Cuban Charanga

Cuban Charanga is dance music played by the charanga francesa format: European classical instrumentation of French-style wooden flute, violins, piano, güiro and timbales (pailas criollas), without a brass section. The charanga is the orchestra of the danzón, Cuba's national ballroom dance, and its flute soloist improvises virtuosic variations over the violins' syncopated guajeos. From this base the format generated the danzón de nuevo ritmo through *Arcaño y sus Maravillas*, the cha-cha-chá through *Orquesta América*, and the New York pachanga of the 1960s. *Orquesta Aragón*, founded in 1939, remains its most durable institution.