Published thirty years ago in Venezuela, Rondón’s El Libro de la Salsa (The Book of Salsa), although one of the first publications about salsa, written during the boom of salsa in New York City, is basically unknown to the majority of salsa scholars in the United States. But thanks to the excellent work of translation by Frances R. Aparicio and Jackie White, a wider public can now appreciate Rondón’s work. Rondón, a journalist, author, and radio and television producer from Venezuela, was in the middle of the salsa boom in New York City in the 1970s. There he was able to meet and interview the big names in salsa, and to enjoy the music that inspired possibly the best work on the history of salsa.
Rondón ends his book by mentioning that this is a “map, an itinerary for a trip” (308), and hence he moves through the chapters in chronological order. The first six chapters are small chapters where he narrates the genesis of this genre. By describing the big band scene in the 1950s (chapter 1) and the subsequent reduction of the bands into charanga orchestras (chapter 2), Rondón situates the birthplace of salsa in New York City, specifically in the barrio (chapter 3). He maps the constant migration of music and people to and from the Caribbean, and explains how New York City, with its particular political, social, and economic realities served as the perfect platform for all the necessary ingredients to come together in order to help create this new popular music. For Rondón, what makes, creates, and moves salsa are the social and economic conditions of the barrio. One of his most important arguments in the book is that, while he recognizes the importance of the Cuban son as the basis of salsa, “salsa is an open form capable of representing all of the musical tendencies that came together in the urban Caribbean experience of the times. That is, again, the barrio was its only defining mark” (25).
In chapter 5, “Our (Latin) Thing,” Rondón narrates how the salsa movement began to consolidate itself thanks to the film Nuestra Cosa/Our Thing, which was a recording of a concert in the club Cheetah in August 1971. With this film the idea of salsa—how the music was supposed to sound, the composition of the orchestra, etc.—was, to a certain degree, established. More importantly, it was through this film that salsa became a profitable commodity for the recording industry. Rondón recognizes the impact of the recording industry in the development of this popular music tradition. For Rondón, “the golden age of salsa music began at this point when the record companies successfully combined what executives thought impossible: a spontaneous, freewheeling, and accessible music of high quality that was also highly profitable” (43).
The geographic stage for the boom of salsa, as already mentioned, was New York City. In chapter 6, Rondón discusses all of the elements (people, sounds, musical trends, etc.) that were already present in the city, and also the new ones that arrived just before the boom. The music produced during this stage was full of violence, both in the lyrics and in the sound: long forgotten was the clean and polished sound of the Latin big band orchestras and the charanga orchestras of the 1950s and 1960s. The music produced during this time is what now is considered salsa brava or salsa gorda.
The discussion of the salsa boom (chapter 7) begins with the story of how the music actually acquired its name. In an attempt to repeat the success of the film Nuestra Cosa/Our Thing, the producers of Fania (the principal recording company at the time) organized a concert in Yankee Stadium in 1973. The concert was not necessarily a success (it had to be cancelled because security lost control of the crowd as soon as the Fania-All-Stars orchestra began playing), but the film of the concert was turned into a documentary of the history of the music and it was called Salsa, baptizing the genre. As Rondón describes it, the salsa boom was also the cause of salsa’s demise. According to Rondón, as soon as the music was commercialized and packaged for another population (basically the music was taken outside of the barrio), the quality of the music and its “true social values” were lost (95). While in all of the chapters Rondón artfully dissects the most important contributions made by individual musicians, orchestras, composers, music executives, and anybody who had anything to do with salsa and its development, it is in chapter 7 that Rondón takes the time to fully discuss the world of salsa and its inhabitants.
In the last two chapters Rondón discusses other musical trends that developed parallel to salsa, such as folklórico and Dominican music (chapter 8), and also how other countries responded musically to the salsa boom (he pays special attention to Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Colombia). In chapter 8 he also discusses some of the trends of his time (late 1970) in salsa, mainly the salsa de consciencia (socially-conscious salsa) composed and performed by Rubén Blades. The last chapter of the book is an expanded discussion where Rondón is able to include more information on the musical trends of the past twenty-five years (including merengue and bachata) and some of the principal musicians such as Juan Luis Guerra, Gilbertito Santa Rosa, and many others. He also describes the impact of the departure of some of the principal figures of salsa, such as Tito Puente, Hector Lavoe, and Celia Cruz. Rondón concludes that we should speak of many salsas, “for the Caribbean is vast and rich, and that richness suggests a magnificent synthesis. After all, before the term was introduced, the music already existed, and after the term disappears, the music will carry on. The barrio is in the Caribbean, and it’s the ultimate owner of this song” (284).
I first became familiar with Rondón’s work in 2005 when I read the special edition of El Libro de la Salsa (2004). [1] This edition included numerous pictures of the concerts, the dance halls, the barrio, and most of, if not all, the people who are presented in the book. That edition is breathtaking in its visual documentation of the movement. In this new translated edition, while the translation is excellent, the book feels like a song without sabor: the aesthetic elements and harmony are missing, as is the “edge and passion that allows [readers] to identify with the music” (4). The current presentation does not reflect the importance of the book or its academic contribution to the scholarship on salsa and popular music. As I compare different editions of the book, I find that this translated edition does not pay homage to the true flavor of the work. Nonetheless, Rondón’s rich description of the development of salsa, his understanding of the scene, his discussion of sabor, and his recognition of the importance of the barrio make this work a must-read for all those interested in the history of salsa and Latin/Latin American popular music.
NOTES
[1] El Libro de la Salsa: Crónica de la Música del Caribe Urbano. Colombia: Ediciones B, 2004.
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[Review length: 1197 words • Review posted on December 8, 2010]