SUPERANNO A celebration of salsa music chronicles the lives of more than forty salsa musical giants. Singers, musicians, and experts guide us around the spicy world of salsa in this educational, historic, entertaining, touching legacy from the musicians to their fans. Learn about the most important unifying element of the Hispanic culture--its music--in a departure from the more straight-laced, historical or musicological fare with more than 300 photographs.

This book is both a handbook for defining and completing a research project, and an astute introduction to the neglected history and changeable philosophy of modern social science.

In the 1920s and 30s, musicians from Latin America and the Caribbean were flocking to New York, lured by the burgeoning recording studios and lucrative entertainment venues. In the late 1940s and 50s, the big-band mambo dance scene at the famed Palladium Ballroom was the stuff of legend, while modern-day music history was being made as the masters of Afro-Cuban and jazz idiom conspired to create Cubop, the first incarnation of Latin jazz. Then, in the 1960s, as the Latino population came to exceed a million strong, a new generation of New York Latinos, mostly Puerto Ricans born and raised in the city, went on to create the music that came to be called salsa, which continues to enjoy avid popularity around the world. And now, the children of the mambo and salsa generation are contributing to the making of hip hop and reviving ancestral Afro-Caribbean forms like Cuban rumba, Puerto Rican bomba, and Dominican palo. Salsa Rising provides the first full-length historical account of Latin Music in this city guided by close critical attention to issues of tradition and experimentation, authenticity and dilution, and the often clashing roles of cultural communities and the commercial recording industry in the shaping of musical practices and tastes. It is a history not only of the music, the changing styles and practices, the innovators, venues and songs, but also of the music as part of the larger social history, ranging from immigration and urban history, to the formation of communities, to issues of colonialism, race and class as they bear on and are revealed by the trajectory of the music. Author Juan Flores brings a wide range of people in the New York Latin music field into his work, including musicians, producers, arrangers, collectors, journalists, and lay and academic scholars, enriching Salsa Rising with a unique level of engagement with and interest in Latin American communities and musicians themselves.

Includes an author Q&A and a poem by Gary Soto from the collection Red hot salsa.

The pulsing beats of salsa, merengue, and bolero are a compelling expression of Latino/a culture, but few outsiders comprehend the music's implications in larger social terms.

Arguably the world's most popular partnered social dance form, salsa's significance extends well beyond the Latino communities which gave birth to it. The growing international and cross-cultural appeal of this Latin dance form, which celebrates its mixed origins in the Caribbean and in Spanish Harlem, offers a rich site for examining issues of cultural hybridity and commodification in the context of global migration. Salsa consists of countless dance dialects enjoyed by varied communities in different locales. In short, there is not one dance called salsa, but many. Spinning Mambo into Salsa, a history of salsa dance, focuses on its evolution in three major hubs for international commercial export-New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. The book examines how commercialized salsa dance in the 1990s departed from earlier practices of Latin dance, especially 1950s mambo. Topics covered include generational differences between Palladium Era mambo and modern salsa; mid-century antecedents to modern salsa in Cuba and Puerto Rico; tension between salsa as commercial vs. cultural practice; regional differences in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami; the role of the Web in salsa commerce; and adaptations of social Latin dance for stage performance. Throughout the book, salsa dance history is linked to histories of salsa music, exposing how increased separation of the dance from its musical inspiration has precipitated major shifts in Latin dance practice. As a whole, the book dispels the belief that one version is more authentic than another by showing how competing styles came into existence and contention. Based on over 100 oral history interviews, archival research, ethnographic participant observation, and analysis of Web content and commerce, the book is rich with quotes from practitioners and detailed movement description.

An A-to-Z Guide on How to Salsafy Your Life takes you on a voyage to explore salsa dancing and the positive effects it has on us physically, mentally and spiritually.What is the purpose? To get people to dance! Who is the intended audience? Everyone that wants to learn about dancing. Why this message? Because I grew mentally and spiritually through dancing and wanted to share this great gift with other wonderful people on this planet. Why is this book different from other books? Because it is a practical guide and I felt it was the missing piece of the puzzle to becoming an even greater dancer.Do you wait to move into action? Don't wait--let the energy and passion loose. Learn, create, innovate--the time is now!Salsafy Your LifeBecause a life with dancing will make you happy!