Bolero

Bolero has always been considered as a melody with an historical value, so far that today some people consider it as a masterpiece.
Some reseachers established its birth and said that its first and historical presence took place in the "filin" Cuban movement. It is important to say that the Cuban point of view of "today" was not present then, which means that we are not refering to the authorized voices like José María Vitier, Marta Valdés, Frank Fernández, Chucho Valdés, Alexis Díaz-Pimienta, Efraín Amador, Waldo Leyva, Omara Portuondo, César Portillo de la Luz and much more, neither to the rest of the artists who contributed to the success of the North American project Buena Vista Social Club.

The acurate research of Francisco Ojeda established the bolero birth in the second half of the XIXth century, what contradicts the title of the book "Cien años de bolero" of the Colombian Jaime Rico Salazar.

'El cinquillo' appeared as the first rythmic pattern of 'bolero', apparently inherited of France via Haiti, through Cuba, Yucatán and, according to some people, through the South of United States.

For the ones who would like a description much more accurate of "what is a bolero?", they had to conform with the conclusion of Ojeda: "It is an tune". Of course intelligent, reconciling, with a wonderful end.

Frank Figueroa put down the Leitmotivs of the most famous boleros, their introductions: "All say my love for you is not true...", showing that everything is said in a very short time.

Being myself a bolero's son (dad pianist and mom singer...), I affirm that it is impossible to try to organise the story, its date of birth  or the nacionality, because the reason bolero has been created came from illusion, spite, lie, truth, passion, jalousy, treachery, abandon, reunion and threat of death too.

Most compositors, authors and interpreters of bolero created the best masterpieces from two basic tools: love and confusion.