The cha-cha-cha is a Cuban folk dance. It is performed towards the music of the very same name, which was presented inside the early 1950s by Cuban composer and violinist Enrique Jorrin. The danzón-mambo beat was used to create this rhythm. The dance’s name is indeed an onomatopoeia derived from shuffling sound made by the dancers’ feet as they dance two rapid steps in a row (properly, along with the fourth count of each measure).
Enrique Jorrn was a violinist and composer well with the charanga ensemble Orquesta América in the early 1950s. The trio performed for dance-oriented clientele at Havana’s dance venues, where they played danzón, danzonete, and danzon-mambo.
Jorrn noted that most of the dancers at all these performances struggled well with danzón-synchronized mambo’s rhythms. Jorrn began producing songs with a strong melody with the first downbeat and a somewhat syncopated rhythm to make his music more accessible to dancers. The dancers devised a triple step in their footwork to produce the sound “cha-cha-cha” when Orquesta América played these new pieces there at Silver Star Club in Havana. As a result, the new style became known as “cha-cha-chá” and was connected with a dance in which the dancers performed a triple step.
Several Afro-Cuban dances from the Santera religion use the same fundamental footwork pattern as cha-cha-cha. One of the movements of the Ogun ritual dance of something like the Orisha tribe, for example, has the same pattern of footwork. Many Cubans, particularly those of African descent, were familiar with these Afro-Cuban dances prior to the invention of the cha-cha-cha. The cha-cha-footwork cha’s was most probably influenced by these Afro-Cuban dances.
On the Cuban record label Panart, Orquesta América published two of Jorrin’s works, “La Engaadora” as well as “Silver Star,” in 1953. These were the earliest recordings of cha-cha-cha compositions.
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