Michel Herrera · Nueva Era
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In a country like Cuba â where music education programmes have tended to be designed for the 19
th century, European-style conservatoire has reigned supreme â the focus would naturally tend towards orchestral instruments such as the piano, violin, cello and others. Despite the fact that traditions have always been vibrantly alive and that ancestral storytelling, music and dance forms have thrived and have been syncretized into both spiritual and secular music, even young Cubans seem to graduate towards either European, concert-style instruments, or traditional ones such as the tumbadora and other percussion instruments. With the spread of US neo-colonialisation in South America and the advent of the radio, a fiery torch was lit â one that illuminated the Black-American called jazz. Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker brought with them not only Bebop, but a rhythmic invention that seemed to combust with a nuclear energy similar to that