Professor Sue Miller

animation of my flute solo and Charanga del Norte recording of the song 'Los Problemas de Atilana

Abstract Jazz scholars and ethnomusicologists in the areas of Cuban music and Latin American music scholarship have long researched the historical roots of jazz in terms of creole culture but the influence of the orquesta típica and the Cuban charanga orquesta (or charanga francesa) has often been underplayed in jazz and popular music scholarship. This article uses music analysis of two contemporaneous early twentieth-century recordings of danzón and ragtime respectively to question the mainstream narratives of the ‘Latin’ in jazz to reveal a more complex and deep-rooted interplay of the contradanza-danzón performance traditions with those of the early ragtime orchestras of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Both idioms have their roots in military and municipal wind bands and dance ‘society’ orchestras, and a closer analysis of early twentieth-century recordings of Cuban danzón and ragtime are analysed here to reveal their many similarities. Ragtime and danzón performance share improvisational approaches, two-bar organizational timelines, structural forms, and specific performance aesthetics - all features uncovered through analysis and used here to advocate for a reconsideration of ragtime/early jazz and Afro-Caribbean music history. Key Words: Cuban danzón; orquesta típica; charanga francesa, ragtime; early jazz; improvisation;

Abstract When discussing musical change it is often the instrumentation or the fusion with another genre which is the focus of attention. Innovation within a tradition can remain unacknowledged where incremental changes over time are less obvious to the non-specialist, or if specific performance aesthetics are not taken into account. In this paper the performance practice of Afro-Cuban dance music in New York is explored, and discourses surrounding creativity brought to bear on questions surrounding innovation and stylistic development. The speed of change, the perception of these changes and the impulse to claim ownership of new styles are areas for consideration, drawing on work by Malcomson (2011), García (2006) and Flores (2016). A case study of Dominican-born Johnny Pacheco, charanga flute player and creator of the Fania All Stars, enables issues including cultural appropriation, imitation, originality and innovation to be explored within the context of típico performance in mid-twentieth-century New York. Critiqued by Juan Flores as a ‘traditionalist’ (Flores, 2016:101-102) and by Storm Roberts as a ‘revivalist’ (Roberts, 1985: 164) I demonstrate here how Pacheco’s soloing style illustrates an innovative New York típico sound rooted in the rich musical culture of the Bronx with its performance aesthetic related to but distinct from earlier Cuban role models. Key Words: típico, tradition, modernity, innovation, fusion, charanga, jazz, improvisation, Afro-Cuban dance music, salsa, Latin performance aesthetics

Album Recording available as a vinyl record and online

This multi-authored article offers accounts of how programmes for teaching music theory within the Western-notated tradition were created in two UK higher education institutions. These accounts are followed by two more discursive reflections on the nature and purpose of music education today, advocating the importance of listening skills and inclusive pedagogies. The article is framed by an introduction and conclusion contextualising the issues raised in relation to a selection of prior contributions to Music Education Research and comparing approaches to music literacy and theory teaching as represented in recent music theory conferences in the UK and the United States.

Sue Miller and her Charanga del Norte CLF (Chronic Love Foundation) Lounge Peckham, London Live Performance on 15 June 2024

Live Performance by Sue Miller and her Charanga del Norte

Lines of Influence: musical transcription as revelatory tool This paper argues that through the creation of analytical transcriptions of recorded music, lines of influence can be traced with regard to stylistic development within many popular and world music traditions. Transcription using standard Western notation can reveal cultural and creative processes contributing to a more complete history of specific musical styles and performance practices. Musical sound is demonstrated in this research to be cultural, and transcription shown to be an indispensable tool for investigating the role of influence in the development of a style. Using case studies of clave-based improvisation in Cuban dance music and its related US ‘Latin’ popular music forms, ethnographically-based and stylistically appropriate transcription demonstrates how this mode of investigation is an effective means of testing out ethnographic fieldwork; it can reveal subtle information about cultural and social history alongside insights into the creative process. Transcription is used here as a mode of investigation, one which is firmly embedded within ethnography, fieldwork and performer-as-researcher methodologies. A transcription informed by fieldwork and performance is thus a revelatory tool which highlights connections between players, recordings and performance traditions. Keywords: annotated transcription; creative process; role of influence; culture in sound; music analysis; Cuban dance music; Latin music in the USA;

Abstract The relationship between music and dance has been researched from a variety of different perspectives, as for example the work on gesture and entrainment in Indian classical music by Clayton, Moran and Leante (2013). However work in Latin music by Garcia (2006) on the relationship between social dance and groove in the work of Arsenio Rodríguez and by Benjamin Lapidus (2008) on music and dance relationships in changui are more relevant here as the focus in this research is on new modes of enquiry for understanding music and dance relationships through creative practice, exploring how cultural history is embedded in musical movement. Through a practice-led project based on the analysis of a live performance on Cuban television of ‘Los Problemas de Atilana’ by Orquesta Aragón in the early 1960s , musical gestures and melodies are shown to be embodied in the shared memories of a community bound by common cultural experience. The dynamic relationship between improvised music and dance is investigated through artistic practice as I work in close collaboration with professional Cuban dancer turned animator Guillermo Davis, a former dancer with the dance company Companía Danza Libre in Guantánamo city and later with Charanga del Norte in the UK (2008-2011). The interplay of social dance, Afro-Cuban culture, the charanga flute style of improvisation and the individual ingenuity of flautist Richard Egües and dancer Rafael Bacallao are researched initially through musical and visual analysis of the Aragón performance on video. Researc findings to date are presented in text, audio (charanga del norte recording and my own improvisation based on the musical gestures of the original solo and musical notation (annotated scores). The plan is to develop this work through an animation video dictionary of musical gesture related to a final animation film set to the new recording of ‘Atilana’ by my band Charanga del Norte. There are few detailed academic analyses of socially and culturally bound improvisation and dance forms in vernacular traditions and this project goes some way to addressing this by demonstrating how examples of musical/dance gestures in one song can shed light on social and cultural history and reveal innate as well as culturally-bound relationships between music and dance. Aragón’s live performance thus provides a window onto a certain epoque, reveals a shared cultural history between musicans, dancers and audience, and demonstrates the interrelated nature of music and dance. Key words: improvisation, embodiment, interaction, musician and dancer dynamics, Cuban dance music, popular culture, practice-led research

Panel: Sharing Conceptual Frames across Disciplines Abstract As a performer of Cuban dance music I have worked with Cuban and Latin American dancers on various collaborative projects over the years and these have often ended up as commissioned compositions and recordings rather than as true equal interdisciplinary collaborations. I am now working on a practice-as-research project with Cuban dancer-turned-animator Guillermo Davis with a view to avoiding these pitfalls. Guillermo danced with my group Charanga del Norte for many years but can no longer dance as a professional due to illness and has turned his extensive dance knowledge into working on movement through animation film. We are therefore channelling our music and dance specialisms through the new medium of animation. As a starting point we are analysing documentary footage of Orquesta Aragón performing on Cuban television in the 1950s and ‘60s, collating our findings through the media of video, animation film, annotated musical transcription and audio recordings. We are simultaneously creating a data set of musical movement for the final animation so that these musical gestures are then mapped on to specific dance gestures and physical movements of the characters to be animated. The resulting film will be shown in film festivals but also in live performance where musicians will accompany and improvise to the film. Finding ways of working together has so far involved working mainly in Spanish as we share and explain our very different perspectives on the relationship between music and dance. This mixed media approach enables deeper reflection than our previous live collaborations and we are exploring new ways to understand our intuitive practice more analytically whilst still producing artistic work. Representing our research findings creatively through animation film is a new mode of collaboration designed to negotiate traditional conceptual frameworks and uncover truths about music and dance correlations creatively.

Este articulo era presentado en el coloquio Internacional Danzón Habana en 2009 donde relaté la historia de mi grupo Charanga del Norte mientras de hablar de mis investigaciones posgrados en el estilo de la flauta cubana que formaban parte de mi doctorado en la Universidad de Leeds en el Reino Unido (emprendido entre 2006-2010 a tiempo parcial mientras trabajando como músico profesional). Presenté obras interpretadas por mi orquesta, Charanga del Norte, en videos y en imágenes, mostrando mi grupo charanga en concierto a través de los diez años de su existencia (desde 1998). Traté de explicar como empecé mi orquesta, la influencia tremenda de la Orquesta Aragón y el flautista Richard Egües y mis estudios en la improvisación por dentro de la formación charanga

Various terms are used for improvisation in Cuban dance music and help define the distinct styles of improvisation adopted by performers. For example, florear, literally meaning 'to make flowery', is often (but not solely) used in the context of danzones where embellishment of pre-composed melodic material is common. Mambear refers to strong, rhythmic improvising which takes place over repeated vocal choruses. Inspiraciones are short improvisations usually played between call-and-response coros. Descargar ('to release' or 'offload’) is used in more informal 'jam' sessions but appears to have its origins in Afro-Cuban religious ritual. Another term, montunear, has the connotation of 'grooving'. Flute players in charanga orchestras of the early twentieth century took the florear approach to improvisation, combining it with a rubatiando or rhythmically free interpretation. Conversely, with the appearance of the danzones de nuevo ritmo, the approach taken by flute players from the 1940s onwards broadly changed from a romantic, embroidered style to a more rhythmic one, influenced by the son and Afro-Cuban forms. Additionally many believe the flute player Richard Egües from Orquesta Aragón to have revolutionised the charanga flute style much in the same way as Louis Armstrong heralded the era of the jazz soloist. Here I demonstrate how the 'classic' charanga tradition changed and how these different approaches to improvisation (florear versus montunear) came about through both historical processes and through the influence of key players such as Antonio Arcaño, José Fajardo and Richard Egües.

Chapter Abstract: That Serge Gainsbourg made use of Cuban music on recordings such as ‘Mambo Miam Miam’ (mambo), in his film soundtracks ‘L’Eau á la Bouche’ and ‘Cha Cha Cha du Loup’ (both chachachás), and ‘Couleur Café’ (Cuban son) on the Gainsbourg Percussions album, is well known. Perhaps less explored, at least in terms of musical influence, is Gainsbourg’s background as a performer and musical director within the Paris nightclub scene and the important role his father Joseph Ginsburg had on his musical development and career. This chapter is therefore a musical investigation into the influence of both transnational Cuban music and the pan-Caribbean popular music-making context of Paris on Gainsbourg’s Latin-influenced music. Both Joseph Ginsburg and Serge Gainsbourg were integral parts of the Paris nightclub scene and the history of live music in Paris therefore holds the key to understanding Gainsbourg’s eclectic artistic output. Musical analysis of Gainsbourg’s Cuban-influenced recordings reveals not only his overt use of Afro-Cuban elements but also uncovers subtle lines of influence that are rooted in the more típico legacy of the grassroots culture of ‘Latin’ music in Paris. In the 1930s La Cabane Cubaine featured a house band Orchestre Typique Castellanos which lasted up until the second world war and in 1941-42 Joseph Ginsberg was the regular pianist there. The venue, Melody’s Bar, housed another influential Caribbean band led by Cuban Don Emilio Barreto which also included a Jewish pianist, Raymond Gottlieb. Cuban flautist and saxophonist Hériberto ‘Filiberto’ Rico was also in the Barreto band himself before creating his own group, Rico’s Creole Band, which performed an eclectic mix of Cuban and French Caribbean styles at La Coupole in Montparnasse for over thirty years. Gainsbourg’s Latin influences, I argue, can be traced, via musical analysis, to these grassroots connections, related as they are to the transnational influence of Cuban music from the 1920s and ‘30s through to the mid 1960s. How this live scene interacted with the production side of Gainsbourg’s recordings is then examined in order to determine the extent of Gainsbourg’s understanding of clave-based ‘Latin’ music.

On Saturday 24 November 2018 Charanga del Norte perform at at the end of the Latin American Music Seminar day at Senate House, London, Live and Unplugged the band start their 20th anniversary events with this performance. The music begins at the end of a day of presentations on aspects of Latin American and Caribbean music. Dr Sue Miller will be talking about her next book ‘Improvising Sabor: Afro-Cuban Dance Music in New York (University Press of Mississippi, 2019), discussing in particular the pachanga. The band will be performing US-based Cuban dance music including the pachanga and Latin boogaloo!

En este articulo el estilo solista de Richard Egües se analiza en detalle mediante el análisis armónico y temático tradicional. El desarrollo secuencial y motívico desempeña un papel central en la improvisación de la flauta charanga, y el vocabulario estilístico se describe y analiza aquí en términos de los grados de la escala, la función de acordes, las relaciones entre la tónica y las notas dominantes, ornamentación, acentuación, motivos repetidos, la clave, fraseo de llamada y respuesta, y tesitura estructural. Las transcripciones de solos de flauta de Egües en la Orquesta Aragón se examinan detenidamente aquí para demostrar el estilo melódico de improvisación de Egües y demostrar su creatividad y virtuosismo que lo convierten en el principal exponente del estilo de improvisación de la flauta charanga.

Part of Arts Council of England funded Tour

This website hosts research outputs from a British Academy funded project that took place between 2018 and 2020.

The history of Cuban music, and related transnational Latin music forms, has been shaped by the recording industry and its role in the worldwide diffusion of vernacular musics. Despite the global influence of Cuban music, over the last century, very little scholarly research into its recorded production exists. This chapter reflects on a practice-led research project which examined the recording process of Cuban dance music in the mid-twentieth century. Using a combination of ethnomusicological fieldwork, recording experiments, and music analysis, new insights were gained into how performance aesthetics can be defined in relation to live and recorded performance, and into the ways in which performance practice is affected by both technological constraints and innovations. The recorded past, moreover, can also reveal aspects of contemporary music practice and musicianship which differ from those of the past, prompting critical re-evaluations of current practice in performance, research, and music education. This chapter concludes with recommendations for widening the music curriculum not in a tokenistic way but through integrated and playful experimental approaches that allow for the simultaneous acquisition of core musicianship skills, creative improvisational abilities, and contextual knowledge of vernacular non-Anglophone popular musics.

Piano, percussion and flute trio performing Cuban danzones for Dr Hettie Malcomson's book launch 'Danzón Days' at Cambridge University.

Live performance and a Cuban music workshop open to the public

Performance at Club 85 Hitchin as part of Charanga del Norte's UK Arts Council funded Tour

The widespread acceptance of Jelly Roll Morton’s ‘Spanish Tinge’ as an added ingredient to ragtime (to create jazz) has tended to marginalise circum-Caribbean influence in the development of African American musical forms. Updating John Storm Robert’s work The Latin Tinge, circum-Caribbean influence is here brought to bear on the analysis of ragtime in order to recontextualize the histories of both African American and Afro-Cuban musical forms, and to critique the privileging of son and jazz as representative national music and dance idioms. The styles of contradanza, habanera, tango and danzón are analysed here to reveal their presence in ragtime and to demonstrate how ‘Latin’ musical elements and performance practices became hidden ingredients in ragtime and early jazz. The performance aesthetics of Afro-Cuban music are explored in order to reveal fundamental differences and similarities between African American and Afro-Cuban dance music performance practices, leading also to a consideration of Samuel Floyd’s concept of Call-Response, Henry Louis Gates’ Signifyin’ theory and ideas from Kofi Agawu’s work on African music in order to argue the case for a re-evaluation of the so-called ‘Latin/Spanish Tinge.’ Rather than seeing ‘Latin’ music as something ‘added’ to ragtime and jazz simply in the form of the habanera rhythm in the bass/piano left hand, I argue that ragtime as performed by orchestrated ragtime bands and syncopated dance orchestras is more closely linked to the contradanza, habanera, ritmo de tango/congo and danzón styles played by contemporaneous Cuban orquesta típicas, charangas and municipal wind/brass bands. Likewise relationships between African American and Afro-Cuban vernacular and religious music and dance forms interrelate in complex ways. For example dance movements in the Cuban danzón have their parallel in the Cakewalk demonstrating how transnational musical movements relate closely to an African aesthetic on the one hand, and to culturally embodied histories of slavery and resistance on the other.

Compact Disc Recording of EP Charanga Time, featuring arrangements and improvisations by the bandleader Sue Miller and recorded by members of her band Charanga del Norte.

Sue Miller and her 12-piece charanga orquesta perform at Leeds venue Seven Arts on Saturday 28 October 2017 A live music performance showcasing new arrangements by Sue Miller as performed by her band Charanga del Norte. The repertoire is featured in Miller's forthcoming book 'Improvising Sabor: Afro-Cuban Dance Music in New York.'

Various terms are used for improvisation in Cuban dance music and help define the distinct styles of improvisation adopted by performers. For example, florear, literally meaning 'to make flowery', is often (but not solely) used in the context of danzones where embellishment of pre-composed melodic material is common. Mambear refers to strong, rhythmic improvising which takes place over repeated vocal choruses. Inspiraciones are short improvisations usually played between call-and-response coros. Descargar ('to release' or 'offload’) is used in more informal 'jam' sessions but appears to have its origins in Afro-Cuban religious ritual. Another term, montunear, has the connotation of 'grooving'. Flute players in charanga orchestras of the early twentieth century took the florear approach to improvisation, combining it with a rubatiando or rhythmically free interpretation. Conversely, with the appearance of the danzones de nuevo ritmo, the approach taken by flute players from the 1940s onwards broadly changed from a romantic, embroidered style to a more rhythmic one, influenced by the son and Afro-Cuban forms. Additionally many believe the flute player Richard Egües from Orquesta Aragón to have revolutionised the charanga flute style much in the same way as Louis Armstrong heralded the era of the jazz soloist. Here I demonstrate how the 'classic' charanga tradition changed and how these different approaches to improvisation (florear versus montunear) came about through both historical processes and through the influence of key players such as Antonio Arcaño, José Fajardo and Richard Egües.

Abstract In this article the performance practice of Afro-Cuban dance music is explored and discourses surrounding creativity brought to bear on questions surrounding innovation and stylistic development. A case study of Dominican-born Johnny Pacheco, charanga flute player and co-creator of the term ‘salsa,’ enables issues including imitation, innovation and cultural appropriation to be explored within the context of típico charanga performance in mid-twentieth-century New York.

At a matinee performance in April 2000 in Havana the charanga orquesta La Sublime performed to an audience of enthusiastic older Cubans many of whom belonged to an association known as Los Amigos del Danzón. They were dressed in their finery with many of the men in spats and waistcoats and the women in dresses equipped with abanicos (fans) required for dancing danzón. A large vat of home-made beer and bags of chicharrones (pork scratchings) were available as refreshments for this largely retired audience who responded animatedly to the band’s grooves and to the improvisations of the flautist Melquiades Fundora. Performing at such events myself over the last decade, I have been struck by how melodic and rhythmic gestures in my own and others’ playing have elicited collective responses in terms of interaction and dance moves. In this paper I analyse how musical gestures are embodied in (and in relation to) this older dancing public using filmed fieldwork performances from Havana, Bejucal and Santa Cruz del Norte. The dynamic relationships between musicians and dancers reveal the importance of fun, playfulness, sensuality and humour - qualities which the communist government of the 1970s dismissed as decadent and without message (Moore, 2006).

Live performance by Sue Miller and her Charanga del Norte for the opening of the Creative Arts Building Leeds Beckett School of Arts

Audio recording by Sue Miller and her Charanga del Norte. The flute solo is a result of research into music and dance relationships in Orquesta Aragon's television performance of 'Los Problemas de Atilana'. The audio will be used for the animation project with El Iyawo Productions (in collaboration with Cuban dancer Guillermo Davis).

Recording by Sue Miller and her Charanga del Norte (also part of Sue Miller's PhD recordings portfolio)

Recording by Charanga del Norte (part of Sue Miller's PhD portfolio)

Cuban flute player Eddy Zervigón, musical director of New York-based Orquesta Broadway commented in a 2003 interview with Israel Sánchez-Coll and Nestor Emiro Gómez that his charanga had ‘adapted the most to the New York ambience,’ stating that the band’s character was ‘more urban,’ and that son montuno was its backbone to which ‘various fusions’ were added. He states further ‘you need to pay attention to what’s going on where you’re living and sniff out the changes going on in the city.’ With a focus on the New York charanga bands of the early sixties, musical analysis and ethnographic research are combined in this paper to test the hypothesis that there is a distinct urban New York Latin sound, one that developed through adaptation to Pan-Latin American audiences in the city. Melodic, harmonic and rhythmic analysis of recorded solos provides evidence for both a distinct Latin improvisation aesthetic and a New York flavour. Analysis of live performances by New York charanga and conjunto bands at the annual Mamoncillo Festival in New York also reveals a subtle interrelationship between improvisers and dancers in which performance practice differs from that of the traditional Cuban orquestas and conjuntos which originally inspired these US-based groups.

Improvising Sabor: Cuban Dance Music in New York begins in 1960s New York and examines in rich detail the playing styles and international influence of important figures in US Latin music. Such innovators as José Fajardo, Johnny Pacheco, George Castro, and Eddy Zervigón dazzled the Palladium ballroom and other Latin music venues in those crucible years. Author Sue Miller focuses on the Cuban flute style in light of its transformations in the US after the 1959 revolution and within the vibrant context of 1960s New York. While much about Latin jazz and salsa has been written, this book focuses on the relatively unexplored New York charangas that were performing during the chachachá and pachanga craze of the early sixties. Indeed, many accounts cut straight from the 1950s and the mambo to the bugalú’s development in the late 1960s with little mention of the chachachá and pachanga’s popularity in the mid-twentieth century. Improvising Sabor addresses not only this lost and ignored history, but contends with issues of race, class, and identity while evaluating differences in style between players from prerevolution Cuban charangas and those of 1960s New York. Through comprehensive explorations and transcriptions of numerous musical examples as well as interviews with and commentary from Latin musicians, Improvising Sabor highlights a specific sabor that is rooted in both Cuban dance music forms and the rich performance culture of Latin New York. The distinctive styles generated by these musicians sparked compelling points of departure and influence.

There are two main forms of guajira. The first, in both 6/8 and 3/4 meter (in alternation), is related to the punto cubano, a form of música campesina (country music) that was adapted and performed in the theater in both Spain and Cuba in the early decades of the twentieth century; the second form, in 4/4 time, was known initially as guajira de salón and later as guajira-son. The latter son-influenced guajira form became well known in Cuba through radio shows in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, popularised by artists such as Guillermo Portabales, Celina González and Joseíto Fernández. The meaning of the word guajira can lead to some confusion when it comes to labelling música campesina or 'country music' styles. The term is used to refer to the guajiro or Cuban peasant farmer or to the country woman (guajira), as well as to many forms of music referring to the countryside and rural living. Not all songs with ‘guajira’ in the lyrics, for example, are musically related to the guajira-son style. However, the idealization of rural life and the portrayal of Cuban national identity through the image of the Hispanic farmer is prevalent in most guajira forms, from the composed pieces in Cuban musical theater works (in zarzuela and teatro bufo) of the early twentieth century to the guajira songs of the son and charanga dance bands from the 1930s and 1940s onwards.

Drawing on my own experiences both as a performer and researcher of Cuban music, this article challenges the essentialism inherent in much promotion of ‘Latin’ music in the United Kingdom today, illustrating how issues of ethnicity and gender affect perceptions of authenticity by means of a case study of Charanga del Norte, a UK-grown Cuban music dance band, over the last fifteen years. Since its inception, my band has featured musicians from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Additionally, Charanga del Norte features more female musicians than most UK Latin bands. As I show, most promoters marketing the group have tended towards exoticization, using essentialized images of Latin culture, with an emphasis on not just the Cuban but all the Latin American members of the band. This meant the group was originally promoted as a northern UK-based salsa band, although audiences and promoters gradually became more aware of other forms of traditional Cuban music as a result of the Buena Vista Social Club phenomenon. Promotion of us at World Music events has taken a slightly different stance and focussed more on publicizing the African roots of our ‘Afro-Cuban’ music.

In Cuban Flute Style: Interpretation and Improvisation, Sue Miller—music historian, charanga flute player, and former student of Richard Egües—examines the early-twentieth-century decorative style of flute playing in the Cuban danzón and its links with the later soloistic style of the 1950s as exemplified by Fajardo and Egües. Transcriptions and analyses of recorded performances demonstrate the characteristic elements of the style as well as the styles of individual players. A combination of musicological analysis and ethnomusicological fieldwork reveals the polyrhythmic and melodic aspects of the Cuban flute style, with commentary from flutists Richard Egües, Joaquín Oliveros, Polo Tamayo, Eddy Zervigón, and other renowned players. Miller also covers techniques for flutists seeking to learn the style—including altissimo fingerings for the Boehm flute and fingerings for the five-key charanga flute—as well as guidance on articulation, phrasing, repertoire, practicing improvisation, and working with recordings. Cuban Flute Style will appeal to those working in the fields of Cuban music, improvisation, music analysis, ethnomusicology, performance and performance practice, popular music, and cultural theory.

Performance with my band Charanga del Norte - I am the Band Leader, Musical Director, Arranger and Flute improviser in the group. We performed at the Big Weekend Festival on 10 July 2016

Pre-concert Talk on my research followed by a concert by my band Charanga del Norte. I am musical director and perform on flute (improvisation in Cuban style). The performance and talk held at Churcill College, University of Cambridge on 22 November 2016.

This chapter evaluates a practice-research project undertaken between 2018 – 2020 which researched the recording process of vernacular Latin dance music in the mid-twentieth century. This project was undertaken to supplement Improvising Sabor – Cuban Dance Music in New York (Miller, 2021) and Cuban Flute Style – Interpretation and Improvisation (Miller, 2014), adding production history to the various narratives on Latin music history. Using a combination of ethnomusicological fieldwork, recording experiments and music analysis, insights were gained into how we define performance aesthetics in relation to live and recorded performance, and into how we explain the ways in which performance practice is affected by technological constraints and innovations. The value of practical engagement (in this case a re-staging of mid-twentieth century live take recording conditions) does not reside simply in the ability to replicate the sound and style of an era, but rather to shed light on particular aspects of the recorded performance process at different historical points in time, demonstrating how musical traditions are affected by both live performance practices and by technological aspects (alongside wider social and cultural issues). The recorded past can also reveal aspects of contemporary music practice and musicianship which differ from those of the past, prompting re-evaluations of current practice. While this was a specific research project there are many ways an approach such as this one could be widened in scope to inform university level music curricula. I argue that both experimentation at the service of research questions, and as stand alone creative artistic practice can also form part of a more integrated interdisciplinary music study programme.

Jazz scholars and ethnomusicologists in the areas of Cuban music and Latin American music scholarship have long researched the historical roots of jazz in terms of creole culture but the influence of the orquesta típica and the Cuban charanga orquesta (or charanga francesa) has often been underplayed in jazz and popular music scholarship. This article uses music analysis of two contemporaneous early twentieth-century recordings of danzón and ragtime respectively to question the mainstream narratives of the ‘Latin’ in jazz to reveal a more complex and deep-rooted interplay of the contradanza-danzón performance traditions with those of the early ragtime orchestras of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Both idioms have their roots in military and municipal wind bands and dance ‘society’ orchestras, and a closer analysis of early twentieth-century recordings of Cuban danzón and ragtime are analysed here to reveal their many similarities. Ragtime and danzón performance share improvisational approaches, two-bar organizational timelines, structural forms, and specific performance aesthetics—all features uncovered through analysis and used here to advocate for a reconsideration of ragtime/early jazz and Afro-Caribbean music history.

McKerrell, in ‘Towards Practice Research in Ethnomusicology,’ advocates for performance to be used as ‘a central methodology,’ as a ‘translation of artistic performance aesthetics’ and as a ‘research outcome sited in original performance.’ (McKerrell 2019: 1). The translational role for performance is demonstrated in this article through a practice-led investigation into the dynamic relationship between improvised music and dance. The research is based on the analysis of a live performance on Cuban television of ‘Los Problemas de Atilana’ by Orquesta Aragón in the early 1960s, where musical gestures are shown to be embodied in the flute and dance solo ‘duet’ performed by Cuban flautist Richard Egües and dancer Rafael Bacallao, revealing the shared memories of a community bound by common cultural experience. Interdisciplinary in nature, analysis is undertaken by a musician-scholar, a film scholar-practitioner and a professional Cuban dancer-animator in order to unearth details of this embodied repertoire, thus translating and making overt culturally implicit knowledge for those outside of the artistic community of practice, and, in some cases, within it. Through re-performance and re-presentation in the form of a recording and animations, the many meanings embodied in the original performance are examined through analytical text, musical notation, visuals, recordings and animation film.

Live performance by Sue Miller and her Charanga del Norte

Performance as flute solist and bandleader of Charanga del Norte at Leeds International Festival Family Day