| The mambo is a Cuban genre of music and dance | | | | American consumption, and watched the form |
| that combines traditional Cuban music with the highly | | | | become an almost instant craze. Prado's role in |
| Americanized forms of swing and big band. | | | | composing and popularizing the form earned him the |
| It's a very syncopated type of music, a style that | | | | title "Mambo King." |
| finds its footing in rhythm as opposed to melody | | | | Typical instruments used in mambo music are the |
| (though melody, of course, plays its role). Mambo is | | | | conga drum, the bongo, timbales, claves, and a |
| always played in 4/4 time and uses an amalgamation | | | | mixture of band instruments including the trumpet, |
| of American big band instruments and those found in | | | | trombone, saxaphone, bass (usually upright bass, but |
| traditional Latin styles; mambo bands will typically | | | | sometimes an electric bass) and the piano. It is this |
| have a horn section in a addition to the very | | | | mixture of Cuban rhythmic instruments and |
| percussive bongos, timbales and congas. | | | | instruments used in big band jazz that gives the |
| Though mambo is a decidedly Cuban style, it's roots | | | | mambo it's distinctive sound. |
| are far more European than Latin. The very first | | | | Some typical mambo songs include "Papa Loves |
| mambo was based heavily on English and French | | | | Mambo", "I Saw Mommy Do The Mambo", "Mambo |
| ballroom dancing music, and it was rarely intended for | | | | Italiano" and "They Were Doin' The Mambo". |
| dancing. Though it certainly carried an inherent dance | | | | Rhythmically it is similar to, but not identical to, other |
| ability, early mambo was music for the sake of | | | | Latin-American rhythms such as the samba, tango, |
| music; no dance had been assigned to it, nor did it | | | | bossa nova, beguine, and others, but is unique |
| seem like one would be. | | | | enough to be instantly identifiable as a mambo. |
| The early mambo thrived as a piece of music alone | | | | But like most instant crazes, mambo faded out of |
| until the 1940s when Damaso Perez Prado, a Cuban | | | | American popularity nearly as quickly as it arrived. |
| bandleader, began specializing in the form. His version | | | | Though the form is still heard and danced today, it |
| of the mambo brought people to their feet and led | | | | morphed into a variety of different styles, including |
| to the famous mambo dance's creation. Prado is also | | | | the pachanga, a mambo-like dance that also faded |
| credited with bringing mambo music and it's | | | | quickly. Mambo recently saw a resurgence of |
| accompanying dance to the United States, though | | | | popularity in the late 1990s with a rock and roll based |
| the form sustained a bit of a shift as a result of the | | | | mambo revival, but that too was extremely |
| cultural change. Prado altered the mambo to make it | | | | short-lived. |
| slightly more commercial, more ready for 1950s | | | | |