Arsenio Rodríguez and the Transnational Flows of Latin Popular Music

Preface

Preface THREE FACTORS LED ME to pursue research on Arsenio Rodriguez and his music. First, Dr. Robin Moore, who was my teacher at the University of California at Santa Barbara (1995-96), introduced me to the name and music of Arsenio Rodriguez. He also informed me of both his importance to Cuban and Latin music history and the lack of research on particularly the latter part of his career and life. Second, the compilation Cuban Counterpoint: History of the Son Montuno (Rounder CD 1078), produced by Morton Marks, was the first CD I bought that contained recordings by Arsenio's conjuntos. I was especially drawn to his 1966 recording of "Para bailar el montuno" (To Dance Montuno) for its melodic lyricism, funky bass line, and distorted tres. Third, the first person I made contact with and interviewed was Raul Travieso, Arsenio's brother, whose encouragement was the decisive factor in convincing me to pursue research on Arsenio's life and music. I feel that detailed musical analysis and the analysis of the interrelationship of music and dance have been largely absent in recently published social histories of Latin popular music. Also rare are critical biographies of important Latin musicians. Therefore, from the start of my research, I sought to understand the social and especially the musical aspects of Arsenio's importance. Hence, I have analyzed Arsenio's extensive recorded repertory, focusing on his son montuno style as it developed and persisted from 1940 to 1968. Although his recorded repertory forms the backbone of my musical analysis, I draw especially on the accounts of musicians, dancers, and other constituents of the dance music milieus in which Arsenio operated to gain insight on the musical, dance-related, aesthetic, social, and historical significance of his son montuno style. The observations of musicians, in particular, helped me identify and focus on the underlying musical principles and procedures that accounted for the innovativeness of his style in the 1940s and its continuing distinctiveness throughout the 1950s and 1960s. And the terms that musicians, dancers, and others used to describe or distinguish his style from the styles of his contemporaries led to a more concrete understanding of the social resonance that Arsenio's music had in the various local dance music milieus in which his conjuntos performed. My primary source for data comes from the more than eighty interviews I have conducted with more than fifty individuals (see the Copyrighted Material x Preface Bibliography). My most important contact was Arsenio's youngest brother, Raul Travieso, with whom I conducted eleven formal interviews in addition to the numerous informal conversations we had at his home and on the phone. The questions that I prepared for all of the interviews were intended to gather factual data regarding dates, places, and names relevant to the interviewees' own experiences and their relationship to Arsenio and issue-oriented data regarding the interviewees' thoughts on the trajectories of Arsenio's music, musical career, and life and his importance to the history of Cuban and Latin popular music. I thank all of these musicians and dancers for agreeing and taking the time to be interviewed. This book would not have been possible without their assistance. In addition to these interviews, I also consulted interviews conducted by other scholars and historians who graciously provided me with either their transcripts or audio and video copies of their interviews (see the Bibliography). The most significant interview I have consulted is one that was given by Arsenio with Colombian radio disc jockey Jose Luis Logradia in Los Angeles in 1964. A copy of this interview was given to me by Raul Travieso. I also found two other interviews given by Arsenio that were published in Havana's Bohemia magazine and San Juan's El Imparcial newspaper (see Cubillas 1952; Nieves Rivera 1952). In all of these three primary sources Arsenio discusses various aspects of his music and career, from which I quote throughout the chapters of this book. To substantiate and cross-reference the data collected from these interviews , I referred to government documents such as Cuban and U.S. censuses; U.S. State Department records; and local governmental studies of Havana, Matanzas, the Bronx, and East and South Central Los Angeles ; documents from Musician's Union Local 802 (New York City) and 47 (Los Angeles); and especially newspapers and magazines published in Cura~ao, Havana, San Juan, New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami. And to compile his discography, I consulted various sources including the BMG...