The History of Salsa Dancing Part 2 - The Rise of Mambo

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The mambo dance first appeared in the United States in New York's Park Plaza Ballroom - a favorite hangout of enthusiastic dancers from Spanish Harlem. However, the real breakthrough for the Mambo came when it gained its excitement in 1947 at the Palladium which was located in downtown Manhattan. The Palladium opened its doors as a club for whites only. However business was poor and so a Spanish music promoter named Federico Purgani was able to persuade the club owner to book latin music. He agreed but for Sunday matinees only. It opened its doors to Puerto Ricans and Cubans and became a rare spot where whites, blacks, and latinos could come together. From the doors of the palladium, the music and dance style known as the Mambo took America by storm. The palladium era were the glory days of Mambo and the nights were filled with the rhythms of the three Mambo Kings Tito Rodriguez, Tito Puete and Machito. Both of the Tito's brought a Puerto Rican influence to mambo music and also their fusion of jazz into the Afro-Cuban sound added another wonderful layer of complexity paving the way for a new flavor of latin music that would be later called "Salsa".

Palladium Mambo and cha-cha was the progenitor of Salsa but is still quite different. It had a lot more open work and the dancers dance on all different beats. There was no dancing on1 or on2 and there was no formalized technique. Dancers of different backgrounds such as ballroom, tap, jazz and swing all danced the mambo a their own way.

May 1966 marked the end of the palladium era as the nightclub closed its doors and the big 3 found their new home inside The Corso. Mambo music was played almost every night of week and it was here that a young Puerto Rican man named Eddie Torres learned how to dance the mambo by watching the dancers in the club. By this time, The mambo had already evolved into a slot dance and the cross body lead was there.

The 1970s gave rise to merengae, early forms of hip hop, disco and the hustle. Which was cool, okay kind of, well, i guess it's not as bad as boy bands.

Among other aficionados, Eddie Torres kept mambo alive by teaching the dance and standardizing the break step on the 2 and the 6. Torres began to dance on 2 when June Laberta explained music theory to him. Tito Puente Also confirmed to Torres that dancing on 2 was a marriage with the music because the break step synchronizes with the accented slap of the conga drum.