c pointed out that folk and popular music, two of the most common genres of musical expression, are of special significance in identifying the social and cultural values and ideas unique to a country, a place and its people. Commenting on Cuba, Argeliers identified a body of folk, popular and classical music that has been, over time, influenced by a number of different trends. Some of these came from Spanish and non-Hispanic Europe, some from Africa, some from neighboring Caribbean and Latin American countries, some from the United States, and still more from among the multicultural peoples of Cuba. Cuban music, and dance, has reflected at all time what could be called the ôstate of the nationö and the overall interests of the Cuban peoples, in Cuba and abroad.
Philip Sweeney in The Rough Guide to Cuban Music commented that for a nation of under 11 million people, and a size less than half that of the United Kingdom, Cuba has exerted a disproportionate influence over folk and popular music for many decades. Both prior to and following the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s, Cuban folk and popular music have often been expressions of political as well as emotional, cultural and popular sentiments and ideas, a blend of the islandÆs past and present. This process of past and present is unique to Cuba. Musically and ethnically Cuba may be viewed as a mulatto nation:
the racial mixing of Caucasians, Africans, and indigenous peoples over the centuries û but, more important a cultural (mixing) involving the fusion of once distinct systems of language, religion, artistic forms, and other expression into a unique composite (Moore 1).
As part of my field trip, I learned more about the history of Cuba, from both books, talking to people, and my own observations. CubaÆs history stemmed from its strategic location in the Caribbean, developing as it became ôEuropeÆs jumping-off point to the New Worldö (Rudolph 3). The countryÆs ferti...