The two main branches of Latin Jazz are Brazilian and Afro-Cuban. Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova and samba. The Afro-Cuban jazz thrives on salsa, merengue, the Songo, son, mambo, bolero, charanga and the cha cha cha. Other no less important are the genre's current New Wave Contemporary Venezuelan and Argentine Tango.
The samba originated in the Afro-Brazilian music of the nineteenth century as the Lundu. Bossa nova music is a hybrid, which uses some of the rhythm of the samba, but influenced by European and American music from Debussy to jazz estaudounidense. Bossa Nova originated in the 60s, mainly through the efforts of Brazilians Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto, Stan Getz and the U.S.. His most famous song is "Garota de Ipanema (The Girl from Ipanema), sung by Gilberto and his wife, Astrud Gilberto.
Venezuelan New Wave is the result of rethinking indigenous rhythms (particularly the Joropo) and replace instruments vernacular (four - guitarrilla vihuela or four strings - harp and maracas) by the classic jazz ensemble of piano, bass and drums. Latin Jazz This expression appeared formally in late 1960 was created by Aldemaro Romero on percussion with the support of Frank "El Pavo" Hernandez who gave him his characteristic touch asincopado. Among his most famous themes are "suddenly", "Road" and "The Catire.
Contemporary Argentine Tango, created by Astor Piazzolla (who defined it as "contemporary music of Buenos Aires") also tries Jazzar vernacular rhythms in which the traditional bandoneon assumes dizzying spins framed arrangements which resemble a kind of continuous jam session. There is a remarkable inventory of items deserve special mention Adios Nonino, Libertango and soundtracks of films like "Il Postino" ( "The Postman"), "Scent of Woman" ( "Scent of a Woman") and "True Lies" ( "Lies true ").
Although some trends are likely to say that to understand the essential Latin jazz is the song "Manteca" by Mongo Santamaria - which applied the key and rhythmic patterns of salsa asincopados own traditional forms of American jazz - associated most preferably Afro-Caribbean rhythms, also should consider other flows such as those mentioned above, which arose more or less at the same time, perhaps as a manifestation of the so-called Latin Jazz Crossover.