Kubanische Rhythmen im Jazz
Coming from a background in Jazz, a structural approach towards Latin-American and more specifically Cuban music leads necessarily to a variety of questions regarding its rhythmic syntax. The key factor to the musical language of la música cubana is to under-stand, how certain elements, such as melody, bass line, piano montuno and percussion sec-tion, are traditionally arranged in relation to the timeline called clave. The basic reference chart to clave represents the root relations of all accents in an 16/8-continuum (2 x 2/2 meter in 1/8 frame units) as a starting point. During the course of interaction between the musical traditions, a timespan that encloses at least Gillespie's Manteca up to Steve Coleman's The Sign and the Seal, the understanding and creative potential became deeper and more varied, so that Latin Jazz today embodies many artful works. The transcriptions of a couple of these works reveal some rhythmic details, showing different creative roads as well as aspects of tradition and style. While The Peanut Vendor of the 30's is based on a simplified form of a Son-Montuno, the tune Secretos del Abacuá incorporates the performance of traditional ?a?igo music as well as polymetric structures, thereby merging ethnic ceremonial music with contemporary improvisational concepts. The information that is given within a variety of technical details should wipe out the mystery of formal aspects on order to gain the mystery of a deeply felt musical performance.