Afro-Cuban Jazz

Afro-Cuban jazz is the oldest form of Latin jazz. It mixes Afro-Cuban rhythms with jazz harmonies and improvisation techniques. Afro-Cuban jazz first emerged in the early 1940s with Cuban musicians Mario Bauzá and Frank Grillo "Machito" in the New York-based band Machito and His Afro-Cubans. In 1947, the collaboration of bebop innovator Dizzy Gillespie with Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo brought Afro-Cuban rhythms and instruments, especially the tumbadora and bongo, to the East Coast jazz scene. Early combinations of jazz with Cuban music, such as Dizzy and Pozo's "Manteca" and Charlie Parker and Machito's "Mangó Mangüé," were commonly referred to as "Cubop," short for Cuban bebop. During its first decades, the Afro-Cuban jazz movement was stronger in the United States than in Cuba itself.