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Bolero is a genre of song which originated in Oriente Province in the late 19th century as part of the trova tradition. Unrelated to the older Spanish dance of the same name, bolero is characterized by sophisticated lyrics dealing with love. It has been called the "quintessential Latin American romantic song of the twentieth century".
Unlike the simpler, thematically diverse canción, bolero did not stem directly from the European lyrical tradition, which included Italian opera and canzone, popular in urban centers like Havana at the time. Instead, it was born as a form of romantic folk poetry cultivated by a new breed of troubadour from Santiago de Cuba, the trovadores. Pepe Sánchez is considered the father of this movement and the author of the first bolero, "Tristezas", written in 1883. Originally, boleros were sung by individual trovadores while playing guitar. Over time, it became common for trovadores to play in groups as dúos, tríos, cuartetos, etc. Thanks to the Trío Matamoros and, later, Los Panchos, bolero achieved widespread popularity in Latin America, the United States and Spain. At the same time, Havana had become a fertile ground where bolero composers met to create compositions and improvise new tunes; it was the so-called filin movement, which derived its name from the English word " feeling". Many of the genre's most enduring pieces were written then and popularized in radio and cabaret performances by singers such as Olga Guillot and Elena Burke, backed by orchestras and big bands.Bigott (1993) pp. 202, 213, 224.
Boleros are generally in Time signature and, musically, compositions and arrangements might take a variety of forms. This flexibility has enabled boleros to feature in the repertoire of Cuban son cubano and Cuban rumba ensembles, as well as Spanish copla and flamenco singers, since the early 20th century. Occasionally, boleros have been merged with other forms to yield new subgenres, such as the bolero-son, popular in the 1930s and 1940s, and the bolero-cha, popular in the 1950s. In the United States, the rhumba ballroom dance emerged as an adaptation of the bolero-son in the 1930s. Boleros can also be found in the African rumba repertoire of many artists from Kinshasa to Dakar, due to the many bolero records that were distributed to radios there as part of the G.V. Series.
The popularity of the genre has also been felt as far as Vietnam, where it became a fashionable song style in South Vietnam before the Fall of Saigon in 1975 and remains popular with the Vietnamese.
The Cuban bolero tradition originated in Santiago de Cuba in the last quarter of the 19th century;Cristobal Diaz offers 1885: "el bolero, creado aproximadamente para 1885". Diaz Ayala, Cristobal 1999. Cuando sali de la Habana 1898-1997: cien anos de musica cubana por el mundo. 3rd ed, Cubanacan, San Juan P.R. p24-25 it does not owe its origin to the Spanish music and song of the same name. In the 19th century there grew up in Santiago de Cuba a group of itinerant musicians who moved around earning their living by singing and playing the guitar.
Pepe Sanchez is known as the father of the trova style and the creator of the Cuban bolero. Untrained, but with remarkable natural talent, he composed numbers in his head and never wrote them down. As a result, most of these numbers are now lost, but two dozen or so survive because friends and students wrote them down. He was the model and teacher for the great trovadores who followed.Orovio, Helio 2004. Cuban music from A to Z. p195.Orovio, Helio 1995. El bolero latino. La Habana.
By the 1930s, when Trio Matamoros made famous their mix of bolero and son cubano known as bolero-son, the genre was a staple of the musical repertoire of most Latin American countries.Bigott (1993) p. 125. In Spain, Cuban bolero was incorporated into the copla repertoire with added elements from Andalusian music, giving rise to the so-called bolero moruno, made famous by composers such as Carmelo Larrea and Quintero, León y Quiroga.Maggiolo & Castillo (2009) p. 180.
Some of the bolero's leading composers have come from nearby countries, as in the case of the prolific Puerto Rico composer Rafael Hernández and the Mexican composers: Juan Gabriel, Agustín Lara and María Grever. Some Cuban composers of the bolero are primarily considered trovadores.Loyola Fernandez, Jose 1996. En ritmo de bolero: el bolero en la música bailable cubana. Huracán, Río Piedras P.R.Orovio, Helio 1992. 300 boleros de oro. Mexico City.Restrepo Duque, Hernán 1992. Lo que cantan los boleros. Columbia.Rico Salazar, Jaime 1999. Cien años de boleros: su historia, sus compositores, sus mejores interpretes y 700 boleros inolvidables. 5th ed, Bogotá. Several lyric tenors also contributed to the popularization of the bolero throughout North and South America during the 1930s and the 1940s through live concerts and performances on international radio networks. Included in this group were the Mexican operatic tenors: Juan Arvizu (2025). 9780199892457, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199892457 Juan Arvizu - Biography in Todo Tango - Juan Arvizu Biography yand Bolero/Tango en tototango.com Media Sound & Culture in Latin America. Editors: Bronfman, Alejanda & Wood, Andrew Grant. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 2012, Pg. 49 Media Sound & Culture in Latin America. Editors: Bronfman, Alejanda & Wood, Andrew Grant. Juan Arvizu - leading Mexican tenor and CBS radio in New York on books.google.com and Nestor Mesta Chayres. El Siglo de Torréon - Néstor Mesta Cháyres Nestor Mesta Chayres Biography and Bolero on elsiglodetorreon.com Media Sound & Culture in Latin America. Editors: Bronfman, Alejanda & Wood, Andrew Grant. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 2012, Pg. 49 Media Sound & Culture in Latin America. Editors: Bronfman, Alejanda & Wood, Andrew Grant. Nestor Mesta Chayres - leading Mexican tenor and CBS radio in New York on books.google.com Their collaborations in New York City with such musicians as Alfredo Antonini, Terig Tucci, Elsa Miranda and John Serry Sr. on the CBS radio show Viva América also introduced the bolero to millions of listeners throughout the United States.Media Sound & Culture in Latin America & The Caribbean. Editors: Bronfman, Alejandra & Wood, Andrew Grant.University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 2012 Pg. 49 Books.google.com See Pg. 49 Also noteworthy during the 1940s and 1950s were the performances of Los Panchos, which featured the artistry of musicians from Mexico and Puerto Rico including: Chucho Navarro, Alfredo Gil Hernando Avilés and Miguel Poventud. Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music, Torres, George - Editor. Greenwood, Oxford, England 2013, p. 44-45, 415 "Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music", Torres, George - Editor, "Trio Los Panchos" on books.google.com Latin Music - Musicians, Genres and Themes, Stavans, Ilan - Editor In Chief, Greenwood, Oxford, England, 2014, p. 798-799 Latin Music - Musicians, Genres and Themes, Stavans, Ilan - Editor, "Trio Los Panchos" on books.google.com Boleros saw a resurgence in popularity during the 1990s when Mexican singer Luis Miguel was credited for reviving interest in the bolero genre following the release Romance.
This adaptability was largely achieved by dispensing with limitations in format or instrumentation, and by an increase in syncopation (so producing a more afrocuban sound). Examples would be:
The lyrics of the bolero can be found throughout popular music, especially Latin dance music.
This genre became colloquially known as yellow music, in opposition to the nhạc đỏ ( red music) endorsed by the Communist government of Hanoi during the era of the Vietnam War. As a result of North Vietnam winning the war, the music was banned in 1975. Those caught listening to yellow music would be punished, and their music confiscated. After the Fall of Saigon, many Vietnamese migrated to the United States, taking their music with them. The ban was lightened in 1986, when love songs could be written again, but by then the music industry was killed.
The government of Vietnam also prohibited the sale of overseas Vietnamese music, including variety shows like Asia and Paris by Night. In recent years however, bolero had grown popular again, as more overseas singers performed in Vietnam. Additionally, singing competition television series like Boléro Idol have grown popular, with singers performing songs, including songs formerly banned.
In Cuba, the bolero is usually written in time, elsewhere often . The tempo for dance is about 120 beats per minute. The music has a gentle Cuban rhythm related to a slow Son Cubano, which is the reason it may be best described as a bolero-son. Like some other Cuban dances, there are three steps to four beats, with the first step of a figure on the second beat, not the first. The slow (over the two beats four and one) is executed with a hip movement over the standing foot, with no foot-flick.Lavelle, Doris 1983. Latin & American dances. 3rd ed, Black, London.
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