Historians think that son originated among the countryfolk in Oriente, a province settled by freed slaves and their bourgeois employers, in the late 19th century. It is thought to have derived from African rhythms that the slaves brought with them and played alongside the European rhythms of their “host” families. It emerged in Havana around 1917. After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, son music began to influence new forms of Cuban music, namely salsa, mambo and rumba, and that marriage of African and Spanish rhythms, now called Afro-Cuban music.
Son became popular in the United States in the 1960s, when fusion music was in style. New York saw the birth of salsa, which came out of the fusion of the Latin dances, son, mambo and rumba and Afro-Cuban music at that same time.The popularity of son and salsa music has led to an increase in Afro-Cuban music artists. It also opened the door for other Latin fusion musicians who had Afro-Cuban roots to become popular worldwide.
The prominent rhythm of son sets it apart from other Latin styles. The rhythm is based on a syncopated bass beat and is often referred to as the "anticipated bass." Son is characterized by a repetitive section called the montuno, which features a four-bar pattern sung by the soloist and responded to by the chorus or crowd, and the clave, a five-note rhythmic pattern played on two sticks.
There are many percussion instruments in a son band, which combine a mixture of traditional African and Spanish instruments: bongos, the marimbula (a Carribean instrument with a resonator box and springy steel keys), the quijada (the jawbone of an animal, which is struck with a hand), the timbales (shallow drums), the cowbell, the botijuela (an earthen jar played by blowing across the neck opening) and the diente de arado (a piece of metal that sounds like a cowbell).
Also used are the claves, a pair of sticks that produce a metallic sound when struck, which have historically been made from the wood of Cuban ships. They are the key to maintaining the son rhythm. To help keep the dancers in line, palmadas (flamenco hand claps), maracas, a guitar and in Havana sometimes a trumpet are also played.
Today, son is seldom heard in Cuba. However, popular Cuban music and other Latin genres continue to this day to use the fundamentals of the genre. Younger generations favor a new form of Latin music influenced by son. Older generations continue to keep son alive, specifically in Oriente, where they tend to perform more traditional versions of son.
The first-known performer of son was Cuarteto Oriental, a group of brothers that banded together to play music. As son is usually played in groups of five or six, the bands that came after them included the still-popular Septeto Nacional Ignacio Piñeiro, founded by Ignacio Piñeiro in 1927. In the 40s and 50s, Arsenio Rodriguez modernized son by adding trumpets and piano. It became very popular under his helm. In the 1990s, musicologist Ry Cooder discovered a group of traditional son musicians and named them the Buena Vista Social Club. The subsequent movie was wildly popular and brought traditional son artists into mainstream culture.