Son Montuno
For Cubans, son is salsa, only noncommercialized and uncorrupted by American media influence. Though such feelings reflect a strong sense of nationalism, it is true that son is uniquely Cuban and provided the foundation for the later development of salsa. In the 1930s, Americans first became familiar with son, referring to it as rumba. By the 1940s, the style had evolved into son montuno, an innovation of Arsenio Rodríguez (1911–1970). In America, the genre later became known by the more generic term Latin jazz and was popularized by recognized jazz icons, such as Dizzy Gillespie (1917–1993), as well as Latin music artists, including Tito Puente (1923–2000) and Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo (1909–1984), better known as "Machito."