Origins of Merengue

Dioris Valladares.

While best known as a Dominican music, merengue was a pan-Caribbean genre already in the nineteenth century. Haiti, Venezuela, Colombia, and Puerto Rico each developed local forms of the music; with the exception of the Puerto Rican version, all are still played today. Like another pan-Caribbean form, the danza, the Caribbean merengues fused the European contredanse with local, African-derived elements, they are thus aptly called Afro-Caribbean contredanse transformations. In their duality, the contredanse transformations reflected the contradictions of nineteenth-century Spanish Caribbean society, which was divided along intertwined lines of race and class. While the light-skinned urbane gentry sustained close ties to Europe, much of the rural population maintained African-derived practices. Still, interracial marriage was not unusual, and communication across class lines took place.

The contredanse originated in England, where country dances became popular among the nobility during the mid-seventeenth century. This English country dance was introduced to the court of the French king Louis XIV, an avid amateur dancer. Performed in groups with set figures, it acquired a genteel nature in the French court, and there came to be called the contredanse. When the dance caught on in colonial Saint-domingue, its musical accompaniment was impreguated by African influences. Jean Fouchard writes that Haitian mereng developed in the mid-nineteenth century from a local contredanse derivative, the carabinier. As a dance, mereng's novelty lay in its performance by individual couples instead of groups. As a musical type, merengue was first played on wind instruments but later developed into a rural and bourgeois song form and a nationalist art music.  The Puerto Rican and Dominican elites denounced merengue not only because it was an independent couple dance, but also because it was associated with Cuban and other Afro-Caribbean cultures.

Galván, the best known writer of Dominican fiction, was greatly troubled by the swinging hips of merengue dancers. In the eighth stanza of the "Complaint of the Tumba against the Merengue", he expresses outrage why Euro-Dominican sisters an daughters should act so lewdly.

We are probably safe in concluding that nineteenth-century salon merengue in the Dominican Republic resembled its cognate forms elsewhere in the Caribbean, although a paucity of historical evidence precludes definitive statements. Like Puerto Ricans, Dominicans seem tho have used the terms merengue and danza interchangeably; a 1909 Dominican writing asserts that "merengue was called danza in this country for a period of time". As elsewhere, Dominican merengue dance used hip motion and was performed by independent couples. In mid-century, the musical ensemble that played merengue in ballrooms consisted of combinations of flute, string instruments such as violin, guitar, mandolin, tiple, and cuatro, the timbal, tambora, or pandereta drums, and a scrape called güiro. Marchin-band instruments arrived in the Dominican Republic during the 1863-65 War of Restoration, and salon orquestras began using the clarinet and baritone horn. These instruments were also important to the Puerto Rican and Cuban danza and the Haitian mereng. Additionally, an 1874 newspaper article mentions that merengue was sometimes performed on the piano.

Merengue in the rural regions.

Rural merengue likely developed from its urban cousin in the same way that the rural danza evolved from its urban couterpert in Puerto Rico. In this case, each region of the Dominican Republic would have adapted the music to local instruments and aesthetics to create the variants performed today. Supporting this view is the fact that while the regional variants use widely differing instruments, rhythms, and melodies, all are independent couple dances performed in the ballroom dance position.

Although merengue was performed throughout the Dominican Republic during the nineteenth century, we have most of our information from the country's most populous region, the Cibao, Mid-century merengue cibaeño, or Cibao merengue, was performed on plucked string instruments such as the cuatro, the tambora drum, and scraped calabash, the güiro. Rural groups also sometimes added wind instruments in imitation of salon prquestas.

String instruments in merengue cibaeño gave way to the accordion, which began arriving in the region during the 1870s. Germany was an important trading partner for Cibao tobacco growers, and according to oral tradition, Germans bartered their one-row button accordions for tobacco.

Merengue Típico Cibaeño

Although merengue had once been performed in elite ballrooms, by the beginning of the twentieth century it was entrechted as a típico (typical, authentic, or folk) form played only by campesinos and those who dwelled in barrios. Rural expression was far removed from the lifeways of middle- and upper-class urbanites. The lives of barrio dwellers, however, paralleled those of rural Dominicans. Contact across class lines, which continued to be important to merengue's development, was common in urban areas. The Cibao's largest city, Sntiago de los Caballeros, became a focal point for the development of merengue tópico cibaeño, or Cibao folk merengue.

As we have seen, this music was sung - often with a tight, nasal technique- to the accompaniment of the button accordio, tambor, güira, and sometimes the baritone horn or alto saxophone. Accordionists led group, composed and sang; Santiago natives Francisco "Ñico" Lora and Antonio "Toño" Abreu were the best-known accordionist/bandleaders of the period and the architects of the merengue style that later gained national and transnational prominence. While one-row accordions were used in the early part of the century, two-row models, capable of executing several major and minor keys, became more and more prevalent, Tamboreros, or tambora players, still held the drum sideways in their lap but now played it with a stick in the reght hand and the palm of the left hand, rather than with two sticks as they had done in the nineteenth century. The calabash güiro, which fell into disuse at the beginning of the twentieth century, was replaced by a metal version. Dominicans generally call the metal version güira and the calabash version güiro.

Merengue during the era of Trujillo

Trujillo, who was not from the Cibao, adopted a music from this region as a national symbol; his status as a national rather than a regional caudillo allowed him to transcend established Dominican patterns not only of regional politics but of expressive culture

In 1936, the dictator brought Luis Alberti's group to the capital to work as his personal dance band. Renamed Orquesta Presidente Trujillo, the band was required to specialize en merengue. Merengue cibaeño had never been performed in elite ballrooms outside of the Cibao, and upper-class capitaleños (residents of the capital) were shocked to hear it at their functions. But no one dared openly question the dictator's taste, and the socialites eventually accepted merengue. If they never adored it. The regime required all of the country's dance bands to feature merengue in their repertoires, and accordion-based merengue cibaeño groups performed throughout the country. Artists and intellectuals were expected to pay homage to the dictator, and often were intimidated into doing so.

Alberti's band featured jazz-influenced interpretations of the traditional merengue cibaeño repertoir, augmenting big-band instrumentation with tambora, güira, and piano accordion. The latter instrument sounded similar to a button accordion, but its capacity to execute complex harmonies better suited Alberti's sophisticated style.

Although Alberti's group remained popular, Super Orquesta San José, sponsored by one of the dictator's brothers, José "Petán" Trujillo, soon became the country's top dance band. Led by Papa Molina, this group featured the vocals of Joseito Mateo. According to Mateo, Orquesta San José played a faster and livelier style of merengue than did Alberti. Its innovations included omitting the piano accordion, adding the Cuban conga drums, and using syncopated Afro-Cuban rhythms in the bass. As time went on, more and more band arrangements omitted the paseo section of three-part merengues. Albert's group performed regularly at the Patio Español of the Jaragua Hotel from 1944 to 1954, while Orquesta San José specialized in radio broadcasts and played in the Night Club of th radio station La Voz Dominicana. The third most important dance band of the day and the only top band not sponsored directly by the Trujillo family was Antionio Morel y su Orquesta, a polished ensemble that had more freedom to perform and record as they wished, playing at society clubs and private parties.

Regional music

While dance-band merengue spread throughout the country, regional musics remained popular in rural areas, where most Dominicans still lived; of the 1935 population, estimated at 1.5 milion, 82 percent was rural. Art that addressed the needs of this large constituency adhered to regionally based aesthetics. Merengue became more popular than ever in the Cibao, where it was performed. Merengue tópico cibaeñ's status as a national symbol gave it primacy over other regional musics, several Cibao accordionists moved to the capital and became well-known figures whose music was disseminated nationally and internationally through the mass media. The best-known merengue cibaeño group of the Trujillo era, El Trio Reynoso, consisted of Pedro Reynoso on accordion and vocals, Domingo Reynoso on güira and vocals, and Francisco "Pancholo" Esquea on tambora. To evoke rural culture, Pedro Reynoso always performed barefoot. The group's omission of the saxophone was also likely intended to project a rustic image, since highprofile groups in Santiago had long used this instrument. El Trio Reynoso added a bass instrument, the marimba, to the traditional instrumentation of accordion, tambora, and güira. This innovation was employed by other merengue cibaeño groups, the most important of which were led by accordionists Luis Kalaff, Dionisio "Guandulito" Mejía, Isidro Flores, and Tatico Henríquez.

In the 1930s, accordion-based merengue came to be called perico ripiao (literally, ripped parrot), a label that lends itself to rich etymological speculation. It's told that the name came from a brothel in Santiago.

Among the plethora of rural Dominican musics with close links to Africa are the local variants of merengue from regions other than the Cibao. For example, the southern variant, merengue palo echao (or pri-prí), that was danced different. There is a racial distinction between the two variants; in the south a lot of African culture is practiced. Merengue cibaeño is from the north, where there are more white people. "Trujillo's attraction to merengue cibaeño in spite of its African )derived elements was likely influenced by the Cibao's whiter ethnic make-up and link with the oligarchy, which had long placed it at the top of the Dominican regional hierarchy.

Merengue outside the Dominican Republic

Trujillo's isolationism, combined with a lack of recording opportunities in the Republic, caused Dominican merengue to develop differently abroad than it did at home. This isolationism also led the government to regulate all Dominican contacts with the outside world, rarely were citizens granted permission to travel abroad. Fearing that they would no return, Trujillo rarely allowed Dominican musicians to perform outside of the country, but several performers emigrated anyway. The first of these was bandleader Billo Frómeta, who left for Venezuela in 1936 with his Ciudad Trujillo band. Singer Alberto Beltrán moved to New York City to work with the well-known group La Sonora Matancera. Although he was primarily a bolero singer rather than a merengue specialist, Beltrán popularized merengues such as "El Negrito del Batey" and "Compadre Pedro Juan" among New York Latinos. Meanwhile, Josecito Román and Napoleón Zayas put together authentic merengue big bands in the city. The Dominican musical transplant became popular among New York Hispanics and by the late 1950s had found a permanent niche in the city's Latin music scene.

As part of that scene piano accordionist Angel Viloria established the most succesful merengue group outside the Dominican Republic, featuring Ramón E. García on tenor saxophone, Luis Quintero on tambora and Dioris Valladares on vocals. In spite of its name, Conjunto Típico Cibaeño, the group did not perform típico music. While its intrumentation resembled that of típico merengue, the Conjunto modeled its music on Luis Alberti's cosmopolitan sound. The juxtaposition of small-group instrumentation and a refined sound set Viloria's group apart from most bands in The Dominican Republic, which modeled themselves after either típico tradition or Luis Alberti, but no both.

The contemporary era

While the staid 1950s merengue had suited Trujillo's high-class salons, it was out of place in the barios; Luis Pérez's innovations and Johnny Ventura's dynamism manifested the pulse of the Dominican mases. Moving from elite contexts to the street, mass-mediated merengue changed from a ballroom to a truly popular music; pop merengue

Because merengue could hardly compete with rock and salsa, when Vetura started his own band in 1964 he incorporated elements of the contending musics. The group's name, Johnny Ventura y su Combo-Show, reflected the international, modern flavor its music embodied Combo, of course, alluded to Cortijo's eminently popular combo and the conjunto format that Ventura's band shared with salsa, while the Americanism Show referred to the choreographic display that Ventura's singers put on at performances.
 

Johnny Ventura, the top merenguero during the 1960s, gave way in the 1970s and 1980s to bandleader and trumpeter Wilfrido Vargas. Wilfrido Vargas y sus Beduinos started out as a quartet that played bossa nova, rock, and some salsa and merengue. In the early 1970s Vargas adopted a conjunto format and changed to an all-merengue repertory. He directed the band, sang occasionally, and played trumpet and assorted other instruments such as synthesizer and harmonica. Vargas's music continued the trends set by Luis Pérez and Johnny Ventura, who had sped the music up and borrowed from salsa and rock; Vargas used even faster tempos and appropiated more aoutside elements. Like his predeccessors, Varga's innovation did not cloud típico aesthetics. His megahit "Abusadora" used an even faster tempo than had "La agarradera", and like Ventura's hit foregrounded flashy saxophone jaleos evocative of accordion-based merengue.

In the midst of the conservative aesthetic encouraged by the investment-consious merengue industry, the music continued to chandge in exciting ways; billiant innovations challenged the time-test formulas. And while most of its song texts expressed conventional values, merengue also served as a site for negotiating gard questions about race, social class, gender relations, and sexuality.

Singer Alex Bueno's acclaimed mid-1980's Orquesta Liberación owed much to Manuel Tejada and Ramón Orlando's innovative merengue versions of Latin American romantic songs. Combining sophisticated balada-style arrangements and elements of funk and jazz with Cibao-style tambora, güira, and saxophone rhythms, thes arrangers brought a polished sound to the music. In 1986, another young arranger, Juan Luis Guerra, told: "young musicians are interested in merengue....There is a tendency to refine merengue with different types of arrangements, violins and things like that, which do not diminish the drive that merengue has by nature." Ramón Orlando later founded his own critically acclaimed group, whose style combined spicy maco rhythms with sophisticated arrangements.

From the book "Merengue, Dominican Music and Dominican Identity", published by Temple University Press in 1997, written by Paul Austerlitz.