Simply said, Salsa is a sauce of made of many ingredients. It is not just one dance, but it contains many rhythms and dances. Before the term Salsa there were all of these dances separated:
- Mambo
- Rumba
- Guaguanco
- Son
- Son-Montuno
- Guajira
- Guajira-Son
- Bolero
- Bolero-Son
So around 70s some people decided that that was too much to bear, and they coined the term Salsa.
Veterans of these dances didn’t really like this new Salsa term because some history and understanding was lost in the translation by gathering it all in one word.
But despite the critics dissatisfaction that process certainly helped to spread the dance and culture worldwide.