Orquesta Almendra

Latin jazz is a fusion of jazz harmony and improvisation with Afro–Latin American rhythms, song forms, and percussion. It combines the swing, bebop, and big-band traditions with clave-based grooves such as son, rumba, danzón, and mambo, and later integrates Brazilian feels like samba and bossa nova. Typical features include the use of the clave (2–3 or 3–2), piano montunos (guajeos), bass tumbao patterns, timbales cáscara, conga marcha, and call-and-response horn "mambo" figures. While the rhythm section locks into cyclical patterns, soloists improvise using the vocabulary of jazz, creating music that is both danceable and harmonically rich.

Son cubano clásico is the foundational Cuban dance-music style that crystallized in the early 20th century from eastern Cuba (Oriente) and then flourished in Havana. It blends Spanish-derived string and song forms with Afro-Cuban rhythms, organizing the music around the clave pattern, the tres guitar’s guajeos (ostinatos), and a two-part form (verso and montuno) that moves from narrative song to call-and-response coro-pregón over a propulsive groove. The classic sexteto/septeto format—tres, guitar, bongó, maracas, claves, bass (botija, marímbula, or string bass), and later trumpet—defines the signature timbre and repertoire that seeded mambo, cha-cha-chá, salsa, and much of modern Latin music.

Son cubano is a foundational Cuban genre that fuses Spanish-derived song forms and harmony with Afro-Cuban rhythms and percussion. Born in eastern Cuba (Oriente) and crystallized in Havana in the 1910s–1920s, it became the backbone of much of 20th‑century Latin popular music. Typical ensembles began as sextetos (tres, guitar, bongó, maracas, claves, and bass or marímbula) and later evolved into septetos with trumpet. Conjunto formats in the 1940s added piano, congas, and multiple horns. The music rides a son clave (in 3‑2 or 2‑3 orientation), features interlocking tres guajeos, a walking/tumbao bass that anticipates the downbeat, and call‑and‑response vocals in the montuno section. Harmonically it is rooted in I–IV–V with bluesy dominant sevenths and occasional secondary dominants. Lyrically it balances romance, everyday life, and streetwise wit, always aimed at dancing and social gathering.