The blending of Latin music and jazz has occurred in countless forms, under many guises, over much of the twentieth century. Cuba, New York City, and Puerto Rico all played key roles in the initial fusion, but the unfolding of this complex musical genre has had worldwide implications.

In early 1920s Cuba, descendants of African slaves brought a song form known as son to Havana from the sugar-plantation-filled province of Oriente. Settling in segregated barrios, their passionate music thrived, despite its rejection by the white Cuban elite, who preferred the danzon, music derived from eighteenth-century French court contradanse, performed by string-and-flute bands called charangas. Son had its bands as well, called conjuntos, which instead featured trumpets and timbales (stand-mounted drums and cowbells). Both types of music were powered by the conga and bongos, which had found their origins in religious drum rituals, but by the mid-...