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Ned Sublette Biography

Composer

Ned Sublette, born in 1951, is a renowned composer known for his unique musical style and cross-cultural musical fusion. His works blend jazz, blues, and Latin music, which are deeply loved by a wide audience.

Wells Black Known Style Creating Musician Musical Offspring Tango Ragtime Musical Style

Author:Ned Sublette

“Music is so essential to the Cuban character that you can't disentangle it from the history of the nation. the history of Cuban music is one of cultural collisions, of voluntary and forced migrations, of religions and revolutions.”

Character Nations Revolution Essentials Music Is Migration Cuban Collision Cuban Music

Book:Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo

Source: Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo

“The basic success of the conga came from ...that basic principle of African music and dance: everybody participates. The conga eradicated the distinction between performer and audience, broke down the wall of the proscenium.”

Principles Audience Wall Broke Distinction Performers Basic Principles Music And Dance African Music Congas

Book:Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo

Source: Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo

“One often reads that the 1950s was the golden age of Cuban music, but it was really one long phase, from 1937 to 1958, each year with its own splendour.”

Years Long Age Golden Phases Cuban Golden Age Splendour Cuban Music

Book:Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo

Source: Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo

“The general disinclination of Spain to accept slaves from Islamicized regions of Africa during the formative years of Hispano-American society had enormous consequences for the development of music in the New World.”

World Years Accepting Development Consequence Slave Enormous Regions New World Spain American Society Formative Years

Author:Ned Sublette

“Up through and including Lincoln, American politicians nursed a fantasy of repatriating blacks to Africa.”

Fantasy Politician Including

Author:Ned Sublette

“In 1942 Cachao wrote a tune for Arcao, 'Rareza de Melitn,' with a memorable catchy tumbao. In 1957 Arcao recorded a reworking of it under the name 'Chanchullo'; and in 1962 Tito Puente reworked that into 'Oye como va,' still with that same groove. In this form, audibly the same, it powered Carlos Santana's multiplatinum 1970 cover version, close to three decades after Cachao first played it.”

Firsts Stills Form Three Names Decades Versions Memorable Tunes Groove Catchy Santana Tito

Author:Ned Sublette

“Every farm with slaves was a slave-breeding farm. Raising slaves was mostly a cottage industry.”

Industry Slave Farms Breeding Cottages

Book:The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square

Source: The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square

“A laborer might last ten years or so before expiring. But individual workers in the death camp of sugar were survived by their culture, which was constantly re-Africanized by fresh arrivals. To that plantation culture, the music of our hemisphere owes no small debt.”

Years Might Lasts Culture Individual Ten Workers Debt Camps Sugar Survived Arrivals Laborers Hemisphere Plantations Death Camps

Author:Ned Sublette

“The two biggest hits (by Machito)... were about that enduring Cuban song topic-food: 'Sopa de pichn' [pigeon soup] and 'Paella'. If you think that all songs about food are double entendres for sex... Well, maybe all songs about food can be double entendres, but in many periods of Cuban history, for many people, food has been harder to get, and the subject of more fantasies, than sex.”

People Ifs Thinking Wells Has Beens Two Song Sex Fantasy Subjects Periods Harder Endure Topics Soup Cuban Pigeons Double Entendre

Author:Ned Sublette

“That spirit of mockery characteristic of the guaracha was part of the mambo from the beginning.”

Spirit Characteristics Mockery

Book:Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo

Source: Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo

“On occassion, slaves in Spanish New Orleans owned slaves, whose labor they could appropriate toward purchasing their own freedom, or whose ownership they could trade as a partial payment on their own freedom.”

Labor Trade Slave Appropriate Ownership New Orleans Payment Purchasing

Author:Ned Sublette

“A second line is in effect a civil rights demonstration. Literally, demonstrating the civil right of the community to assemble in the street for peaceful purposes. Or, more simply, demonstrating the civil right of the community to exist.”

Purpose Community Lines Rights Streets Effects Civil Rights Peaceful Demonstration Demonstrating

Author:Ned Sublette

“Miguelito, liberated from having to sing with Cugat, sounds like he just got out of jail and is letting it rip.”

Sound Jail Rip Liberated

Book:Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo

Source: Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo

“Like slaves on the sugar plantations of the Antilles, ...the sugar slaves of southern Louisiana had negative birthrates for as long as slavery lasted.”

Long Negative Slavery Slave Southern Sugar Louisiana Plantations

Author:Ned Sublette

“Chano Pozo created the role of the conga soloist in the modern band, somewhat th way Coleman Hawkins created the solo tenor sax.”

Way Roles Modern Band Solo Tenors Congas

Book:Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo

Source: Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo

“New Orleans is of such key importance to American music because historical factors combined to make it the strongest center of African musical practice in the United States, and, cliches aside, that practice really did travel up the Mississippi and did spread overland.”

States United Practice United States Keys Music Is Importance Historical Musical Spread Factors Strongest New Orleans Cliche Mississippi American Music

Author:Ned Sublette

About the Author

Born: 1951
Known for: Composer
Quotes: 17

Books & Sources

Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the MamboRelated source material

The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo SquareRelated source material

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