Cuban Garacha
In April 1583, when Torrequemada and the governor Gabriel de Luján were struggling for power, guitar players improvised in the streets and public squares joyful melodies accompanied by critical, ironic and even satirical and burlesque lyrics. The musicologist Alejo Carpentier indicates that in 1762, with the capture of Havana by the English, dozens full of choteo criollo (Creole grace/jest) circulated in the streets. All the ingredients of the Guaracha were already present. From the public square, the Guaracha entered the circus and then the theater at the beginning of the 19th century.
The song in the Cuban theater
In fact, during the Spanish Golden Age (16th and 17th centuries), theater writers used to interpose picaresque songs, the Jácaras (playlets or interludes), between acts. The Spanish musicologist and literary historian Emilio Cotarelo y Mori explains that originally the musicians made the audience wait while they settled in at the beginning of the shows by singing Jácaras. Sometimes these musical interludes were part of or added at the end of the interludes. As early as 1663, an entire Jácara was inserted, sometimes sung, in order to occupy the short time of the interlude. Due to the public’s lack of interest and boredom with this ruffian literature, the Jácaras disappeared and were replaced by the music and songs of the Tonadillas, which had their heyday in the mid-18th century.
This form of Iberian theater was gradually assimilated into Cuban theater during the second half of the 18th century. The first comic company in the country, the Compañía de Cómicos del País, was founded in 1800 and changed its name to Cómicos havaneros in 1801 (in 1806 according to María Teresa Linares) under the direction of Francisco Covarrubias. These troupes were to offer the beginnings of the Bufo theater, which introduced Creole characters instead of Spanish ones in Cuban works. The latter had a similar structure to the Spanish playlets and interludes, while incorporating subjects, characters or musical passages with national accents.
It is in this context that Guaracha appears as a musical genre at the end of the 18th century or the very beginning of the 19th century, taking the place of the Jácaras and taking its roots in the Tonadillas found in the theater performed in the Havana port taverns. This fast-paced music, written for the theater, accompanies funny texts with saucy allusions and full of innuendos and double meanings.
The word “guaracha
Guaracha is the name given to a couple’s dance of Spanish origin, with a lively and ternary rhythm, which we meet in 1788 alongside a series of dances like the Contradanza or the Fandango. Buena Ventura Ferrer tells us that in 1789 the public dances in Havana began with the “serious” dances like the Minuet and continued with the fashionable Contradanza. These dances were interspersed with Zapateos, Congós, Boleros and Guarachas to move the body.
The first known use of the word “guaracha” as a musical genre can be found in the Gazeta de Barcelona of August 11, 1789 (64th edition), in which a singer of Guarachas is advertised. In the 83rd edition of October 15, 1796, a Guaracha entitled “Tarántula” is mentioned. It was not until the very beginning of the following century that other traces of the Guaracha were found. It is therefore not certain that the word “guaracha” had the same meaning in the 18th century as it does at the beginning of the 19th.
According to Fernando Ortiz, the word comes from “guarache” or “huarache” which designates Mexican sandals worn by Spanish soldiers who danced the Guaracha. This dance would have been brought to Cuba from Mexico, through Spain. Others, such as Natalio Galán, think that “guaracha” comes from “guarache” which means “dancer” in the Guanche language of the Canary Islands. Zayas thinks that its origin is Andalusian. Esteban Pichardo brings it closer to the aboriginal language.
The Guaracha
The theater reflects the reality and the social and historical context of Cuba. The characters with sophisticated features become unavoidable references to society. The mulata del rumbo or negra curra (mulatto dressed in her shawl and deerskin slippers), the jaque, negrito cheche or negro curro (black man called Juan Cocullo, dressed in loose pants, a shirt tied at the stomach and deerskin slippers. His head is covered with a knotted scarf on which a hat is placed. He wears a ring in his ear), the gallego (white immigrant of Spanish origin) or the criollo guajiro (Creole peasant) are the characters par excellence. Each character is caricatured to the extreme.
Because of their ruffian language, the Guarachas are not published. However, as with everything that is forbidden, another vector of diffusion is popular word of mouth. Thus, the Guaracha quickly spread its bawdy texts. So much so that on January 20, 1801, the newspaper El Regañón, a theater critic, devoted an article to it written by Buenaventura Pascual Ferrer, who condemned the immorality of this popular Guaracha.
The Guaracha was rejected by the authors who adhered to the costumbrismo movement, which claimed to make the work of art a faithful reflection of social customs and habits. In the Diccionario provincial casi razonado de voces y frases cubanas by Esteban Pichardo, published in 1836, the Guaracha is described as a dance of the gentualla (the little people). In spite of this, the Guaracha immediately became the megaphone or media of popular diffusion. It experienced its greatest expansion at the end of the first half of the 19th century.
The term “guaracha” was definitely integrated into the Cuban popular lexicon. Likewise, the vocabulary of the guarachas is also incorporated. For example, the expression “con sandunga”, which means “with grace/creole jest”, is used in the scores of some Contradanzas instead of the traditional “allegretto con grazia”.
The Guaracha becomes an integral part of the Cuban theater. Its authors enter the theater companies. The music is no longer simply introduced in the works for its popular jokes, it is composed by the authors of the plays or the members of the companies who take advantage of their characters to express their thoughts and opinions. This humorous and satirical tone makes it possible to criticize the power in place, to describe a social fact or to ridicule a situation involving a popular character or an attitude that can be told in the picaresque manner of Creole jokes.
In 1867, La Pincipal bookstore, located in Havana’s Plaza del Vapor, published a collection of 75 ancient and modern Guarachas. The second edition, entitled Guarachas cubanas, curiosa recopilación desde las mas antiguas hasta las mas modernas, which will be published in 1882, is increased by 20 songs. The Guaracahas contained in this work use correct language, since the most criticized songs such as “La morena” or “La guabina” are not included.
The guabina
In 1868, a group of Guaracheros (including Francisco ‘Pancho’ Fernández Vilarós, Francisco Valdés Ramírez, Miguel Salas or Jacinto Valdés) who met in the Solar de Corrales No. 18 in the Habana Vieja neighborhood created the Companía de bufos habaneros. They gave birth to the Bufo theater with their first work Los negros catedráticos, performed on the stage of the Circo de Villanueva. The triumph of the Bufo theater was enormous and in the first year, eight companies were formed, including Los Habaneros, Los Caricatos and Los Bufo-Ministrels. From the second half of the 19th century, the Bufo Theater had a very large and varied repertoire of Guarachas.
On January 21, 1869, during the Ten Years’ War, Los Caricatos presented the play El perro huevero, which included the Guaracha entitled “Ya cayó” at the Villanueva Theater in Havana. It refers to the ongoing liberation war in the Oriente and is a thinly veiled attack on the colonial government and its oppressive policies. Some Spaniards reacted to this the next day, January 22, by killing a dozen people in the audience. The Bufos theaters were then closed for a few years.
Following this tragic event, Spain decides to close the Villanueva theater. The Guarachas leave the theaters and become songs of the streets and popular salons. The criticism was extended to Cuban political figures and to the measures taken by the government.
The Guaracha is built on an alternation of soloist and choir. The soloist, or sometimes a duo of soloists, usually improvises around quatrains whose verses have irregular metrics. At the end of the 19th century, the basic structure of the Guaracha underwent transformations. The alternation of verse and chorus is replaced by a musical form in two parts, a binary form. The first narrative section is sung. The second is a refrain during which the choir sets a fixed counterpoint and the soloist can more easily perform variations and improvisations, this part fulfilling the same role as what will later be the section called montuno. In general, the second part comments on the theme of the first part and draws lessons from it.
Until the end of the 19th century, the Guaracha has 2 variants: the Mulata whose unique theme is the Cuban mulatto and the Guajira which speaks about the Cuban peasant woman.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Guarachas fiercely criticized the decisions of the rulers. “El cierre a las seis” responds to the curfew measures of the dictator Menocal, “El servicio obligatorio” of the trovador Manuel Corona refers to the reaction of the people to the announcement of the mobilization for the First World War. The Guaracha is regularly played in the brothels of Havana harbor. The first recorded Guarachas seem to have been “Tin Tan” by Floro Zorilla in 1906 and “Los frijoles” by Román Martínez probably the same year.
In the mid-1930s, the septetos and conjuntos incorporated the Guaracha into their sonero repertoire. Under the influence of the Son in Havana, the Guaracha tended to speed up, the rhythm was more marked and the cinquillo structure was more often adopted. The transformation of the Guaracha’s structure opens the way to new fusions. The Guaracha began to be played alongside other musical genres and the idea of compositions in which the various styles were mixed quickly emerged, first with the juxtaposition of a montuno section at the end of the Guaracha. It is interesting to note that this form of the Guaracha had already been adopted in 1813 in the dance title El sungambelo (not to be confused with the Danza of the same name), which introduces a section similar to a montuno.
The process of fusion between Guaracha and Son is so strong that the Guaracha-Son is born, especially under the influence of the composer Benito Antonio Fernández Ortiz alias Ñico Saquito. This new style of Guaracha will then be included in a systematic way in the repertory of the big ensembles (the orchestra Julio Cueva, the conjunto Casino, the Riverside, the Kubavana…). The Guaracha becomes as dancing as the Son. On the same principle, Bienvenido Julián Gutiérrez incorporates the Rumba to the Guaracha and forms the Guaracha-Rumba. The Guaracha-Bolero, the Guaracha-Mambo or the Guaracha-Guajira were also born.
Various trovadores like Manuel Colona composed and sang Guarachas to energize their repertoire of Boleros and Canciones.
In the mid-1940s, the Guaracha became part of the repertoire of Cuban jazz bands, which ensured its diffusion on the radio, in the theater, in the cinema and in dance halls. The Guaracha managed to establish itself in the most popular places and even in the highest social strata of Cuban society. Groups such as Hermanos Palau, Casino de la Playa or the Julio Cueva orchestra with the voice of Orlando ‘Cascarita’ Guerra offered the Guaracha the possibility of crossing borders. During the 1940s and 1950s, true classics of the genre were created.
Little by little, the Guaracha takes the definition of a fast sound. Indeed, Guaracha is now only recognized by the critical aspect of its lyrics, while rhythmically it is a true Son.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Guaracha cannot compete with the new rhythms of which the American Rock and its electric instruments. It loses its popularity then knows a real artistic thinness in spite of the presence of authors like Emilio Cavailhón with the “Chica del granizado” or Rodulfo Vaillant with “La escoba barrenda” who try to maintain this musical style. Some authors mixed Guaracha with other musical styles like Osvaldo Farrés with “Un caramelo para Margot”, interpreted by Pacho Alonso at the end of the 1970s, which mixed Guaracha and Conga to form Guaracha-Conga.
In 1980, Pedro Luis Ferrer or Alejandro ‘Virulo’ García Villalón ensured the continuity of this one hundred percent Cuban style. Nowadays, Cuban current events and the island’s relationship with the world continue to provide solid subjects for mockery and amusement. The best current representatives of the guarachera flame are Los guaracheros de Oriente, Servando Díaz or Luisito Pla.
Today, Guaracha has been absorbed as a constituent element of the commercial label “Salsa”. Likewise, the vocabulary of Guaracha is present in various titles such as Por encima del nivel (also called Sandunguera) by Juan Formell.
Guaracha in the world
During the 19th century, Cuban Guarachas were exported to Spain. For Spanish musicologists, they belong to the family of music known as cantes de ida y vuelta (songs from back and forth) with the Danza, the Habanera or the Punto. The Spanish Guaracha will evolve, with its own characteristics, and will take distance with the original Guaracha.
The Guaracha will also be adopted by the gypsies of Seville in Spain and Portugal and take the name of Rumba flamenca.
During the 19th century, Cuban groups traveled to Puerto Rico, bringing with them their repertoire of Cuban songs. There too, the Guaracha was adopted, modified and integrated into the Puerto Rican culture.
The instrumentation
Originally, the Guarachas were accompanied by a guitar or any instrument of this family such as the bandurria, the laúd or the tiple and light percussions such as the guïro or the maracas, instrumentation of Spanish and African influence. Later on, a tres was added.
More recently, the instrumentation has been enriched with claves, bongos and a cencerro (bell). The trumpet is also used to enrich the melody. Congas were also added later.
The rhythm
The Guaracha is played at a fast pace. Originally it took the form of a couplet/chorus. Since the end of the 19th century, it was built in binary form (A – B) and resulted from a combination of measures in 6/8 and 2/4. Then, this structure gradually lengthened with time, tending towards a scheme A – B – A – B, without however becoming too complex.
The melody of the Guaracha is composed of short notes that are limited to the fundamental chords (tonic, dominant and subdominant).
Special thanks to Julien and his ultimate resource on cuban music and dance – this page is merely a translation.
