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A while back, Alan Lockwood posted a series of Brooklyn Rail articles describing the evolution of mambo to salsa. Links can be found further below. Here’s a brief summary to hopefully entice you to check out some Afro-Latin Jazz. From Mambo to Salsa: A Summary Afro-Latin music in New York didn’t just waltz into town—it swaggered in, slick with sweat, clad in a guayabera, and pulsing with clave. The tale of Mambo to Salsa is a saga of the clave rhythm’s restless migration, a story of musicians who carried their traditions in battered instrument cases while dodging the twin threats of commercial dilution and political blockade. It’s a tale with heroes and villains, the latter often wearing suits and sitting in boardrooms, slicing up a once-ferocious sound into sanitized crossover ambitions. Larry Harlow, Eddie Palmieri, Ray Barretto, and the Fania All Stars didn’t just play music—they battled for it. They turned grimy New York clubs into palaces of percussion, where trombones growled like cornered dogs and congas throbbed like a worried heart. The 1960s and 70s saw salsa achieve its critical mass, only to be caught in a vice—on one side, the U.S. embargo hacking off its Cuban umbilical cord, and on the other, the mainstream music industry preening its feathers and demanding a more radio-friendly sound. The result? A slicker, more palatable “salsa romantica” that left die-hard fans clutching their Tito Puente records like lifeboats in a sea of mediocrity. Yet, even as salsa was put through the marketing meat grinder, the fire refused to die. The music thrived in jazz-infused back alleys, midnight jam sessions, and the sweaty embrace of dancers who knew the real thing when they felt it. The Grupo Folklorico y Experimental Nuevayorquino took up arms against the dilution, reminding everyone where the music came from—Africa first, through Cuba, through the Bronx, straight to the bones of anyone within earshot. From mambo’s rise in 1940s dance halls to the freewheeling descargas of the 1970s and beyond, this music tells the story of immigration, struggle, and identity—told not in words, but in the thunderous slap of a conga and the high-pitched scream of a timbale. Exploited by various forces, the beat goes on, continuing the fight to preserve the integrity of the groove. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

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