From cha-cha-chá to rock n' roll (with a stop at bossa nova)

The last hurrah from Cuba was the cha-cha-chá, an easy-to-dance alternative to the mambo, usually performed by string and flute bands called charangas (which had also played danzón). Here,  its inventor Enrique Jorrín's charanga plays "Aprende a bailar chachachá":

Leaning into the elevator (that is, elevator music) - Pérez Prado's enduringly cornball cha-cha-cha "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" was #1 hit in 1955.

But there was a lot going on in 1955. Changes were in the air.

As white teenagers started tuning in to black independent radio, they started making their own versions of the new sound, as in "Rock around the Clock," by Bill Haley and his Comets. This is the song that took the #1 spot from Pérez Prado.

 It's odd to think that cha-cha-chá and rock were both on the radio at the same time, but there was lots of cha-cha-chá in early rock. The Bill Haley's B-side to "Rock around the Clock" was "Mambo Rock," basically a "Manisero" send-up.

And of course, there was African-American bandleader Richard Berry's roch-cha-chá "Louie Louie," written in 1955, recorded in 1957, and a big hit for white rockers The Kingsmen in 1963:

(Parenthetically, rock also started making waves in Cuba by the late 1950's).

Cha-cha-chá would linger on, emerging in unexpected places in the rock canon: 

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But rock was a bring break from Latin music, which was becoming increasingly less popular. In the early 1960's, bossa nova was a Brazilian middle-class music. It take the national music, samba, an Afro-Brazilian street music (which sounds like this) and puts it in the guitar in a syncopated rhythm but with sophisticated harmonies and an introspective mood:

After a bossa nova concert at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1962, jazz musicians, particularly the mostly white musicians that were part of the West Coast "cool jazz" movement, such as Stan Getz, Charlie Byrd, and Dave Brubeck, began collaborating with Brazilian bossa nova musicians. Here, from,  Getz's famous album with Astrud and João Gilberto. "Garota de Ipanema/Girl from Ipanema."

This was the last importation of Latin American music to the US for a while, although Latinos would continue to make their own musical styles. Among other things, bossa nova existed on the other side of the cultural divide from the raucous and youth-focused rock and roll. Here's Frank Sinatra with Tom Jobim.