Jelly Roll Morton, who enjoyed a long career as a musician, claimed he invented jazz in 1902. While this claim has been discredited, there's little denying some of the music's roots. Some traces of Latin music were with jazz from the beginning--enough that Morton often referred to the music's "Spanish tinge."
Latin influences can be heard in calypso, rumba, samba, tango, and salsa music. You can also hear some elements in music as diverse as the Duke Ellington/Juan Tizol composition "Perdido," Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs' "Wooly Bully" and Bo Diddley's music.
In 1947, band leader and jazz experimenter Dizzy Gillespie added Chano Pozo, a Cuban musician, to play congas with his band. Pozo's percussive edge, along with his songwriting skills, gave enough of a Latin flavor to Gillespie's music that a new genre was born--Cuban jazz. While Pozo had a short career with Gillespie--he was killed in a bar shooting in 1948--he was there long enough to lay the foundation. Songs featuring Pozo include "Manteca" and "Cubana Be, Cubana Bop." Jazz artists Machito, Stan Kenton, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria and Cal Tjader kept that flame alive.
But it was "Girl From Ipanema" that put Latin American flavor on the musical map. Recorded by tenor saxophonist Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist Joao Gilberto--and Astrud Gilberto on vocals--the bossa nova song became an American hit in 1964, and won a Grammy Award for record of the year in 1965.
Ritchie Valens, who died in a plane crash at 17, grew up on Mexican music. Despite his short career, his song "La Bamba"--an arrangement of a traditional Mexican song--brought a Latin sound to rock 'n' roll. The 1987 biopic "La Bamba" brought new popularity to Latino music.
Mexico native Carlos Santana coupled his recognizable guitar sound with traditional Latin percussion and rhythms to create his sound. The California-based band War drew from black and Latin influences and became popular among the Latino community in the 1970s. Freddy Fender, who cut his musical teeth on Tejano, made it big on country and pop charts despite bilingual lyrics. In 1990, Fender got together with Flaco Jimenez and Doug Sahm to form the Texas Tornados, a Tex-Mex supergroup.