Music of Panama

Panama is a Central American country, inhabited mostly by mestizos (persons of mixed African, European and indigenous ancestry). The music of Panama is heavily based on the folk music of Spain, particularly that of Andalusia and was influenced first by the indigenous populations of Guna, Teribes, Ngobe Bugle and others, and then by the black population who were brought over, first as slaves from Africa, between the 16th century and the 19th century, and then voluntarily (especially from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Saint Lucia) to work on the Panamanian Railroad and Canal projects between the 1840s and 1914.

With this heritage, Panama has a rich and diverse music history, and important contributions to cumbia, saloma, pasillo, punto, tamborito, mejorana, bolero, jazz, salsa, reggae, calypso, rock, and other musical genres.

The saloma and mejorana feature a distinctive vocal style said to derive from Sevillians. The most important native instruments used to play these musics are the mejoranera, a five-stringed guitar accompanying songs called mejoranas as well as torrentes, and the rabel, a violin with three strings used to play cumbias, puntos and pasillos in the central provinces of Coclé, Herrera, Los Santos and Veraguas.

Closely related to its more well-known Colombian cousin, Panamanian cumbia, especially amanojá and atravesao styles, are domestically popular. Another important music is punto and the salon dances like pasillo, danza and contradanza. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the Pasillo music was very popular.

A folk dance, called tamborito is very popular. Danced by men and women in costumes, the tamborito is led by a cantalante, a female lead singer, who is backed by a clapping chorus (the "estribillo") that sings four-line stanzas of copla (a lyrical form related to Spanish poetry) as well as three drums.

A somewhat similar genre called congo is popular among the black communities of the northern coast in Costa Arriba, which includes Portobelo, a province of Colón.

Contemporary popular Panama folkloric music is generally called música típico, or pindín, which since the 1940s has included instruments such as the guiro, conga and especially the accordion, among others. Some famous Panamanian artists in this genre are Aceves Nunez, Teresín Jaén, Ulpiano Vergara, Lucho De Sedas y Juan De Sedas, Dorindo Cárdenas, Victorio Vergara Batista, Roberto "Papi" Brandao, Nenito Vargas, Yin Carrizo, Abdiel Núñez, Manuel de Jesús Abrego, Alejandro Torres and Samy y Sandra Sandoval.

Panama's leading salsa musician, Rubén Blades, has achieved international stardom, after collaborating with other local musicians like Rómulo Castro and Tuira. Other world-famous musicians from Panama included Luis Russell, who played with Louie Armstrong in the 1920s, Mauricio Smith, a noted saxophone and flute player who played with Chubby Checker, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Machito and Mongo Santamaría, among others. Victor "Vitin" Paz, a pillar of the Latin jazz trumpet, was a cornerstone of the Fania All Stars for many years. Gaitanes, La Kshamba, Roberto Delgado and many others.