"I composed some ''danzones'' in which the musicians of the orchestra were singing short refrains. The audiences liked it, so I kept it up. In the danzón 'Constancia,' I inserted some well-known ''montunos'' and when the audience joined in singing the refrains; it led me to compose more ''danzones'' in this style. I asked all the members of the orchestra to sing in unison. This accomplished three things: the lyrics were heard more clearly and had greater impact and also the () vocal quality of the () musicians (who were not actually singers) was masked. In 1948, I changed the style of 'Nunca,' a Mexican song by Guty de Cárdenas. I left the first part in the original style and I gave a different feeling to the melody in the second part. I liked it so well that I decided to separate the last part, that is to say, the third trio or ''montuno,'' from the ''danzón.'' Then I came up with pieces like "La engañadora" (1951), which had an introduction, a part A (repeated), a part B, a return to part A and finally, a coda in the form of a ''rumba''. From nearly the beginning of my career as a composer of dance songs, I watched how the dancers danced the ''danzón-mambo''. I noted that most of them had difficulty with syncopated rhythms, owing to the fact that their steps fell on the upbeat (''contratiempo''), or in other words, the second and fourth eighth notes of the (2/4) measure. The dancers dancing on the upbeat and the syncopated melodies made it very difficult to coordinate the steps with the music. I began to compose melodies to which one could dance without instrumental accompaniment, trying to use as little syncopation as possible. I moved the accent from the fourth eighth note- where it was normally found in the ''mambo''- to the first beat of the ''cha-cha-chá''. And so the ''cha-cha-chá'' was born- from melodies that were practically danceable by themselves and a balance between melodies on the downbeat and the upbeat." (Orovio 1981:130-2)

"What Jorrín composed, by his own admission, were nothing but creatively modified ''danzones''. The well-known name came into being with the help of the dancers (the Silver Star Club in Havana ), when, in inventing the dance that was coupled to the rhythm, it was discovered that their feet were making a peculiar sound as they grazed the floor on three successive beats: ''cha-cha-chá'', and from this sound was born, by onomatopeia, the name that caused people all around the world to want to move their feet..." (Sanchez-Coll 2006)