Not a
typo, folks. Take your fingers off the nuke trigger, editors. This was a
buzzword of sorts in late-
50s pop music. A combination of "cha-cha-cha" and "
calypso", though it was probably, in musical terms, closer to the former than the latter. Part of a "
latin tinge" in pop, with the
clave (real or implied, sometimes truncated) in it. I'm not a percussionist (
scum!), so my demonstration (and writeup) will, no doubt, be lame; my example will show the accents on the beats listed in bold type (off beats listed as a "&"), as follows:
||: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & | 5 & 6 & 7 & 8 & :||
Popularized - it was a dance, I think - on Dick Clark's American Bandstand program, part of the general blanding and mainstreaming of rock and roll, of which Clark had a cut. One can't envision the hooligans of Blackboard Jungle raising hell to the sound of Paul Anka's "Diana", or parents driven to a hide-your-daughters frenzy by the sound of Mickey and Sylvia's "Love is Strange". Which was, other than the novelty of a new beat, part of the point. "Rock'n'roll has been assimilated", the suits could announce. This version of the latin tinge would remain in pop for years to come.