest mambo dancers and bands in New York in the 1950s included: Augie & Margo, Michael Terrace & Elita, Carmen Cruz & Gene Ortiz, and Killer Joe Piro. Famous bands included Machito, Tito Rodríguez, and Jose Curbelo.

See also

In Spanish: Mambo para niños

• Rhumba
• Enrique Jorrín
• Cha-cha-cha (music)
• Tumbao
• Pachanga
• Guaracha
• Merengue