Grupo Niche is undoubtedly the Colombian salsa band with greater national and international recognition. It was founded in Bogotá in 1979 by chocoan composer Jairo Varela (1949-2012), who throughout his life was its director and the composer of almost all their work. In 1982 the band moved to Cali, and in the surroundings of the Cali salsa movement the band grew and consolidated, generating an association between them and the city. Despite the relevance of Afro populations and their musical practices in the Cali society, until now little has been done to analyze in depth the musical proposal of groups such as Grupo Niche. The present text seeks to fill this gap through the description and rigorous analysis of the musical elements that are present in their work and making questions about the processes and contexts of its creation. The question that guides the analysis refers to the relationship between the musical proposal of the Niche Group and the traditional music of the Colombian Pacific, and what this tells us about the aesthetic and politics of the group.
Keywords:
Salsa, Grupo Niche, music of the Pacific, Afro-Colombians
Ochoa, J. S., Zapata, C. A., & Santamaría-Delgado, C. (2020). The salsa sound of Grupo Niche: a translocal musical project. Revista Musical Chilena, 74(234), 175–197. Retrieved from https://revistas.uchile.cl/index.php/RMCH/article/view/53301
