Featuring: Luques Curtis - Bass, Mauricio Herrera - Timbales, Chembo Corniel - Congas

Afro-Cuban jazz can be divided into two schools. Imagine it more like two sides of a coin. Instrumental Mambo jazz and Cubop. I want to be clear that there is a great deal of grey area in this music and it isn’t always meant to be divided up like this but it may help the communication process. Omitting Afro-Cuban 6/8, both schools of Afro-Cuban jazz are fathered by Mario Bauzá but developed differently. 

In one hand you have Instrumental Mambo jazz fathered and developed by Mario Bauzá and Machito. This is a term I first heard came from from Eddie Palmieri and describes instrumental mambos that you might hear from Bebo Valdés, Tito Puente, Peruchin, Eddie Palmieri and many more. In the early 40s, as the story goes, Mario Bauzá, the musical director for Machito and his Afro Cubans, composed a piece that incorporated jazz melodies and soloing. “Tanga” also used jazz improvisation as the main focus. 

In the other hand I like to describe Cubop as an original or primarily a bebop composition with an Afro-Cuban rhythm section or with Afro-Cuban elements in the rhythm section. In other words, the original composition would have to lean more towards the bebop side of the musical fusion. Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo, in 1946, with the George Russell composition (Cubano-Be Cubano-Bop) along with “Manteca”, “Tin Tin Deo” (1947) inspired artists like Stan Kenton, Art Blakey, Cal Tjader, Tito Puente, Cándido, Billy Taylor, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker to create new paths that changed the world of music forever.