Salsa Compass

TRANSPARENCY

Sources & Rights

A museum should disclose the sources of its knowledge, the limits of its certainty, and the reasons behind its visual choices.

Poster-style illustration of printed sheets, a record, and a provenance verification symbol

Image policy

Why there are no photographs here

The most striking feature of this museum may be what is absent: no photographs of Celia Cruz, no scenes from the Palladium, no Fania album covers. This is a deliberate decision, not an oversight.

Photographs of the Fania generation are almost invariably protected by copyright, typically for around 95 years after publication in the United States. Freely licensed photographs of these figures are scarce; the relevant Wikimedia Commons categories are correspondingly sparse.

Record covers, among the era's most remarkable graphic works and designed by artists including Izzy Sanabria, are likewise protected. Craft Latino and Concord acquired the Fania catalogue in 2018, and the rights reside with them.

Cuban screen-printed posters produced by ICAIC and OSPAAAL from the 1960s through the 1980s, whose visual language informs this site's design, cannot reliably be treated as public domain, despite a widespread assumption to the contrary. Archives generally describe their rights status as unclear or attribute rights to the designers and their heirs.

The result

Rather than reproduce protected images, this museum uses only original graphics: stylized interpretations of historical figures, drawn instrument symbols, step diagrams, and rhythm grids. The portraits deliberately avoid replicating specific historical photographs. The instruments gallery uses freely licensed recordings of acoustic instruments.

Historical images can be viewed through the rights holders and museum archives, where they belong and where their provenance is documented.

If images are added

Should the site require further illustration, the viable options are:

  • Wikimedia Commons — Verify each file's license, usually CC BY-SA: credit the creator, link to the license, and distribute adaptations under the same license.
  • Library of Congress, «Free to Use and Reuse» — Read the rights statement for every object; the Library itself does not usually own the rights.
  • Smithsonian Open Access — Objects marked CC0 may be used without copyright restrictions. CC0 does not, however, address trademark or personality rights.
  • Flickr Commons — Filter for “no known copyright restrictions.”
  • Unsplash and Pexels — Free to use, but generic in subject matter and of limited value for historical topics.
  • Licensing from the rights holder, the only unambiguous route for Fania imagery.

In every case, each image must carry a visible caption naming its creator, source, and license.

Knowledge base

What the texts are based on

This museum draws on established specialist and reference literature on Caribbean and Latin American popular music, together with documentation held by music and dance archives. Dates, names, and attributions are generally supported by multiple sources.

The following source types are particularly valuable for further research:

  • Musicological reference works on Cuban and Puerto Rican music
  • Archives and collections documenting the history of Latin American music in New York
  • Collection records from music and cultural museums
  • Interviews and first-person accounts, with the caveat that nearly all principal figures portrayed their own contribution as larger than it was

A note on the imbalance

Salsa's documentary record is uneven. Where record companies maintained archives, especially in New York, the history is well documented. Events in Cuban dance halls, Puerto Rican living rooms, and Colombian neighborhoods received far less documentation, although they were no less important musically. Every account of salsa history, including this one, inherits that imbalance.

Qualifications

What remains uncertain

The following questions are left explicitly open rather than smoothed over:

Willie Colón

Some circulating accounts refer to Willie Colón in the past tense. No reliable evidence supporting this could be found when the page was created. The museum therefore gives only his year of birth, born 1950, and no year of death. Future editors should consult a reliable primary source before changing this information.

The origin of the word “salsa”

The attribution is disputed. Johnny Pacheco is most often credited, while Izzy Sanabria also claimed the term. The site presents the question as an open debate and reaches no verdict.

Frequency of 2-3 versus 3-2

The statement that most salsa is in 2-3 is a common rule of thumb among musicians and dancers, not a counted statistic.

Foot sequences in On2

On2 teaching traditions assign feet to counts differently, particularly Eddie Torres New York On2 and the older Palladium or Son-On2 traditions. This site therefore identifies the count of the break step, not the foot used to execute it.

Simplified rhythm notation

The patterns in the Gallery IV ensemble mixer are reduced to an eighth-note grid. In practice, conga, timbales, and güiro also play sixteenth notes and distinguish among open tones, slaps, and muted strokes. The diagram represents the underlying structure, not a complete performable part.

Salsa in Switzerland and Europe

The evidence shows that the European congress scene developed early in the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland, among other countries. Specific Swiss festivals, schools, and annual dates are deliberately omitted because they could not be reliably verified.

Colophon

How this site is built

Static HTML, CSS, and a small amount of JavaScript, with no framework or build step. There are no cookies or tracking pixels. Visiting an ordinary page loads files only from the museum's own server; external music services open only when a visitor deliberately selects a link.

  • Fonts: Bebas Neue and Source Sans 3, both served locally under the SIL Open Font License.
  • Design: informed by the screen-printing tradition of Cuban posters and the record-sleeve graphics of New York's salsa milieu: flat fields of color on paper white, halftone grids, and poster type. An evocation, not a copy.
  • Sound: The ensemble mixer loads local instrument recordings and synchronizes playback through the Web Audio API. The site makes no connection to an external audio service.
  • Accessibility: Keyboard operation, visible focus indicators, a skip link, and labels for all graphics. The operating system's “Reduce motion” preference is respected; when enabled, animations do not run.
  • Playlists: Spotify and Apple Music appear only as standard external text links. The museum uses no platform players, cover images, tracking scripts, or recommendation widgets.

Sources for the instrument recordings

The recordings were edited into short attacks, adjusted for volume and decay, and in some cases transposed.

Music examples for the dance styles

The dance styles page plays excerpts of no more than 30 seconds. For licensing reasons, no Pachanga recording is hosted locally; instead, the page links to a stylistically appropriate Charanga recording on streaming services.

Curating the Playlists Gallery

The eight listening paths are editorial selections, not an objective ranking. They are organized by historical lineage and production center; many musicians and works could legitimately appear in more than one list. Title spellings were checked against published discographies and platform catalogues.