Salsa

Salsa’s origins are fluid, but scholars say the term started circulating in the 1960s to describe the new Latin musical styles New York City musicians created by fusing a “broad range of musical genres, instrumental combinations, and cultural influences.” Latin Beat magazine says musicians used to call out “salsa!” (hot sauce) during really hot jams. While most consider Cuban son montuno as salsa’s primary inspiration, New York salsa musi-cians also incorporated other elements such as Afro-Cuban percussion instruments, be-bop, Dominican merengue, bata drums from the ritual music of Cuban santeria and stylistic features from Puerto Rican bomba and plena music.