LOS ANGELES, CA.-In the words of New Orleans jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton, jazz was born with a "Spanish tinge." A bilingual traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian, “Latin Jazz: La Combinación Perfecta,” opened at the California African American Museum and remain on view until October 8, 2005.

In the late 19th century, musical traditions from the Caribbean and the United States migrated and mixed, resulting in the emergence of complex new sounds. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, musicians including Mario Bauza, Dizzy Gillespie, Chano Pozo and Machito began to fuse jazz with Afro-Cuban music. The result was what “Latin Jazz” curator Raúl Fernández calls “a hybrid of hybrids.” Percussionists assumed a dramatic new importance, new instruments found their way into the jazz lexicon, and the African heritage of both Caribbean and American music became more pronounced.

In New York, social clubs, concert halls and dance venues brought together American, Puerto Rican, Cuban and Caribbean musicians. In other major U.S. cities jazz audiences and musicians also welcomed these new influences. On the West Coast many local musicians, along with East Coast musicians who had migrated west, adopted the new blend of music as their own. In San Francisco, the Beats wove the vocabulary and rhythms of Afro-Cubop into their own work. Meanwhile, the sounds of American jazz spread throughout the Caribbean.
An 18-member advisory committee, led by Fernández, professor of social sciences at the University of California, Irvine, and drawn from the international jazz and Latin music community, has been an important part of the planning process of this project. Members include music scholars and historians, musicians, record executives, producers and radio broadcasters.

“Latin jazz is one of the most complex and exciting musics of the planet,” said Fernández. “It combines Afro-Cuban and Caribbean rhythms with the harmonic approaches and styles of jazz. It’s the perfect combination.”

The exhibition is part of a four-component project, which also features accompanying educational materials, a book published by Chronicle Books, and a CD produced by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings containing some of the most essential Latin jazz recordings. Visit http://www.smithsonianjazz.org/latinjazz/latinjazz_start.asp for more information.
“Latin Jazz: La Combinación Perfecta” was organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) and America’s Jazz Heritage, a Partnership of the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund and the Smithsonian Institution. Additional support has been provided by BET Jazz.