I've been using Facebook as a research resource for a project I'm working on: looking at salsa all over the world, with an especially keen eye on communities where salsa is not indigenous like Asia and Australia. I signed in one morning to find that Bosco had left me a question about an experience he had in India which triggered a flurry of dialogue. Here's the (edited for brevity) wall-to-wall:
[begins]
Jose María Bustos:Loo, as a musician I gotta ask you, while playing in Mumbai a woman walked up to me and said she loved my music, but why was it 'all on two' ? I glared at her and explained that there is no such thing as 'on one' or 'on two' music its all the same, but you can choose to dance it on one or on two.
Who has started this rumor that muscians actually sit down and say 'oh, lets write an 'on one' or an 'on two' track today. Its mambo, cha cha, timba whatever but never one or two. Can I get a witness on this!? or an I missing something here?
Loo Yeo:I don't go out to write songs for 'on1' or 'on2', I don't know of any artists who do. However, you can certainly take a song and interpret it in a way that certain 'clans' of dancers would associate with. I'll be brave and say that the association occurs at the dance pedagogic end.
Very interesting experience you had there! What music did you play?
Also, I'm able to give you a more thorough response via a blog article. Mind if I address it by opening using the below (above in this case) as a quote?
Jose María Bustos:
Please do, by all means! Frankly I see it being bad for salsa if dance school perpetuate this notion and bad for music sales as well. You are correct it is a dance school notion and should be nipped in the bud!
Jose María Bustos:
Johnny Cruz, Bobby Valentin, Cheo Navarro, Willie Rosario, Issac Delgado, Hector Ramos, Mulenza, Eklan...
Loo Yeo:hmm. You kept to Puerto Rican/Nuyorican salsa mainly? Was the Issac material pre-timba?
Jose María Bustos:
Dude, I play NYC style and the Issac is post Timba, as he's now amercianised himself with a more Miami sound, beat and arrangements. But I can mix it up with the best of em! Which brings me to Soneros All Stars 'La Timba Soy Yo' This is... ...my kind of Timba!!
Loo Yeo:I think I understand more about the context of the lady in Mumbai's question. NYC salsa could have been associated with On2 purely on a geographical basis; instead of understanding which musical features should be significantly prominent (irrespective of source location) which might best suit an On2 style.
[ends]
NYC style. NYC salsa.
If we're talking dance then are we referring to Eddie Torres On2? Palladium or Power 2? How about
Boogaloo? That's a style born of the great city. And
Pachanga too. Both the last two are ostensibly On1...
And is the concept of synchronising a movement with beat two specific to NYC? Is "{anything}2" a NYC trademark? What of
contratiempo or
en clave which have been Cuban phenomena for more than a century?
What sort of music is New York salsa best danced to? Is it that which simply comes from New York? Fania, RMM,
salsa dura,
salsa romántica, DLG,
Yerba Buena,
La Excelencia,
Orquesta Broadway, Wayne Gorbea?
What about
El Gran Combo or
Sonora Ponceña if they'd recorded in Puerto Rico?
Reading Mary Kent's biography of Eddie Torres featured on
http://www.eddietorres.com/salsa.html[quote]
"With no concept of timing, technique or theory, his instruction consisted of rudimentary pointers: "You hear that accent? That means you break forward with the left foot and when you hear it again, you break back." This is known as dancing on two, Eddie would soon find out.
Breaking on two meant that of a four beat measure, you stepped forward with the left foot on the second beat and on the second beat second measure you stepped back on the right foot. According to Eddie's mentor, Tito Puente, that's why beat two is so popular, because it compliments the
tumbao of the conga and the rhythm section."
[unquote]
©1995 Mary Kent. All Rights Acknowledged.
It's exactly consistent with what he and I talked about in '96 when I first started dancing his style: then branded "Street 2".
I've played a lot of Latin percussion since, and realise that the accent Eddie's talking about is the slap stroke of the
tumbao moderno on the
conga. It's played on (what European-trained musicians recognise as) beat two. New York-style
mozambique, a favoured rhythm of Eddie Palmieri, also has slap strokes on beat two; as well as on the 'and of 1' and 'and of 4' every other bar.
A caballo, also interpreted on the
conga for
pachanga, has slap strokes on beats one and three, with a hardly-audible ghost stroke on beat two. Slap strokes are generally optional in another New York favourite, the
guaguancó originally from the West Cuban ports of
Matanzas and
La Habana (the slaps would precede the open tones to add definition, and work a fill in the phrase).
This means that if we were slavishly to adhere to the
raison d'etre of Street 2, we would mainly be dancing only songs containing a
tumbao moderno and NYC
mozambiques. And hence any defensible critique of a DJ playing mainly "On2" tracks would require the critic being able to distinguish the likes of
mozambiques,
chachachás, and
guarachas from the other likes of
pachangas,
guaguancós and
songos.
Referring again to the first line of the quote from Mary Kent - I seldom come across On2 dance instructors, or On1 ones for that matter, who have a strong enough understanding of: the rhythmic structures of salsa, and the purposes which the On1 and On2 time-steps are meant to achieve, to be able to communicate this clearly to their students.
Sadly, the gap in this knowledge is papered over with the dogma '
NYC-style salsa dance is danced to NYC salsa music'.
More regretfully, this façade hides the richness of the basic time-step and how it may be varied to interpret the breadth of salsa's music. How many dancers think that there is only one way of executing the basic time-step, and that they've learned it already?
I know first-hand that the charismatic creator of "Street 2" emphasises adaptability, not rigidity. What makes him great to this very day, even when there are others who are flashier, younger and faster, is his desire to understand the
Whys and to make sure that he fulfills seriously his responsibilities as an educator - that his students are informed to the best of his ability.
An educator empowers his students to choose, and eventually to own their knowledge. I stopped dancing On2 years ago. My partners now dance with me.
I should like that the rising stars of the salsa dance-teaching scene remember that there is more to it than just the excitement of travel, glamour of performance, and the adulation at the congresses. There is the very real task of being an educator, which unarguably requires more commitment than any prolonged training for a stage show.
And I should like that their young charges continue to ask the 'why?' of them, to release their ultimate potential.
Yeo Loo Yen
