By the beginning of the 20th century in Cuba, the people had integrated into their music-making methods the characteristic elements of the original settlers, which formed the Cuban nationality. These structural components, which were timbral, melodic, and rhythmic, gradually formed musical genres with essentially national characteristics, which appeared in all strata of the population and were used for various social functions.

At the beginning of the century, there were a multitude of Cuban musical genres heard in diverse environments. Cuban music expanded beyond the island’s borders, and since then, most of the genres that have emerged over time have enjoyed remarkable success, even establishing universal standards.

The preserved oral tradition that enabled the passage of music from generation to generation, as well as its direct transmission through the reading of sheet music, had allowed for a true development and growth of Cuban music. The birth of mass media, first the record and then the radio, was the first to disseminate the music of our country to Latin American nations, the United States, Spain, and other European countries. It is no coincidence that the first record distribution agency for Latin America was established in Cuba. Beginning in 1906, they began recording the best danzón orchestras, those that had participated in concerts, dances, and religious ceremonies, prominent tenors, comic theater dialogues, troubadours, peasant singers, military bands, and instrumental soloists on cylinders and discs. This made Cuban music, as well as the musicians and talents existing on the island, immediately known abroad.

In the 1920s, Cuban music was enriched by important changes, primarily the shift from the typical orchestra to the emerging French charanga. The presence of son sextets also emerged, featuring many of the composers and performers of popular song. It was during this decade that the Sextetos Habanero, de Occidente, and Nacional achieved a true apogee of the genre, which expanded through recordings and the tours these musicians undertook in other countries. During this period, Ignacio Piñeiro’s most famous son, “Suavecito,” was introduced. Jazz bands from the United States had also been introduced and were quickly adopted, introducing singing and dancing styles, timbres, and structures that left their mark on our music.

The music of Cuban lyrical theater, almost always the arias and romances from Cuban zarzuelas sung by soloists accompanied on piano, also enjoyed its heyday. The Cuban Traditional Music Concerts began, later followed by the concerts organized by Ernesto Lecuona.

It is in the music of Manuel Saumell and Ignacio Cervantes that the first nationalist traits can be found; their music heralds an awareness of their folklore and popular music. In the 20th century, in 1923, the Grupo Minorista was founded in Havana, interested in researching and exploring the African traits of Cuban culture. This group would provide the intellectual basis for renewing Cuban musical culture. This nationalism based on Black African roots is called Afrocubanism. Two important composers, considered classics of Afro-Cuban art music, are Amadeo Roldán and Alejandro García Caturla. They are also the first Cuban composers of symphonic art music to embrace contemporary techniques. Their rich and daring harmonic palettes, use of large symphonic forms, and magnetic manipulation of orchestral forces helped to place Cuban music within the realm of universal contemporary art music for the first time.

It was in the 20th century that Cuban music finally flourished. A whole phalanx of Cuban popular music composers created enormous collections of songs, danzones, sones, boleros, guajiras, guarachas, pregones, among other genres of our Cuban music.