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List Price: $19.95 | | Label: New Video Group
Salesrank: 28228
Released: April 24, 2001 |
| Our Price: $10.48 |
| Used Price: $13.17 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Long before World Music became a record store staple, Americans were singing along to the sweet sounds of Celia Cruz and dancing to the rhythmic beats of Tito Puente.
Harry Belafonte hosts this globe-trotting, star-studded celebration tracing the history of the popular sounds we call Latin music, from tribal celebrations in African jungles to Cuba's wild carnivals and New York City's hottest nightspots.
This critically acclaimed production highlights an incredible array of dancing and musical performances from world-renowned stars including Gloria Estefan, Tito Puente, Dizzy Gillespie, Desi Arnaz, Celia Cruz, Ruben Blades, Isaac Oviedo, King Sunny Ade and many more.Don't miss this celebration of the explosive sound that has the whole world dancing.
DVD Features: Interactive Menus; Scene Selection
Description of Roots of Rhythm:
Latin music has always been a fixture in American popular culture, but its history reflects centuries of change and complexity from diverse sources. Roots of Rhythm, an incredible three-hour film originally shown on PBS in 1997, traces the development of this exciting musical genre, going back 500 years across three continents. Hosted by the famed Caribbean American entertainer Harry Belafonte, the film begins in West Africa, in the villages that ring with the ancestral anthems of sacred Yoruba beats and bata drums. The focus shifts to Spain, where modern-day troubadours sing their haunting, Moorish-tinged ballads and Gypsies dance their heated flamenco dances. Those musical influences are brought together by the transatlantic slave trade in the island of Cuba, where enslaved Africans and Spanish immigrants mixed and melded each others' music into a myriad of new, hybrid creations like the rumba, tumba francesa, danzon, and mambo. Belafonte quotes a poet who said, "Cuban music is a love affair between the African drum and the Spanish guitar."
In America, this love affair bloomed in New York, where Cuban and African American jazz musicians like Machito, Mario Bauza, and Dizzy Gillespie melded mambo rhythms to bebop, creating Latin jazz. Belafonte then brings us to the dazzling timbales master Tito Puente and vocalist Celia Cruz, who reigned as the king and queen of salsa, the stateside version of Cuban dance music that emerged in the '60s. The film offers revealing interviews and music clips with many Latin music stars, including Gloria Estefan of Miami Sound Machine and Panamanian Rubén Blades. The rare archival footage features Dizzy Gillespie's 1948 number "Manteca," bandleader Xavier Cugat's "Gypsy Mambo," and a cartoon clip of Donald Duck doing "Tico Tico." After watching this engaging and encyclopedic film, you'll never dance to Latin music the same way again. --Eugene Holley Jr.
Roots of Rhythm Reviews:
Very good overview of history of cuban music 
2008-12-26 - This documentary follows the roots of Cuban music, explores its fundamental genres such as son, and traces development of this music for much of the 20th century, to a point when it began to be called latin music or salsa. It's not an encyclopaedia, of course, but gives very good overview of the music.
Latin Roots 
2008-08-03 - This is a great documentary of who we truly are in our music! This tells our whole musical history of how our music all began! A must for latin fans!
Great for the money
2008-07-21 - I was amazed by this DVD. It's actually three programs in one, totalling 3 hours. Harry Belafonte is an amazing host, and he travelled to Cuba, Africa and Spain to research this. I was excited to see the origins of Cuban music, and it made me wish I had been there.
The impact of african culture on pop music and dance
2007-10-20 - I bought this item and would say that it was everything I wished for and more. Educational and entertaining. It really goes deeply into Caribbean culture and demonstrates how music and dance from west africa share much of an almost identical history due to slavery and colonisation. It traces musics and dance directly from Africa to the Caribbean and North America( the Americas). Highly recommended.
Roots of Rhythm
2006-03-20 - If you want to know the roots of Cuban music you must see this DVD. Mr. Harry Belafonte takes you on a tour through Africa, Spain, Cuba and finally to the United States. On this DVD he made a thorough investigation and explains how the Afro-Cuban music evolved from the African/Spanish ancestors and spread to other regions including Argentina. Also he shows how the U.S borrowed the Cuban beat to make songs Like "little Darling" by the Diamonds among other hits in America where the lyrics are in English with the Cuban influence sound. He interviews Gloria Estefan, Celia Cruz, Dizzy Gillespie and many others, you will see a rare clip of the great trumpet player a young Louis Armstrong singing "El Manisero"(a traditional Cuban song) in one of his early recordings. Many people have asked me to borrow this DVD because it covers an extraordinary amount of information that most people are not aware, not only is the African sound involved, also the Gypsies and the Spanish Flamenco are traced. It's amazing how much information is available to anyone who is serious in learning the roots of what some are calling Salsa (Afro-Cuban) today. To all musicians this is a must for your collection. Three hours of music to educate the true musicians who want to expand their knowledge in the Afro-Cuban or the Afro-Latin roots.
