Guaracha

Guaracha is a Cuban song and dance form of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: fast, witty and satirical, sung in Spanish over the rhythms of son. Where the bolero is romantic and the son montuno expansive, the guaracha is a comic chronicle — topical verses, double meanings and call-and-response choruses delivered at brisk tempo by a solo singer with conjunto or big band. Its master composer was *Ñico Saquito*, whose hundreds of guarachas with *Los Guaracheros de Oriente* fixed the form; singers from *Celia Cruz* to *Benny Moré* made it a staple of Cuban dance halls before it was absorbed into salsa.