Rhythm and blues
In the 1940s New Orleans pianist "Professor Longhair" (Henry Roeland Byrd) was playing with Caribbean musicians, listening a lot to Perez Prado's mambo records, and absorbing and experimenting with it all. He was especially enamored with Cuban music. Michael Campbell states: "Rhythm and blues influenced by Afro-Cuban music first surfaced in New Orleans. Professor Longhair's influence was ... far reaching. Longhair's style was known locally as "rumba-boogie". Alexander Stewart states that Longhair was a key figure bridging the worlds of boogie woogie and the new style of rhythm and blues." In his composition "Misery", Longhair plays a habanera-like figure in his left hand. The deft use of triplets in the right hand is a characteristic of Longhair's style.