I know that words evolve, but from what I've researched, mambo is a dance. When a mambo band was playing, someone shouted for them to play it with salsa (hot sauce), so hot mambo music became known as salsa. So, now, when you dance to hot mambo music, the dance is called salsa? I still think you dance the mambo to mambo music or salsa music. The dance is always mambo. It's the music that's different, or is salsa (a dance?)a hotter style of the mambo?

Scoutniagara

I'm no expert but Mambo is slower than Salsa. Mambo tends to have a big band sound as well. Salsa is danced on 1 and Mambo is danced on two.

I noticed that with Salsa, there is often a tick on odd numbers.

The music sounds very different to me as well. With Mambo music you want to dance on the 2 since the 2-3-4 seems sort of heavy.

I have been dancing salsa for 14 years in the UK.

Salsa is Mambo.....it is just that Mambo is much older... from the forties and fifties (say) and the music has progressed thro the years..and is know called Salsa...but the basic structure is the same. You could say Mambo is the God Father of Salsa.

Unfortunatley people in the UK are not taught to interpret the music properly and dance on 1/dance to the melody. In new york, where the best salsa dancers hang out, they are taught to hear the conga rhythm which has its accent on beat 2. In NY they dance on 2 which is the correct timing for salsa and mambo.

have just explained this in detail on another post on this forum