Bolero son

Bolero-son is the Cuban hybrid that joins the romantic bolero's sung verse to the son's danceable montuno close. *Miguel Matamoros* fixed the form in Santiago de Cuba around 1930 with *Trío Matamoros*: a slow, sentimental opening in close harmony gives way, without a break, to a call-and-response montuno over the son's rhythmic cell, making the bolero fit for dancing. Its monument is "Lágrimas negras" (1931), among the most recorded of all Cuban songs, and the form became a staple of tríos, septetos and orchestras across the Spanish Caribbean and beyond.