top of page
Search

The "Spanish Tinge" -- How Latin America Influenced Early Blues Music

Jazz and blues trailblazer Jelly Roll Morton once said that real jazz tunes needed “tinges of Spanish.” The Latin American influence on blues music, however, goes beyond just a tinge. From the origins of the iconic 12-string guitar to the habanera rhythm in the 1914 composition “St. Louis Blues” by W. C. Handy to Jelly Roll Morton's Mexican music teacher...and, well, that just a taste.


Each Cuppa Go post is like a newspaper to enjoy with your favorite cuppa. There's a series of related stories on a theme, and just like a newspaper, you can browse as your time and interests lead you.

How Porfirio Díaz Changed the Course of Music and Influenced the Origins of Jazz - In the late 1800's, Mexican President Porfirio Diaz sponsored an event that influenced musicians in New Orleans, Louisiana, and led to the use of both brass and woodwind instruments in the genre.
Here are several other overviews of Latin American influences on blues and jazz in general. They overlap to some extent, but each also adds information not covered in the others.

  • How Mexican and Cuban Music Influenced the Blues - American blues is rooted in place, and not just within U.S. borders. Early blues was influenced by the musics of Mexico and Cuba, with the three countries trading musical styles and techniques since at least the nineteenth century.

  • The Influences of Hispanic Music Cultures on African-American Blues Musicians - Social and musical history, instrumentation, lyrics, and the life history of individual blues musicians illustrates the powerful, creative synergy of Hispanic and African-American music in the Texas-Mexico border region and New Orleans, which deeply influenced the development of blues.

  • The Spanish Tinge: A Hidden Treasure of Blues, Jazz and Dance History - Includes this original often-quoted statement from Jelly Roll Morton, in addition to other great information: ‘’Now take La Paloma, which I transformed in New Orleans style. You leave the left hand just the same. The difference comes in the right hand –in the syncopation, which gives it an entirely different color that really changes the color from red to blue. Now in one of my earliest tunes, New Orleans Blues, you can notice the Spanish tinge. In fact, if you can’t manage to put tinges of Spanish in your tunes, you will never be able to get the right seasoning, I call it, for jazz.’’ Read a transcript of the original interview with Jelly Roll Morton, in which in makes this comment here. He also says that, "the first blues that I’ve ever heard, happened to be a woman, that lived next door to my godmother’s, in the Garden District. Her name was Mamie Desdoume (Desdunes). . .She used to play it (Mamie's Blues) for us."

  • Cuban Danzón: A Thread in the Great Living Web of Jazz History - The influence of Cuban musical culture runs throughout the early days of jazz and blues in New Orleans.

  • Habanera - The habanera, a nineteenth-century musical form named for the capital of Cuba, exerted enormous influence on musical styles throughout the Americas, including in the development of jazz and blues.


W. C Handy in Havana: Afro-Cuban Inspirations and the Blues - Although widely considered the 'father of the blues,' W.C. Handy's grandson says it wasn't easy to play the blues at the time. "His instincts told him that the blues had musical value, but the prejudices of society (both white and Black) dissuaded him from pursuing it more seriously (until his visit to Havana in 1900 inspired him)."

  • Father of the Blues: An Autobiography - W. C. Handy's own account of how Cuban music inspired him and influenced the development of his own ground-breaking blues style is found in the chapter, Mahara's Minstrel Men, in his autobiography. The minstrel show of which he was a part played many shows in Cuba in 1900. Here's part of what Handy says about those days: "While in Havana I bought a copy of the Cuban Hymno Bayames, and arranged it for my band. Later, when we played it on the Prado (the grand street that was a hub of culture in those days), one of the natives became so excited he took my cap and tossed it high into the air. . .Surely, I began to think, music needs no interpreter when it speaks. For those who employ this language Bali and Broadway blend in world-old ways. The music of the island intrigued me. I never missed the concerts of the one-hundred-piece Havana Guards Band. More often I sought out the small, shy bands that played behind closed shutters on dark out of the way streets where the passion flower bloomed in the heart of the night. These fascinated me because they were playing a strange native air, new and interesting to me."

  • Blues: An Anthology - Widely considered a landmark collection of blues compositions, published in 1926 by blues legend W. C . Handy, it contains 53 songs showcasing Handy's own work and that of other blues artists. For the purposes of today's Cuppa Go theme, you can page through the book and see the dynamic illustrations by the renowned Mexican artist, Miguel Covarrubias.

12-String Guitar: From the Street to the Stage - This iconic blues instrument, which originated either in Mexico or Italy, was usually used by the poorer folk of Appalachia and the American southwest. As a result, 12-string guitars worked their way into the blues, folk and Tejano music styles typical of these demographics. In the 1930s and 40s guitarists like Leadbelly, Blind Willie McTell and Fred Gerlach would popularize the instrument in blues and folk music circles while Lydia Mendoza and other Mexican-Americans would popularize it in the American southwest.
Henry Thomas - This blues musician's music, despite his brief career in the 1920s, has a legendary impact on the development of blues music and pop music, down to the present--with a distinct 'Spanish tinge.'

  • Texas Easy Street Blues - This article from the University of Houston explores the fusion of Mexican and African-American influences in Thomas' music. In 1928 Thomas recorded Texas Easy Street Blues, sometimes ranked as the finest blues ever recorded. Played on a guitar, the song talks about himself as an itinerant homeless guy who wants to travel back to his homeland to sit and let time waste. His influence came from Mexican street singers who started the idea of a “One-Man” band and their chordophonic traditions.

  • Fishin' Blues - In this famous piece, besides guitar, Thomas accompanies himself on quills, a folk instrument fabricated from cane reeds similar to the zampona played by musicians in Peru and Bolivia.

The Tio Family: A New Orleans Clarinet Dynasty - Almost everyone who plays jazz clarinet in a classic style today can trace his or her musical lineage back to the Tio family of New Orleans.

  • Lorenzo Tio and Family - There is some debate as to whether the Tio family was originally from Mexico or Cuba, or emigrated to Mexico from Louisiana. Whatever the case may be, their impact on the history of jazz and blues is legendary.

  • Lorezno Tio Jr. - From New Orleans to Harlem, Lorenzo Tio, Jr. influenced the development of jazz and blues with his playing and teaching.

  • West Indies Blues - Classic Piron's New Orleans Orchestra recording from 1923, featuring Lorenzo Tio, Jr. on the clarinet.

  • Harmony Blues - Jelly Roll Morton And His Red Hot Peppers recorded this song in 1930. Lorenzo Tio, Jr. is in the band, playing clarinet.

 The Father of Jazz: Jelly Roll Morton - This profile of Jelly Roll Morton from Rhythms Without Borders: The Pan-American Innovation of Jazz highlights the many Latin influences in his music.

  • The Crave - In this song, Jelly Roll Morton plays habanera and tresillo bass patterns with his left hand, while playing the melody with his right hand.

  • Mamie Desdunes - Mamie Desdunes is the person Jelly Roll Morton credited with teaching him the "Spanish tinge." Desdunes and Morton were both descendants from the influx of Haitian refugees that fled to Cuba after the revolution in the early 1800s, and then migrated to New Orleans in 1809. More about her role in the birth of jazz and blues in New Orleans can be found in this research summary prepared by the National Park Service about the many early female jazz pioneers in New Orleans.

  • Mamie's Blues - The first recording of Jelly Roll Morton playing the famous song in 1938.

Johnny “Daddy Stovepipe” Watson - Thought to be the first, or perhaps second, blues guitarist to make a recording, his career began around 1900 in Mexico as a twelve-string guitarist in early mariachi bands. He then went on to develop a notable career in the United States, before returning to Mexico to again play in mariachi bands.

  • Sundown Blues - Daddy Stovepipe's recording made on May 10th 1924, the second "country" or "rural" blues song with guitar accompaniment ever recorded.

Muy Sabroso Blues - Lalo Guerrero is known as the father of Chicano music, but he recorded and wrote many songs in all sorts of genres, including blues. Learn more about his life and career here.
 Anahuac - This 1926 recording Orquesta Típica Mexicana, which included the Mexican musician and composer Juventino Rosas, author of Sobre la Olas, or Over the Waves,which became a staple of New Orleans brass bands.

bottom of page