La Pachanga

wikipedia |  Pachanga is a genre of music which is described as a mixture of son montuno and merengue and has an accompanying signature style of dance. This type of music has a festive, lively style and is marked by jocular, mischievous lyrics. Pachanga originated in Cuba in the 1950s and played an important role in the evolution of Caribbean style music as we know it today. Considered a prominent contributor to the eventual rise of Salsa, Pachanga itself is an offshoot of Charanga style music.^[1] Very similar in sound to Cha-Cha but with a notably stronger down-beat, Pachanga once experienced massive popularity all across the Caribbean and was brought to the United States by Cuban immigrants post World War II. This led to an explosion of Pachanga music in Cuban music clubs that influenced Latin culture in the United States for decades to come.

Charanga is a type of traditional ensemble that plays Cuban dance music (mostly Danzón, Danzonete, and Cha cha chá) using violin, flute, horns, drums. In Cuba in 1955, Los Papines fused the violin-based music of charanga with the trumpet-based music of conjuntos. Eduardo Davidson's La Pachanga was recorded in 1959 by Orquesta Sublime (which was in the USA). After Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba in 1959, the epicenter of Cuban music moved to other islands and USA. José Fajardo brought the song La Pachanga to New York in the Cuban charanga style. The orquesta, or band, was referred to as charanga, while the accompanying dance was named the pachanga.^[3] The similar sound of the words charanga and pachanga has led to the fact that these two notions are often confused. In fact, charanga is a type of orchestration, while pachanga is a musical and dance genre.