Bachata (music)

Bachata is a genre of Latin American music that originated in the Dominican Republic in the first half of the 20th century with European, Indigenous and African musical elements.

The first recorded compositions of Bachata are done by Jose Manuel Calderon from the Dominican Republic. The predecessors of Bachata are Bolero and Son (and later, from the mid 1980s, Merengue). The original term used to name the genre was amargue ("bitterness", "bitter music", or "blues music"), until the rather ambiguous (and mood-neutral) term bachata became popular. The form of dance, bachata, also developed with the music.^[1]

Overview

A couple dancing bachata

The earliest bachata originated in the countryside in Dominican Republic in the first half of the 20th century. Jose Manuel Calderon recorded the first Bachata song, "Borracho de amor" in 1962. The genre mixed the pan-Latin American style called bolero with more African elements coming from Son, and the troubadour singing tradition common in Latin America. During much of its history, Bachata music was disregarded by Dominican elite and associated with rural underdevelopment and crime. As recently as the 1980s, bachata was considered too vulgar, crude and musically rustic to be broadcast on television or radio in the Dominican Republic. In the 1990s, however, bachata's instrumentation changed from nylon string Spanish guitar and maracas of Traditional Bachata to the electric steel string and guira of Modern Bachata. Bachata further transformed in the 21st century with the creation of Urban Bachata styles by bands such as Monchy y Alexandra and Aventura. These new modern styles of bachata become an international phenomenon, and today bachata is one of the most popular styles of Latin music, even overtaking salsa and merengue in many Latin American dance halls.

Instrumentations

The typical bachata group consists of seven instruments: Requinto (lead guitar), Segunda (rhythm guitar), electric guitar, guitar, bass guitar, bongos and güira. The Segunda serves the purpose of adding syncopation to the music. Bachata groups mainly play a straightforward style of bolero (lead guitar instrumentation using arpeggiated repetitive chords is a distinctive characteristic of bachata), but when they change to merengue-based bachata, the percussionist will switch from bongo to a tambora drum. In the 1960s and 1970s, maracas were used instead of güira. The change in the 1980s from maracas to the more versatile güira was made as bachata was becoming more dance oriented.^[1]

Dance history

The first Dominican bachatas were recorded immediately after the death of Trujillo, whose 30-year dictatorship was accompanied by censorship. José Manuel Calderón is credited as having recorded the first bachata singles: ("Borracho de amor" and "Que será de mi (Condena)") released on 45 rpm in 1961. After Trujillo's death, the floodgates were opened: following Calderon's historic bachata debut came more recordings by the likes of Rodobaldo Duartes, Rafael Encarnacion, Ramoncito Cabrera El Chivo Sin Ley, Corey Perro, Antonio Gómez Sacero, Luis Segura, Louis Loizides, Eladio Romero Santos, Ramón Cordero, and many more. The 1960s saw the birth of the Dominican music industry and of the bachata music which would dominate it.

While the bachatas being recorded in the 1960s had a distinctly Dominican flavor, they were regarded at the time as a variant of bolero, as the term bachata, which originally referred to an informal rustic party, had not yet come into use. This term was first applied to the music by those seeking to disparage it. The higher echelons of Dominican society felt that bachata music was an expression of cultural backwardness, and a campaign ensued to brand bachata in this negative light.^[2]

The 1970s were dark years for bachata. The music was seldom played on the radio, and almost unmentioned on television and in print. Bachateros were also barred from performing in high society venues – having to content themselves instead with gigs in bars and brothels in the country's poorest neighborhoods. The music was influenced by its surroundings; sex, despair and crime were amongst numerous topics the genre highlighted. This only furthered the cause of those seeking to tar bachata as a music of the barrios. Despite its unofficial censorship, bachata remained widely popular, while orchestral merengue benefited from the country's major publicity outlets. However, bachata continued to outsell merengue . Some bachateros to emerge from this era were Marino Perez and Leonardo Paniagua.

By the early 1980s, bachata's popularity could not be denied. Due to popular demand, more radio stations began playing bachata, and bachateros soon found themselves performing on television as well. Bachata in the meantime had begun to take on a more dance-hall sound: tempos increased, guitar playing became punchier, and call and response singing more prevalent. Bachata style merengues, or guitar merengues, also became an increasingly important part of the bachata repertoire. Blas Durán was the first to record with electric guitar in his 1987 bachata-merengue hit, "Mujeres hembras".^[2]

By the early 1990s, the sound was further modernized and the bachata scene was dominated by two new young stars: Luis Vargas and Antony Santos. Both incorporated a large number of bachata-merengues in their repertoires. Santos, Vargas and the many new style bachateros who would follow achieved a level of stardom which was unimaginable to the bachateros who preceded them. They were the first generation of pop bachata artists and received all the hype and image branding typical of commercial pop music elsewhere. It was also at this time that bachata began to emerge internationally as a music of Hispanic dance-halls.

Juan Luis Guerra's Grammy-winning 1992 release, Bachata Rosa, is routinely credited with making the genre more acceptable and helping bachata achieve legitimacy and international recognition. Although he used the word bachata in the album title, none of the songs reflected the distinctive bachata sound.^[3]

By the beginning of the 21st century, the bachata group Aventura had taken the bachata envisioned by Juan Luis Guerra in the early 1990s to new heights. Led by lead singer Anthony "Romeo" Santos, they revolutionized and modernized the genre. They sold out Madison Square Garden numerous times and released countless top ten hits on the hot Latin charts including two number one hits "Por un segundo" and "Dile al Amor". Other big bachata acts in the decade included "Monchy y Alexandra" and Los Toros Band. By the beginning of the new decade, Aventura had split up because group member Henry Santos wanted to go solo, leaving the others to do their own thing. Today, parallel to Bachata music, fusion genres arose in western countries such as the USA, combining some of the rhythmic elements of Bachata music with elements of western music such as Hip Hop, R&B, pop, techno and more. This fusion genre is quite popular among western audiences, and often includes covers of western pop songs played on MTV and non Latin radio stations. Notable artist of the new fusion genre are Prince Royce, Xtreme and Toby Love, among others. By 2011 former Aventura member Romeo Santos also joined the fusion bandwagon, releasing several new albums which became popular in the USA and other western countries. The hip-hop artist Drake in his music video of "Hotline Bling" based his dance moves off of Bachata music.

Notable artists

References

External links

• Comprehensive history of bachata with music and video clips
• Video on how to dance Bachata Traditional and Bachata Fusion
• Site about Original Bachata incl. Dance-Videos and Dance-Tutorials
• Music of the Dominican Republic
• National Geographic.com - Nat Geo Music: Bachata page