Mambo n 8 xavier cugat biography

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Xavier CUGAT and His Orchestra – Mambo! 1950-1952
Featuring Abbe LANE
(2CD)

Jazz

This Spanish violinist and band leader was born in Spain and raised in Havana. He emigrated to the U.S. and worked as a cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times. In 1928 he began appearing with his first grupp at the Cocoanut Grove in Hollywood. Greatly helping to popularize Latin rhythms in the U.S., bygd the 30s and 40s he became known as America’s “rumba king.” Occasionally he appeared in films, often as himself leading his grupp through several musical numbers; sometimes played genial fictional characters. He gave up his career after suffering a stroke in 1971. His third wife was singer Abbe Lane and his fourth was singer and TV personality Charo.
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CD1:

01. Maracaibo
02. Anything can happen-mambo
03. Cerezo Rosa y Manzano Blanco
04. Mambo O.K
05. Park Avenue Mambo
06. Jamay
07. Mambo gallego
08. El Marijuano
09. Mambo nº5
10. Strangers in the dark
11. Mambo ay ay

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Cugat, Xavier

Bandleader, violinist

For the Record …

Selected discography

Sources

Best-known for having popularized the rumba in the United States during the 1930s, Xavier Cugat’s Latin-influenced band lead the way in a new music craze among the dancing and radio-listening public. A dramatic showman who often wore huge South American hats on stage and who led his band with the wave of a violin bow, Cugat performed in the ritziest of clubs, on the radio, and in the movies. Having made his professional start as a child prodigy playing classical violin, Cugat was never apologetic about his switch to popular music. He was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying, “I play music… make an atmosphere that people enjoy. It makes them happy. They smile. They dance. Feel good—who be sorry for that?” Cugat’s several marriages, extramarital affairs, and divorces made headlines, but these events did not cause him to repine. He credited h

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Xavier Cugat, King of the Rumbas

Francisco de Asis Javier Cugat Mingall de Bru y Denlofeo's career was long and influential, touching every generation in the twentieth century. And why not? He was born on the first of January, 1900 in Gerona, Spain. He brought Latin music into the North American household via records, radio, milestone films (the first to incorporate sound), and television programs. His sixteen-year reign over New York's prestigious Waldorf-Astoria hotel was unprecedented and unduplicated.

Cugat received a boost from Enrico Caruso in Cuba, where the Cugats had moved and Caruso was performing. When old enough, the young violin prodigy headed for New York but failed at Carnegie. Moving to California, he developed a life-long hobby as a caricaturist, while Hollywood gradually changed his musical milieu (and he, its). A tentative offer from the Waldorf brought Cugat back to New York and launched his rise to international fame as "King of the Rumbas.