Santana’s recording of “Oye Como Va” is one of the most outrageous grooves I’ve ever heard. David Welna describes it as “a Cuban cha-cha composed by a Puerto Rican New Yorker and performed by a Mexican immigrant and his San Francisco rock band.” It’s red-hot from its opening seconds. As the organ starts the montuno, someone in the band says “Brrrrrr, sabor”, meaning flavor, and that is definitely the word.
The song is a cover of a 1950s cha-cha-chá by Tito Puente.
The lyrics translate to: “Listen to how my rhythm goes, it’s good for dancing/partying, mixed-race lady.” Here’s a delightful live version.
The nucleus of “Oye Como Va” is the intro to a Cuban tune, “Chanchullo” by Israel “Cachao” Lopez.
The whole tune is in A Dorian mode. You can think of it as being like the A natural minor scale, but with F-sharp instead of F. You can also think of it as being the G major scale from A to A. Either way, Dorian has an elegant symmetry when you see it on the circle.
It’s especially cool how Dorian mode has scale tones both a minor third above and a minor third below the tonic. In A Dorian, those notes are C and F-sharp respectively. The interval between them is a tritone, and together with A, they form a diminished triad. The tritone and diminished chord give Dorian its distinctive bluesy vibe. In Western tonality, the tritone is a dissonant and unstable sound, but in a Dorian groove, it sounds perfectly stable. In this context, I would describe the C/F-sharp tritone as spicy rather than dissonant.
“Oye Como Va” only has two chords, and they are easy to derive from A Dorian. You make chords from scales by picking a note and then going around clockwise, stacking every alternating scale degree on top. If you start on A, you get A, C, E and G, which make Am7. If you start on D, you get D, F-sharp, A, and C, which make D7. The notes in D7 also make excellent upper extensions for Am7. The tune’s harmonic simplicity makes it attractive for rock bands to try to cover. Two chords, how hard could it be? But then they try to play it and find that they can’t get the groove together. It’s not complicated, exactly, but it’s subtle, and it takes considerable skill to get it right.
Here’s my transcription.
That first guitar riff (adapted from a Tito Puente horn part) is a rhythmic variant of The Lick. There is no escaping The Lick.
Here’s the main montuno as visualized on the Groove Pizza.
It’s more visually clear in cut time how the pairs of hits are arranged unevenly around the groove.
Counting in eighth notes, the pattern is 2-3-2-4-2-3. Why is this particular sequence so gratifying? Think of it as three groupings: 2-3, 2-4, 2-3. It’s symmetrical! But it’s a symmetry that doesn’t lie evenly on the 4/4 grid. Your brain can hear a clear and meaningful pattern, but it can’t instantly parse what it is. Even when you do get it figured out, there’s so much pushing and pulling against it from all the instruments that you never get bored. It’s an exquisite balance of familiarity and novelty; familiar enough that you can participate (by dancing or just grooving along), and complex enough to keep you on your mental toes.
Fun fact, the Hammond organ is played by Gregg Rolie, who, after he split with Santana, co-founded Journey. I like Journey fine, but they don’t have the fathomlessly deep groove that Santana does. I mean, does anyone?