page_title: Salsa music
section_title: 1990s to the present
hierarchical_section_title: Salsa music / History / 1990s to the present
caption_attribution_description: Singer Marc Anthony performs at the "In Performance at the White House: Fiesta Latina," a concert celebrating Hispanic musical heritage held on the South Lawn, Oct. 13, 2009.
context_page_description: Salsa music is a popular dance music genre that initially arose in New York City during the 1960s. Salsa is the product of various Cuban musical genres including the Afro-Cuban son montuno, guaracha, cha cha chá, mambo, and Puerto Rican plena and bomba. Latin jazz has had a significant influence on salsa arrangers, piano guajeos, and instrumental soloists.
  Salsa is primarily Cuban son, itself a fusion of Spanish canción and guitar and Afro-Cuban percussion, Salsa also occasionally incorporates elements of Latin jazz, bomba and plena. All of these non-Cuban elements are grafted onto the basic Cuban son montuno template when performed within the context of salsa.
  The first salsa bands were predominantly Cubans and Puerto Ricans. The music eventually spread throughout Colombia and the rest of the Americas. Ultimately, it became a global phenomenon. Some of the founding salsa artists were Johnny Pacheco, Celia Cruz, Rubén Blades, Richie Ray, Bobby Cruz, Ray Barretto, Willie Colón, Larry Harlow, Roberto Roena, Bobby Valentín, Eddie Palmieri, and Héctor Lavoe.
context_section_description: Producer and pianist Sergio George helped to revive salsa's commercial success in the 1990s by mixing salsa with contemporary pop styles with Puerto Rican artists like Tito Nieves, La India, and Marc Anthony. George also produced the Japanese salsa band Orquesta de la Luz. Brenda K. Starr, Son By Four, Víctor Manuelle, and the Cuban-American singer Gloria Estefan enjoyed crossover success within the Anglo-American pop market with their Latin-influenced hits, usually sung in English. More often than not, clave was not a major consideration in the composing or arranging of these hits. Sergio George is up front and unapologetic about his attitude towards clave: "Though clave is considered, it is not always the most important thing in my music. The foremost issue in my mind is marketability. If the song hits, that's what matters. When I stopped trying to impress musicians and started getting in touch with what the people on the street were listening to, I started writing hits. Some songs, especially English ones originating in the United States, are at times impossible to place in clave." As Washburne points out however, a lack of clave awareness does not always get a pass:
  Marc Anthony is a product of George's innovationist approach. As a novice to Latin music, he was propelled into band leader position with little knowledge of how the music was structured. One revealing moment came during a performance in 1994, just after he had launched his salsa career. During a piano solo he approached the timbales, picked up a stick, and attempted to play clave on the clave block along with the band. It became apparent that he had no idea where to place the rhythm. Shortly thereafter during a radio interview in San Juan Puerto Rico, he exclaimed that his commercial success proved that you did not need to know about clave to make it in Latin music. This comment caused an uproar both in Puerto Rico and New York. After receiving the bad press, Anthony refrained from discussing the subject in public, and he did not attempt to play clave on stage until he had received some private lessons.
  Salsa remained a major part of Colombian music through the 1990s, producing popular bands like Sonora Carruseles, while the singer Carlos Vives created his own style that blends salsa with vallenato and rock. Vives' popularization of vallenato-salsa led to the accordion-led vallenato style being used by mainstream pop stars such as Gloria Estefan. The city of Cali, is known as Colombia's "capital of salsa", having produced such groups as Orquesta Guayacan, Grupo Niche, songwriter Kike Santander, and  Julian Collazos, the producer of the Marco Barrientos Band. Cabijazz from Venezuela plays a unique blend of timba-like salsa with a strong jazz influence.
  The most recent innovations in salsa genre include hybrids like Latin house, salsa-merengue and salsaton, alongside salsa gorda.
caption: Marc Anthony performing at the White House (2009).
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