All the Mambo songs

Mambo is a genre of Cuban dance music that originated in Havana in the late 1930s as a syncopated evolution of the traditional danzón—known specifically as danzón‑mambo—featuring an improvised montuno section built around repeated, syncopated melodic patterns (guajeos) drawn from son cubano. Pioneered by the charanga Arcaño y sus Maravillas and later popularized in a big‑band format by Pérez Prado during the 1940s and early 1950s, mambo is defined by its driving, syncopated rhythms; prominent brass‑section riffs; and layered Afro‑Cuban percussion (congas, timbales, cowbell, güiro), supported by piano montunos and bass tumbaos. Its energetic, dance‑focused sound sparked a mid‑century “mambo craze” across Mexico and the United States and laid the rhythmic and harmonic foundations for later Latin styles such as cha‑cha‑cha and salsa.