It is a very famous dance music form from America which came into existence in the 1960s. Its origin is New York City and is the combination of a variety of musical forms especially Cuban music styles like Afro-Cuban mambo form, Son Montuno style, Guaracha and Cha-cha-cha music styles, Bomba and Puerto Rican plena music forms. It also includes Latin Jazz music style because the Salsa instruments like piano players, instrumental arrangers, and salsa soloists had a great influence on this music form. The main musical instruments which are being used in this music are Piano, Bongos, Trumpet, Bongos, Timbales, Congas, Cowbell, claves, trombone, Bass guitar, Double bass, Acoustic guitar, Electric guitar, Flute, Saxophone, vibraphone, Violin, Tres, Jam block, Cuatro and many more. There are also some subgenres of salsa music like Salsa dura and Salsa romantica. Despite this it has some fusion genres lso which are made by the fusion of Salsa and some other music forms. These are Salsaton, Songo-salsa, Vallenato-salsa, and Charanga – Salsa forms. The main countries and regions that are the main origin of this music form are Cuba, Colombia, Panama, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, New York City and Mexico. The mostly played instruments that are used in this music form are Conga Drums which are very famous and basic music instruments of Salsa. Salsa is mostly played in the form of a band and the earlier bands were from Cuba and Puerto Rico. Then afterwards it was spread to other countries like Puerto Rico and Colombia and then spread worldwide as a great music sensation for music lovers. Many artists came to perform this music form from different parts of the world and became legends of Salsa. So now we will talk about them.
Salsa Music Artists:
Some of the famous Salsa artists throughout the world that made this music form famous in every corner of the globe are Celia Cruz, Bobby Cruz, Ruben Blades, Richie Ray, Willie Colon, Ray Barretto, Roberto Roena, Larry Harlow, Eddie Palmieri, Bobby Valentin, Hector Lavoe and amongst them the most of the famous artist who was the creator of Fania All Stars band and made Salsa a famous music form is Johnny Pacheco. So now we will talk about some of these greatest Salsa artists here, these are:
Johnny Pacheco: He is a world famous Salsa player from Dominic Republic who was a self musician, band arranger, instruments player and composer of the famous music albums Fania All- Stars and Fania Records. He involved various music forms in his band like Cha- cha-cha, pachanga, guracha, danzon, guajira-son and son montuno. In his Salsa music labels he mostly included flute, percussion and saxophone. He got The Latin Recording Academy award and also awarded by The Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution in the Salsa music industry and also named as The Pioneer and Salsa innovator, a nine time Grammy award nominee, who made salsa a very popular music genre in the world of variety of music forms.
Bobby Cruz: He was the part of the Salsa duo of Bobby Cruz and Richie Ray, a famous salsa singer, composer, musician and was a famous religious minister too. They both made a world famous salsa duo and won record nine gold awards for their salsa music performance. Some of their famous music labels are Sonido Bestial, Aguzate, Amparo Arrebato, A Mi Manera which was a remake of the famous French song My Way, EI Diferente and MI Bandera. MI Bandera is a musical tribute to the Puerto Rican Flag and also referred to as patriotic music composition for their country.
Ruben Blades: He was a Spanish originated salsa singer, music composer, actor, politician and social activist in Panama. He mostly used Son Cubano salsa form in experiment with Latin Jazz and Cuban Nueva trova music forms and won nine Grammy and five Latin Grammy awards and also composed many hit songs like El Cantante which was a huge success and known as Hector Lavoe’s signature song of that time. He mostly used guitars, maracas and vocals in his salsa music labels. His famous salsa labels are Elektra, Sony, Fania and Columbia.
So here we read and knew about most of the famous salsa music artists of the world and explored some popular salsa music instruments and labels who made salsa most of the famous music genres in the whole world.