1.
Havana
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Havana is the capital city, largest city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city extends mostly westward and southward from the bay, which is entered through a narrow inlet, the sluggish Almendares River traverses the city from south to north, entering the Straits of Florida a few miles west of the bay. King Philip II of Spain granted Havana the title of City in 1592, walls as well as forts were built to protect the old city. The sinking of the U. S. battleship Maine in Havanas harbor in 1898 was the cause of the Spanish–American War. Contemporary Havana can essentially be described as three cities in one, Old Havana, Vedado and the suburban districts. The city is the center of the Cuban government, and home to various ministries, headquarters of businesses, the current mayor is Marta Hernández of the Communist Party of Cuba. In 2009, the city/province had the third highest income in the country, the city attracts over a million tourists annually, the Official Census for Havana reports that in 2010 the city was visited by 1,176,627 international tourists, a 20% increase from 2005. Old Havana was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982, the city is also noted for its history, culture, architecture and monuments. As typical of Cuba, Havana also features a tropical climate, in May 2015, Havana was officially recognized as one of the New7Wonders Cities together with Vigan, Doha, La Paz, Durban, Beirut, and Kuala Lumpur. Most native settlements became the site of Spanish colonial cities retaining their original Taíno names, an alternate theory is that Habana is derived from the Middle Dutch word havene, referring to a harbour, etymologically related to the English word haven. All attempts to found a city on Cubas south coast failed, however, an early map of Cuba drawn in 1514 places the town at the mouth of this river. The town that became Havana finally originated adjacent to what was then called Puerto de Carenas, the quality of this natural bay, which now hosts Havanas harbor, warranted this change of location. Pánfilo de Narváez gave Havana – the sixth town founded by the Spanish on Cuba – its name, the name combines San Cristóbal, patron saint of Havana. Shortly after the founding of Cubas first cities, the served as little more than a base for the Conquista of other lands. Havana began as a port, and suffered regular attacks by buccaneers, pirates. The first attack and resultant burning of the city was by the French corsair Jacques de Sores in 1555, ships from all over the New World carried products first to Havana, in order to be taken by the fleet to Spain. The thousands of ships gathered in the bay also fueled Havanas agriculture and manufacture, since they had to be supplied with food, water. On December 20,1592, King Philip II of Spain granted Havana the title of City, later on, the city would be officially designated as Key to the New World and Rampart of the West Indies by the Spanish Crown
2.
Cuba
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Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is a country comprising the island of Cuba as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean where the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and it is south of both the U. S. state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Haiti, and north of Jamaica. Havana is the largest city and capital, other cities include Santiago de Cuba. Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, with an area of 109,884 square kilometres, prior to Spanish colonization in the late 15th century, Cuba was inhabited by Amerindian tribes. It remained a colony of Spain until the Spanish–American War of 1898, as a fragile republic, Cuba attempted to strengthen its democratic system, but mounting political radicalization and social strife culminated in the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1952. Further unrest and instability led to Batistas ousting in January 1959 by the July 26 Movement, since 1965, the state has been governed by the Communist Party of Cuba. A point of contention during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, a nuclear war broke out during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America, Cuba is a Marxist–Leninist one-party republic, where the role of the vanguard Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Independent observers have accused the Cuban government of human rights abuses. It is one of the worlds last planned economies and its economy is dominated by the exports of sugar, tobacco, coffee, according to the Human Development Index, Cuba is described as a country with high human development and is ranked the eighth highest in North America. It also ranks highly in some metrics of national performance, including health care, the name Cuba comes from the Taíno language. The exact meaning of the name is unclear but it may be translated either as where fertile land is abundant, authors who believe that Christopher Columbus was Portuguese state that Cuba was named by Columbus for the town of Cuba in the district of Beja in Portugal. Before the arrival of the Spanish, Cuba was inhabited by three distinct tribes of indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Taíno, the Guanajatabey, and the Ciboney people. The ancestors of the Ciboney migrated from the mainland of South America, the Taíno arrived from Hispanola sometime in the 3rd century A. D. When Columbus arrived they were the dominant culture in Cuba, having a population of 150,000. The name Cuba comes from the native Taíno language and it is derived from either coabana meaning great place, or from cubao meaning where fertile land is abundant. The Taíno were farmers, while the Ciboney were farmers as well as fishers and hunter-gatherers, Columbus claimed the island for the new Kingdom of Spain and named it Isla Juana after Juan, Prince of Asturias. In 1511, the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa, other towns soon followed, including San Cristobal de la Habana, founded in 1515, which later became the capital
3.
Fort Lee, New Jersey
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Fort Lee is a borough at the eastern border of Bergen County, New Jersey, United States, in the New York City Metropolitan Area, situated atop the Hudson Palisades. The borough is the terminus of the George Washington Bridge and is located across the Hudson River from the Manhattan borough of New York City. Named for the site of an early American Revolutionary War military encampment, according to the United States Census Bureau, the borough had a total area of 2.888 square miles, including 2.541 square miles of land and 0.347 square miles of water. The borough is situated atop the escarpment of the Hudson Palisades on the peninsula between the Hackensack and Hudson rivers, the borough is bisected by the confluence of roads at GWB Plaza leading to the George Washington Bridge. Unincorporated communities, localities and place names located partially or completely within the borough include Coytesville, Palisade, the borough borders Cliffside Park, Edgewater, Englewood, Englewood Cliffs, Leonia, Palisades Park, Ridgefield. and the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan. It was during Washingtons retreat in November 1776 that Thomas Paine composed his pamphlet, The American Crisis and these events are recalled at Monument Park and Fort Lee Historic Park. Fort Lee was formed by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 29,1904, with the creation of Fort Lee, Ridgefield Township became defunct and was dissolved as of March 29,1904. The Fort Lee Police Department was formed under borough ordinance on August 9,1904, the history of cinema in the United States can trace its roots to the East Coast where, at one time, Fort Lee was the motion picture capital of America. The industry got its start at the end of the 19th century with the construction of Thomas Edisons Black Maria, in 1909, a forerunner of Universal Studios, the Champion Film Company, built the first studio. They were quickly followed by others who either built new studios or who leased facilities in Fort Lee, such notables as Mary Pickford got their start at Biograph Studios. With the offshoot businesses that sprang up to service, the film studios, however, just as the development of Fort Lee production facilities were gaining strength, Nestor Studios of Bayonne, New Jersey, built the first studio in Hollywood in 1911. Californias more hospitable and cost-effective climate led to the shift of virtually all filmmaking to the West Coast by the 1930s. At the time, Thomas Edison owned almost all the relevant to motion picture production. Television and film in New Jersey remains an important industry, since 2000, the Fort Lee Film Commission has been charged with celebrating the history of film in Fort Lee, as well as attracting film and television production companies to the borough. In 1957, market researcher James Vicary claimed that quickly flashing messages on a screen, in Fort Lee, had influenced people to purchase more food. Vicary coined the term subliminal advertising and formed the Subliminal Projection Company based on a six-week test, Vicary claimed that during the presentation of the movie Picnic he used a tachistoscope to project the words Drink Coca-Cola and Hungry. Eat popcorn for 1/3000 of a second at five-second intervals, Vicary asserted that during the test, sales of popcorn and Coke in that New Jersey theater increased 57. 8% and 18. 1% respectively. In 1962, Vicary admitted to lying about the experiment and falsifying the results, an identical experiment conducted by Henry Link showed no increase in cola or popcorn sales
4.
Son cubano
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Son cubano is a genre of music and dance that originated in the highlands of eastern Cuba during the late 19th century. It is a genre that amalgamates elements of Spanish and African origin. Among its fundamental Hispanic components are the style, lyrical metre. On the other hand, its characteristic clave rhythm, call and response structure, around 1909 the son reached Havana, where the first recordings were made in 1917. This marked the start of its expansion throughout the island, becoming Cubas most popular, while early groups had between three and five members, during the 1920s the sexteto became the genres primary format. By the 1930s, many bands had incorporated a trumpet, becoming septetos, and in the 1940s a larger type of ensemble featuring congas and piano became the norm, the cojunto. Besides, the son became one of the ingredients in the jam sessions known as descargas that flourished during the 1950s. The international presence of the son can be traced back to the 1930s when many bands toured Europe and North America, similarly, radio broadcasts of son became popular in West Africa and the Congos, leading to the development of hybrid genres such as Congolese rumba. In the 1960s, New Yorks music scene prompted the rapid success of salsa, in Spanish, the word son, from Latin sonus, denotes a pleasant sound, particularly a musical one. In eastern Cuba, the term began to be used to refer to the music of the highlands towards the late 19th century, to distinguish it from similar genres from other countries, the term son cubano is most commonly used. In Cuba, various qualifiers are used to distinguish the variants of the genre. These include son montuno, son oriental, son santiaguero and son habanero, Son singers are generally known as soneros, and the verb sonear describes not only their singing but also their vocal improvisation. The adjective soneado refers to songs and styles which incorporate the tempo and syncopation of the son, generally, there is an explicit diffenrece between styles that incorporate elements of the son partially or totally, as evidenced by the distinction between bolero soneado and bolero-son. The term sonora refers to conjuntos with smoother trumpet sections such as Sonora Matancera and Sonora Ponceña, although the history of Cuban music dates back to the 16th century, the son is a relatively recent musical invention whose precursors emerged in the mid-to-late 19th century. Musicologists agree that the ancestors of the son appeared in Cubas Oriente Province. These forms flourished in the context of rural parties such as guateques, where bungas were known to perform, such early guitars are thought to have given rise to the tres some time around 1890 in Baracoa. The addition of a section composed of percussion instruments such as the bongó. Due to the very little historiographical and ethnomusicological research devoted to the son and this fallacy stemmed from the apocryphal origin story of a folk song known as Son de Má Teodora
5.
Bolero
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Bolero is a genre of slow-tempo Latin music and its associated dance. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are significant and which have separate origins. The term is used for some art music. In all its forms, the bolero has been popular for over a century, the original Spanish bolero is a 3/4 dance that originated in Spain in the late 18th century, a combination of the contradanza and the sevillana. In Cuba, the bolero was perhaps the first great Cuban musical and vocal synthesis to win universal recognition, in 2/4 time, this dance music spread to other countries, leaving behind what Ed Morales has called the most popular lyric tradition in Latin America. The Cuban bolero tradition originated in Santiago de Cuba in the last quarter of the 19th century, it does not owe its origin to the Spanish music and song of the same name. In the 19th century there grew up in Santiago de Cuba a group of itinerant musicians who moved around earning their living by singing and playing the guitar, pepe Sanchez is known as the father of the trova style and the creator of the Cuban bolero. Untrained, but with natural talent, he composed numbers in his head. As a result, most of these numbers are now lost and he was the model and teacher for the great trovadores who followed. The Cuban bolero has traveled to Puerto Rico and the rest of Latin America after its conception, some of the boleros leading composers have come from nearby countries, as in the case of the prolific Puerto Rican composer Rafael Hernández and the Mexican Agustín Lara. Some Cuban composers of the bolero are primarily considered trovadores, boleros saw a resurgence in popularity during the 1990s when Mexican singer Luis Miguel was credited for reviving interest in the bolero genre following the release Romance. This adaptability was largely achieved by dispensing with limitations in format or instrumentation, examples would be, Bolero in the danzón, the advent of lyrics in the danzón to produce the danzonete. The bolero-son, long-time favourite dance music in Cuba, captured abroad under the misnomer rumba, the bolero-mambo in which slow and beautiful lyrics were added to the sophisticated big-band arrangements of the mambo. The bolero-cha, many Cha-cha-cha lyrics come from boleros, the lyrics of the bolero can be found throughout popular music, especially Latin dance music. A version of the Cuban bolero is danced throughout the Latin dance world under the misnomer rumba and this came about in the early 1930s when a simple overall term was needed to market Cuban music to audiences unfamiliar with the various Cuban musical terms. The famous Peanut Vendor was so labelled, and the label stuck for other types of Cuban music, in Cuba, the bolero is usually written in 2/4 time, elsewhere often 4/4. The tempo for dance is about 120 beats per minute, the music has a gentle Cuban rhythm related to a slow son, which is the reason it may be best described as a bolero-son. Like some other Cuban dances, there are three steps to four beats, with the first step of a figure on the second beat, the slow is executed with a hip movement over the standing foot, with no foot-flick
6.
Cuban rumba
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Rumba is a secular genre of Cuban music involving dance, percussion, and song. It originated in the regions of Cuba, mainly in urban Havana and Matanzas. It is based on African music and dance traditions, namely Abakuá and yuka, according to Argeliers León, rumba is one of the major genre complexes of Cuban music, and the term rumba complex is now commonly used by musicologists. This complex encompasses the three forms of rumba, as well as their contemporary derivatives and other minor styles. Traditionally performed by workers of African descent in streets and solares, rumba remains one of Cubas most characteristic forms of music. Vocal improvisation, elaborate dancing and polyrhythmic drumming are the key components of all rumba styles, cajones were used as drums until the early 20th century, when they were replaced by tumbadoras. Since its early days, the popularity has been largely confined to Cuba. In the United States it gave its name to the so-called ballroom rumba or rhumba and its influence in Spain is testified by rumba flamenca and derivatives such as Catalan rumba. The origin of the term remains unknown and no etymological information is provided by the Diccionario de la lengua española. According to Pascual and Coromines, the word derives from rumbo, meaning uproar and also the course of a ship, which itself may derive from the word rombo, a symbol used in compasses. However, in Cuba the term might have originated from a West African or Bantu language, due to its similarity to other Afro-Caribbean words such as tumba, macumba, mambo and tambó. During the 19th century in Cuba, specifically in urban Havana and Matanzas, people of African descent originally used the word rumba as a synonym for party. According to Olavo Alén, in these areas ceased to be simply another word for party. The terms rumbón and rumbantela are frequently used to denote rumba performances in the streets, many other terms have been used in Cuba to refer to parties, such as changüí, guateque, tumba, bembé, macumba and mambo. Due to its etymology, the term rumba historically retained a certain degree of polysemy. By the end of the 19th century, Cuban peasants began to perform rumbitas during their parties and these songs were actually in the form of urban guarachas, which had a binary meter in contrast to the ternary meter of traditional rural genres such as tonada and zapateo. Rumba instrumentation has varied depending on the style and the availability of the instruments. The core instruments of any rumba ensemble are the claves, two sticks that are struck against each other, and the drums, quinto, tres dos
7.
Salsa music
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Salsa music is a popular dance music that initially arose in New York City during the 1960s. Salsa is the product of various genres including the Cuban son montuno, guaracha, cha cha chá, mambo, and to a certain extent bolero. Latin jazz, which was developed in New York City, has had a significant influence on salsa arrangers, piano guajeos. Salsa is primarily Cuban son, itself a fusion of Spanish canción and guitar and Afro-Cuban percussion, Salsa also occasionally incorporates elements of rock, R&B, and funk. All of these elements are grafted onto the basic Cuban son montuno template when performed within the context of salsa. The first salsa bands were predominantly Cubans and Puerto Ricans who moved to New York since 1930’s, the music eventually spread throughout Colombia and the rest of the Americas. Ultimately, it became a global phenomenon, some of the founding salsa artists were Johnny Pacheco, Celia Cruz, Ray Barretto, Rubén Blades, Willie Colón, Larry Harlow, Roberto Roena, Bobby Valentín, Eddie Palmieri, and Héctor Lavoe. Salsa means sauce in the Spanish language, and carries connotations of the common in Latin. In the 20th century, salsa acquired a meaning in both English and Spanish. In this sense salsa has been described as a word with vivid associations, Cuban immigrants and Puerto Rican in New York have used the term analogously to swing or soul music. In this usage salsa connotes a frenzied, hot and wild musical experience that draws upon or reflects elements of Latin culture, various music writers and historians have traced the use of salsa to different periods of the 20th century. Max Salazar traces the word back to the early 1930s, when Ignacio Piñeiro composed Échale salsita, World music author Sue Steward claims salsa was originally used in music as a cry of appreciation for a particularly piquant or flashy solo. I was using salsa, but the music wasnt defined by that, the music was still defined as Latin music. And that was a very, very broad category, because it even includes mariachi music, so salsa defined this particular type of music. Its a name that everyone could pronounce, Sanabrias Latin New York magazine was an English language publication. Consequently, his promoted events were covered in The New York Times, as well as Time and they reported on this new phenomenon taking New York by storm—salsa. But promotion certainly wasnt the factor in the musics success, as Sanabria makes clear, Musicians were busy creating the music. Johnny Pacheco, the director and producer of Fania Records, molded New York salsa into a tight, polished
8.
Fania Records
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Fania Records was a New York based record label founded by Dominican-born composer and bandleader Johnny Pacheco and Italian-American lawyer Jerry Masucci in 1964. The label took its name from an old Cuban song by the singer Reinaldo Bolaño, Fania is known for its promotion of what has become known as Salsa music. The label started out as a venture, but gained popularity after the success of its first official record, Pachecos Cañonazo. The second album released under the Fania imprint was Larry Harlows 1965 Heavy Smoking, the records modern take on traditional Afro-Caribbean music served as the template for what soon would come to be known as the Fania Sound. In 1968, Pacheco created a supergroup known as the Fania All-Stars that brought together the elite of Salsa musicians and singers for joint performances, the Fania All-Stars were Fanias best selling band, outlasting the label itself. They made their debut at the Red Garter club located in New Yorks Greenwich Village, but it was their 1971 performance at the Cheetah, a club in Midtown Manhattan, Larry Harlow was chosen by Jerry Masucci to produce the bands records while Pacheco acted as director on stage. The Fania All-Stars were filmed for the documentary Our Latin Thing released a year later, leon Gast, the Academy Award winning director of When We Were Kings filmed the Fania All-Stars for the documentary Our Latin Thing released in 1972. The first vocalist that recorded as a soloist was Cuban sonero Monguito, as of 2007 all that is left is Larry Harlow and the Latin Legends of Fania. In 2003, the 1975 Fania release Live at Yankee Stadium was included in the set of 50 recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry. Masucci would eventually become owner of Fania Records and the numerous other labels. In September 2005, Fanias assets were sold to Miami-based label Emusica, and by early 2006, the new owners began to reissue material from Fanias backlog catalog with enhanced sound and liner notes
9.
Sony Music Latin
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Sony Music Latin is a record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment. The label focuses on artists for Latin music, in 1979, CBS Records ended its partnership with Caytronics after eleven-years of distribution. The company established its own division for Latin music in 1980 called CBS Discos, in 1988, CBS Records was acquired by Sony and its Latin division was renamed to Sony Discos in 1991. In 2003, Sony Discos was re-branded as Sony Norte following the departure of former Sony Discos president Oscar Llord, a year later, Bertelsmann Music Group merged with Sony Music and Sony Norte was renamed to Sony BMG Norte. After BMG sold its assets in 2008, Sony BMG Norte was retitled to its current name Sony Music Latin in 2009, nir Seroussi is the current President of Sony Music Latin. Pina Records Premium Latin Music DEL Records Hand Shake Entertainment Top Stop Music Anval Music Bad Sin This is a list of artist currently signed on to Sony Music Latin and these are artists who were formerly signed on to Sony Music Latin. List of record labels Official website
10.
Sonora Matancera
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La Sonora Matancera is a Cuban/Afro-Cuban band that played Latin American urban popular dance music. Founded in 1924 and led for more than five decades by guitarist, vocalist, composer, notable singers to have sung with the band include Bienvenido Granda, Daniel Santos, Myrta Silva, and Celia Cruz. The group was founded on January 12,1924 in Barrio Ojo de Agua, culturally and demographically, this seaport is located in the most African region of Cuba. The ensemble was initially named Tuna Liberal for political reasons, the co-founders were Valentín Cané and Pablo Bubú Vázquez Gobín. The other original members were Manuel Jimagua Sánchez, Ismael Goberna, Domingo Medina, José Manuel Valera, Julio Gobín, Juan Bautista Llópis, one source believes Valera and Bautista Llópis were the vocalists while a second source holds to the position that Eugenio Pérez was the sole sonero. At this point, the band was just a group and had not yet developed its distinctive sound. In 1925, Gerardo Machado, then Cuban President, invited Tuna Liberal to play at a party for his birthday and this marked a new acceptance for Afro-Cuban groups and a style of music that had previously been barred from certain restaurants and hotels. Personnel changed in 1926, and the name of the band was changed to Septeto Soprano, due to supposed new singer Eugenio Pérez, though he left a few months later. A different source credits the new name to the range of the singer and maracas player, Carlos Manuel Caíto Díaz Alonso. Rogelio Martínez joined the group in 1926, after Caíto recommended him to Valentín Cané, another source indicates that Rogelio recommended Caíto to Valentín Cané, and that Caíto and Rogelio became members in 1927. A third source posits that Caíto and Rogelio joined the collective in 1926, the group lost Domingo Medina, Julio Gobín, and Juan Bautista Llópis in their attempt at a more modern sound. In 1927, at the suggestion of Valentín Cané, the moved to Havana. It remained there for the next thirty-three years, Havana was home to a thriving music scene in the 1920s. The move to Havana proved to be consequential, in 1928, the collective made its first recordings, for its first label, RCA-Victor. The ensemble would eventually record for thirteen different labels, in 1929, the band signed a contract to perform live on the airwaves of Radio Progreso, making appearances on this station for many years. Son ensembles of this time added pianos to broaden their contrapuntal, trumpets, sometimes as many as three, replaced cornets. The additional instruments meant sextetos and septetos evolved into conjuntos, Septeto Soprano added a piano during this decade but did not expand its brass section until the 1940s. Septeto Soprano made only one recording during this decade, some of the individuals important to the groups success began their long association with the collective in the 1930s
11.
Tito Puente
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Ernesto Antonio Tito Puente was an American musician, songwriter and record producer. He is best known for dance-oriented mambo and Latin jazz compositions that endured over a 50-year career and he and his music appear in many films such as The Mambo Kings and Fernando Truebas Calle 54. He guest-starred on several shows, including Sesame Street and The Simpsons two-part episode Who Shot Mr. Burns. Tito Puente was born on April 20,1923, at Harlem Hospital Center in the New York borough of Manhattan and his family moved frequently, but he spent the majority of his childhood in the Spanish Harlem area of the city. Puentes father was the foreman at a razorblade factory, as a child, he was described as hyperactive, and after neighbors complained of hearing seven-year-old Puente beating on pots and window frames, his mother sent him to 25-cent piano lessons. By the age of 10, he switched to percussion, drawing influence from jazz drummer Gene Krupa and he later created a song-and-dance duo with his sister Anna in the 1930s and intended to become a dancer, but an ankle tendon injury prevented him pursuing dance as a career. When the drummer in Machitos band was drafted to the army, Tito Puente served in the Navy for three years during World War II after being drafted in 1942. He was discharged with a Presidential Unit Citation for serving in nine battles on the escort carrier USS Santee, the GI Bill allowed him to study music at Juilliard School of Music, where he completed a formal education in conducting, orchestration and theory. In 1969, he received the key to the City of New York from former Mayor John Lindsay, in 1992, he was inducted into the National Congressional Record, and in 1993 he received the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal from the Smithsonian. During the 1950s, Puente was at the height of his popularity, and helped to bring Afro-Cuban and Caribbean sounds like mambo, son, Puente was so successful playing popular Afro-Cuban rhythms that many people mistakenly identify him as Cuban. Dance Mania, possibly Puentes most well known album, was released in 1958, later, he moved into more diverse sounds, including pop music, bossa nova and others, eventually settling down with a fusion of Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz. In 1979, Puente won the first of five Grammy Awards for the albums A Tribute to Benny Moré, On Broadway, Mambo Diablo, in 1990, Puente was awarded the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal. He was also awarded a Grammy at the first Latin Grammy Awards, in 1995, he appeared as himself on the Simpsons episode Who Shot Mr. Burns. In early 2000, he shot the music documentary Calle 54 and he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. Puentes son Richard Richie Puente was the percussionist in the 70s Funk Band Foxy, Puentes youngest son, Tito Puente Jr. Puentes granddaughter, Janeen Puente, is a singer and bandleader. Her band is known as the Janeen Puente Orchestra, on September 10,2007, a United States Post Office in Spanish Harlem was named after him at a ceremony presided by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel and Rep. José Serrano. An amphitheatre was named in his honor at Luis Muñoz Marín Park, next to the Roberto Clemente Coliseum, in San Juan, Puente performed at the closing ceremonies at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. The timbales he used there are on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington D. C, in 1997, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts
12.
Fania All-Stars
–
Fania Records was a New York based record label founded by Dominican-born composer and bandleader Johnny Pacheco and Italian-American lawyer Jerry Masucci in 1964. The label took its name from an old Cuban song by the singer Reinaldo Bolaño, Fania is known for its promotion of what has become known as Salsa music. The label started out as a venture, but gained popularity after the success of its first official record, Pachecos Cañonazo. The second album released under the Fania imprint was Larry Harlows 1965 Heavy Smoking, the records modern take on traditional Afro-Caribbean music served as the template for what soon would come to be known as the Fania Sound. In 1968, Pacheco created a supergroup known as the Fania All-Stars that brought together the elite of Salsa musicians and singers for joint performances, the Fania All-Stars were Fanias best selling band, outlasting the label itself. They made their debut at the Red Garter club located in New Yorks Greenwich Village, but it was their 1971 performance at the Cheetah, a club in Midtown Manhattan, Larry Harlow was chosen by Jerry Masucci to produce the bands records while Pacheco acted as director on stage. The Fania All-Stars were filmed for the documentary Our Latin Thing released a year later, leon Gast, the Academy Award winning director of When We Were Kings filmed the Fania All-Stars for the documentary Our Latin Thing released in 1972. The first vocalist that recorded as a soloist was Cuban sonero Monguito, as of 2007 all that is left is Larry Harlow and the Latin Legends of Fania. In 2003, the 1975 Fania release Live at Yankee Stadium was included in the set of 50 recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry. Masucci would eventually become owner of Fania Records and the numerous other labels. In September 2005, Fanias assets were sold to Miami-based label Emusica, and by early 2006, the new owners began to reissue material from Fanias backlog catalog with enhanced sound and liner notes
13.
Cuban Americans
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Cuban Americans are Americans who trace their ancestry to Cuba. Cuban Americans are the third largest Latino group in the United States, many communities throughout the United States have significant Cuban American populations. Florida has the highest concentration of Cuban Americans in the US, standing out in part because of its proximity to Cuba, followed by California, New Jersey, New York and Texas. South Florida is followed by New York City, Tampa, Union County and North Hudson, New Jersey areas, particularly Union City, Elizabeth, with a population of 141,250, the New York metropolitan areas Cuban community is the largest outside of Florida. Nearly 70% of all Cuban Americans live in Florida, thousands of Cuban settlers also immigrated to Louisiana between 1778 and 1802 and Texas during the period of Spanish rule. Since 1820, the Cuban presence was more than 1,000 people. In 1870 the number of Cuban immigrants increased to almost 12,000, of which about 4,500 resided in New York City, about 3,000 in New Orleans, and 2,000 in Key West. The year 1869 marked the beginning of one of the most significant periods of emigration from Cuba to the United States, the exodus of hundreds of workers and businessmen was linked to the manufacture of tobacco. It was an exodus of skilled workers, precisely the class in the island that had succeeded in establishing a free labor sector amid a slave economy. The manufacture of snuff by the Cuban labor force, became the most important source of income for Key West between 1869 and 1900. Tampa was added to such efforts, with a migration of Cubans. However, the half of the 1890s marked the decline of the Cuban immigrant population. The War accentuated Cuban immigrant integration into American society, whose numbers were significant, in the mid- to late 19th century, several cigar manufacturers moved their operations to Key West to get away from growing disruptions as Cubans sought independence from Spanish colonial rule. The Cuban government had established a grammar school in Key West to help preserve Cuban culture. There, children learned folk songs and patriotic hymns such as La Bayamesa, in 1885, Vicente Martinez Ybor moved his cigar operations from Key West to the town of Tampa, Florida to escape labor strife. Ybor City was designed as a company town, and it quickly attracted thousands of Cuban workers from Key West. West Tampa, another new cigar manufacturing community, was founded nearby in 1892, both Ybor City and West Tampa were instrumental in Cubas eventual independence. After the Spanish–American War, some Cubans returned to their native land, several other small waves of Cuban emigration to the U. S. occurred in the early 20th century
14.
Bill Clinton
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William Jefferson Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Prior to the Presidency he was the 40th Governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981, before that, he served as Arkansas Attorney General from 1977 to 1979. A member of the Democratic Party, Clinton was ideogically a New Democrat, Clinton is married to Hillary Clinton, who served as United States Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 and U. S. Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, and served the Democratic nominee for President in 2016, Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham both earned degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the states education system, Clinton was elected President of the United States in 1992, defeating incumbent George H. W. Bush. At age 46, he was the third-youngest president and the first from the Baby Boomer generation, Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history and signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement. After failing to pass health care reform, the Democratic House was ousted when the Republican Party won control of the Congress in 1994. Two years later, in 1996, Clinton became the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to be elected to a second term, Clinton passed welfare reform and the State Childrens Health Insurance Program, providing health coverage for millions of children. Clinton was acquitted by the U. S. Senate in 1999, the Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus between the years 1998 and 2000, the last three years of Clintons presidency. In foreign policy, Clinton ordered U. S. Clinton left office with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U. S. President since World War II, since then, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. He created the William J. Clinton Foundation to address international causes, such as the prevention of AIDS, in 2004, Clinton published his autobiography, My Life. In 2009, Clinton was named the United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti, since leaving office, Clinton has been rated highly in public opinion polls of U. S. Presidents. Clinton was born on August 19,1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas and he was the son of William Jefferson Blythe Jr. a traveling salesman who had died in an automobile accident three months before his birth, and Virginia Dell Cassidy. His parents had married on September 4,1943, but this later proved to be bigamous. Soon after their son was born, his mother traveled to New Orleans to study nursing, leaving her son in Hope with her parents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and ran a small grocery store. At a time when the Southern United States was segregated racially, in 1950, Bills mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton Sr. who owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with his brother and Earl T. Ricks. The family moved to Hot Springs in 1950, although he immediately assumed use of his stepfathers surname, it was not until Clinton turned fifteen that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward his stepfather. In Hot Springs, Clinton attended St. Johns Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School, and Hot Springs High School—where he was a student leader, avid reader
15.
Latin America
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Latin America is a group of countries and dependencies in the Americas where Romance languages are predominant. It is therefore broader than the terms Ibero-America or Hispanic America—though it usually excludes French Canada and it has an area of approximately 19,197,000 km2, almost 13% of the Earths land surface area. As of 2015, its population was estimated at more than 626 million and in 2014, Latin America had a combined nominal GDP of 5,573,397 million USD and a GDP PPP of 7,531,585 million USD. The term Latin America was first used in 1861 in La revue des races Latines, a further investigation of the concept of Latin America is by Michel Gobat in the American Historical Review. The term was first used in Paris in an 1856 conference by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao and this term was also used in 1861 by French scholars in La revue des races Latines, a magazine dedicated to the Pan-Latinism movement. Latin America is, therefore, defined as all parts of the Americas that were once part of the Spanish. By this definition, Latin America is coterminous with Ibero-America and this definition emphasizes a similar socioeconomic history of the region, which was characterized by formal or informal colonialism, rather than cultural aspects. As such, some sources avoid this oversimplification by using the phrase Latin America, the distinction between Latin America and Anglo-America is a convention based on the predominant languages in the Americas by which Romance-language and English-speaking cultures are distinguished. Latin America can be subdivided into several subregions based on geography, politics, demographics and it may be subdivided on linguistic grounds into Hispanic America, Portuguese America and French America. *, Not a sovereign state The concept of Latin America has been criticized by a number of intellectuals, the earliest known settlement was identified at Monte Verde, near Puerto Montt in Southern Chile. Its occupation dates to some 14,000 years ago and there is disputed evidence of even earlier occupation. Over the course of millennia, people spread to all parts of the continents, by the first millennium CE, South Americas vast rainforests, mountains, plains and coasts were the home of tens of millions of people. Some groups formed more permanent settlements such as the Chibcha and the Tairona groups and these groups are in the circum Caribbean region. The Chibchas of Colombia, the Quechuas and Aymaras of Bolivia, the region was home to many indigenous peoples and advanced civilizations, including the Aztecs, Toltecs, Maya, and Inca. The Aztec empire was ultimately the most powerful civilization known throughout the Americas, with the arrival of the Europeans following Christopher Columbus voyages, the indigenous elites, such as the Incas and Aztecs, lost power to the heavy European invasion. Hernándo Cortés seized the Aztec elites power with the help of local groups who had favored the Aztec elite, epidemics of diseases brought by the Europeans, such as smallpox and measles, wiped out a large portion of the indigenous population. Historians cannot determine the number of natives who died due to European diseases, due to the lack of written records, specific numbers are hard to verify. Many of the survivors were forced to work in European plantations, intermixing between the indigenous peoples and the European colonists was very common, and, by the end of the colonial period, people of mixed ancestry formed majorities in several colonies
16.
Billboard (magazine)
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Billboard is an American entertainment media brand owned by the Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group, a division of Eldridge Industries. It publishes pieces involving news, video, opinion, reviews, events and it is also known for its music charts, including the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200, tracking the most popular singles and albums in different genres. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm, and operates several TV shows, Billboard was founded in 1894 by William Donaldson and James Hennegan as a trade publication for bill posters. Donaldson later acquired Hennegens interest in 1900 for $500, in the 1900s, it covered the entertainment industry, such as circuses, fairs and burlesque shows. It also created a service for travelling entertainers. Billboard began focusing more on the industry as the jukebox, phonograph. Many topics it covered were spun-off into different magazines, including Amusement Business in 1961 to cover outdoor entertainment so that it could focus on music. After Donaldson died in 1925, Billboard was passed down to his children and Hennegans children, until it was sold to investors in 1985. The first issue of Billboard was published in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 1,1894 by William Donaldson, initially, it covered the advertising and bill posting industry and was called Billboard Advertising. At the time, billboards, posters and paper advertisements placed in public spaces were the means of advertising. Donaldson handled editorial and advertising, while Hennegan, who owned Hennegan Printing Co. managed magazine production, the first issues were just eight pages long. The paper had columns like The Bill Room Gossip and The Indefatigable, a department for agricultural fairs was established in 1896. The title was changed to The Billboard in 1897, after a brief departure over editorial differences, Donaldson purchased Hennegans interest in the business in 1900 for $500, to save it from bankruptcy. That May, Donaldson changed it from a monthly to a paper with a greater emphasis on breaking news. He improved editorial quality and opened new offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, London and he also re-focused the magazine on outdoor entertainment like fairs, carnivals, circuses, vaudeville and burlesque shows. A section devoted to circuses was introduced in 1900, followed by more prominent coverage of events in 1901. Billboard also covered topics including regulation, a lack of professionalism, economics and it had a stage gossip column covering the private lives of entertainers, a tent show section covering traveling shows and a sub-section called Freaks to order. According to The Seattle Times, Donaldson also published articles attacking censorship, praising productions exhibiting good taste
17.
Cuban music
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The music of Cuba, including its instruments, performance and dance, comprises a large set of unique traditions influenced mostly by west African and European music. Due to the nature of most of its genres, Cuban music is often considered one of the richest and most influential regional musics of the world. For instance, the son cubano merges an adapted Spanish guitar, melody, harmony, almost nothing remains of the original native traditions, since the native population was exterminated in the 16th century. Since the 19th century Cuban music has been popular and influential throughout the world. It has been perhaps the most popular form of music since the introduction of recording technology. Cuban music has contributed to the development of a variety of genre and musical styles around the globe, most notably in Latin America. Examples include rhumba, Afro-Cuban jazz, salsa, soukous, many West African re-adaptations of Afro-Cuban music, Spanish fusion genres, large numbers of African slaves and European, mostly Spanish, immigrants came to Cuba and brought their own forms of music to the island. European dances and folk musics included zapateo, fandango, paso doble, later, northern European forms like minuet, gavotte, mazurka, contradanza, and the waltz appeared among urban whites. There was also an immigration of Chinese indentured laborers later in the 19th century, the African slaves and their descendants made many percussion instruments and preserved rhythms they had known in their homeland. The most important instruments were the drums, of which there were originally about fifty different types, today only the bongos, congas, also important are the claves, two short hardwood batons, and the cajón, a wooden box, originally made from crates. Claves are still used often, and wooden boxes were used during periods when the drum was banned. In addition, there are other instruments in use for African-origin religious ceremonies. Chinese immigrants contributed the corneta china, a Chinese reed instrument still played in the comparsas, or carnival groups, the great instrumental contribution of the Spanish was their guitar, but even more important was the tradition of European musical notation and techniques of musical composition. Hernando de la Parras archives give some of our earliest available information on Cuban music and he reported instruments including the clarinet, violin and vihuela. There were few professional musicians at the time, and fewer still of their songs survive, one of the earliest is Ma Teodora, supposed to be related to a freed slave, Teodora Ginés of Santiago de Cuba, who was famous for her compositions. The piece is said to be similar to 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century Spanish popular songs, Cuban music has its principal roots in Spain and West Africa, but over time has been influenced by diverse genres from different countries. Important among these are France, and the United States, Cuban music has been immensely influential in other countries. The African beliefs and practices certainly influenced Cubas music, polyrhythmic percussion is an inherent part of African music, as melody is part of European music
18.
Yoruba language
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Yoruba is a language spoken in West Africa. The number of speakers of Yoruba is approaching 30 million and it is a pluricentric language spoken principally in Benin and Nigeria, with communities in other parts of Africa, the Americas, and Europe. A variety of the language, Lucumi, is the language of the Santería religion of the Caribbean. Many Yoruba words are used in the Afro-Brazilian religion known as Candomblé, Yoruba is most closely related to the Itsekiri language and to Igala. The linguistic unity of the Niger–Congo family dates to deep prehistory, main article, Yoruboid languages The Yoruba group is assumed to have developed out of undifferentiated Volta–Niger populations by the 1st millennium BC. Settlements of early Yoruba speakers are assumed to correspond to those found in the wider Niger area from about the 4th century BC, especially at Ife. According to the Kay Williamson Scale, the following is the degree of relationship between Itsekiri and other Yoruboid dialects, using a word list of the most common words. A similarity of 100% would mean a total overlap of two dialects, while a similarity of 0 would mean two speech areas that have no relationship. The result of the wordlist analysis shows that Itsekiri bears the strongest similarity to the SEY dialects and most especially Ilaje and Ikale, at 80. 4% and 82. 3% similarity. Thus while the shows that Igala, with an overlap of 60% is a completely different language. The Yoruba dialect continuum itself consists of several dialects, the various Yoruba dialects in the Yorubaland of Nigeria can be classified into Five major dialect areas, Northwest, Northeast, Central, Southwest and Southeast. Clear boundaries cannot be drawn, peripheral areas of dialectal regions often having some similarities to adjoining dialects, north-West Yoruba Egba, Ibadan, Egbado/Yewa, Ọyọ, Western Ogun, Lagos/Eko. North-East Yoruba Yagba, Owe, Ijumu, Oworo, Gbede, Central Yoruba Igbomina, Ijesha, Ifẹ, Ekiti, Akurẹ, Ẹfọn. South-East Yoruba Ikale, Ilaje, Ondo City, Ọwọ, Idanre, Akoko, Remo, south-West Yoruba Ketu, Awori, Sakété, Ifè, Idasha, Ipokia/Anago. North-West Yoruba is historically a part of the Ọyọ Empire, ethnographically, traditional government is based on a division of power between civil and war chiefs, lineage and descent are unilineal and agnatic. South-East Yoruba was probably associated with the expansion of the Benin Empire after c, in contrast to NWY, lineage and descent are largely multilineal and cognatic, and the division of titles into war and civil is unknown. Linguistically, SEY has retained the /gh/ and /gw/ contrast, while it has lowered the nasal vowels /ịn/ and /ụn/ to /ẹn/ and /ọn/, the emergence of a plural of respect may have prevented coalescence of the two in NWY dialects. Central Yoruba forms an area in that the lexicon has much in common with NWY
19.
Cabaret
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Cabaret is a form of entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. It is mainly distinguished by the venue, which might be a pub. The audience, often dining or drinking, does not typically dance, performances are usually introduced by a master of ceremonies or MC. The entertainment, as done by an ensemble of actors and according to its European origins, is oriented towards adult audiences. In the United States striptease, burlesque, drag shows, or a solo vocalist with a pianist, the word cabaret was first used in 1655. It is derived from tavern probably from Middle Dutch cambret, the word cabaret came to mean a restaurant or night club by 1912. Cabaret can be divided in 10 different types. However, these are artificial dividing lines, cabaret shows are most of the time a compound of elements from the different types, the cabaret performer plays with language, sometimes poetic, but often is he or she rock hard and hateful. The cabaret performer analyses in his/her stubborn manner actual, social and political topics, the cabaret performer tells an often slightly absurd story with a moral packed in it. The cabaret performer plays with music, for example by twisting or combining familiar melodies, the cabaret performer tells nonsensical and absurd stories and plays idiotic types. The emphasis is less on text in the show of cabaret performer. Here the cabaret performer eludes on his liberating through laughter role, an iteration of storytelling cabaret The cabaret performer quickly switches between the different styles/types of cabaret, types, or songs. In this the cabaret performer is a guest at a government, institution or a company, cabarets existed in Paris in the 16th century, they were ancestors of the modern restaurant. Unlike taverns they sold wine not by itself but only with a meal, customers might sing if they had drunk enough wine, but early cabarets did not have formal programs of entertainment. Cabarets were frequently used as meeting places for writers and artists, in 1773 French poets, painters, musicians and writers began to meet in a cabaret called Le Caveau on rue de Buci, where they composed and sang songs. The Caveau continued until 1816, when it was forced to close because its clients wrote songs mocking the royal government, in the 18th century the café-concert or café-chantant appeared, which offered food along with music, singers, or magicians. The most famous was the Cafe des Aveugles in the cellars of the Palais-Royal, in the early 19th century many cafés-chantants appeared around the city, the most famous were the Café des Ambassadeurs on the Champs-Élysées and the Eldorado on boulevard Strasbourg. By 1900 there were more than 150 cafés-chantants in Paris, the first cabaret in the modern sense was Le Chat Noir in the Bohemian neighborhood of Montmartre, created in 1881 by Rodolphe Salis, a theatrical agent and entrepreneur
20.
Fidel Castro
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Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008. Politically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party socialist state, industry and business were nationalized, born in Birán, Oriente as the son of a wealthy Spanish farmer, Castro adopted leftist anti-imperialist politics while studying law at the University of Havana. After a years imprisonment, he traveled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group, returning to Cuba, Castro took a key role in the Cuban Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerrilla war against Batistas forces from the Sierra Maestra. After Batistas overthrow in 1959, Castro assumed military and political power as Cubas Prime Minister, adopting a Marxist–Leninist model of development, Castro converted Cuba into a one-party, socialist state under Communist Party rule, the first in the Western Hemisphere. Policies introducing central economic planning and expanding healthcare and education were accompanied by control of the press. These actions, coupled with Castros leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983 and Cubas medical internationalism, following the Soviet Unions dissolution in 1991, Castro led Cuba into its Special Period and embraced environmentalist and anti-globalization ideas. In the 2000s he forged alliances in the Latin American pink tide—namely with Hugo Chávezs Venezuela—and signed Cuba up to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, in 2006 he transferred his responsibilities to Vice-President Raúl Castro, who was elected to the presidency by the National Assembly in 2008. Castro is a world figure. His supporters view him as a champion of socialism and anti-imperialism whose revolutionary regime advanced economic, critics view him as a dictator whose administration oversaw human-rights abuses, the exodus of a large number of Cubans, and the impoverishment of the countrys economy. He was decorated with various awards and significantly influenced various individuals. In 1960 Castro was bestowed with the Grand Slam Silver Trophy in the prestigious Ernest Hemingway International Billfishing Tournament after he caught a sailfish, Castro was born out of wedlock at his fathers farm on August 13,1926. His father, Ángel Castro y Argiz, was a migrant to Cuba from Galicia, aged six, Castro was sent to live with his teacher in Santiago de Cuba, before being baptized into the Roman Catholic Church at the age of eight. Being baptized enabled Castro to attend the La Salle boarding school in Santiago, in 1945 he transferred to the more prestigious Jesuit-run El Colegio de Belén in Havana. Although Castro took an interest in history, geography and debating at Belén, he did not excel academically, in 1945, Castro began studying law at the University of Havana. Admitting he was illiterate, he became embroiled in student activism. In 1947, Castro joined the Party of the Cuban People, a charismatic figure, Chibás advocated social justice, honest government, and political freedom, while his party exposed corruption and demanded reform. Though Chibás came third in the 1948 general election, Castro remained committed to working on his behalf, in later years anti-Castro dissidents accused him of committing gang-related assassinations at the time, but these remain unproven
21.
Pedro Knight
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Pedro Knight Caraballo was a Cuban musician, and the husband and manager of singer Celia Cruz. Pedro Knight Caraballo was born September 30,1921, Knight was a trained trumpeter, and a powerfully expressive musician, according to Sue Stewart of The Guardian. The key to the bands sound relied on trumpets, percussion, Cuban guitar, double bass, voices, at the time, Havana was emerging as one of the worlds most popular musical nightspots. After 18 months, the band accepted a contract at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. Commenting on their relationship, Cruz said, Pedro is my 50%, I am the one that sings, but he takes care of everything else. At home in Queens, New York, and later in Fort Lee, New Jersey, however, Cruz said she was a conventional Latina wife, in early 2005, he attended the opening of an exhibition dedicated to Cruz at Washingtons Smithsonian Museum. Knight died on February 3,2007 at age 85 of diabetes and he is survived by his first wife, their daughter, Ernestina Knight, and his other four children Emilia, Gladys, Pedro and Roberto, who remained in Cuba. He is buried with Cruz in the mausoleum he built for them in 2003, Pedro Knight at Find a Grave
22.
Larry Harlow (musician)
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Larry Harlow is an American salsa music performer, composer and producer. He was born into a musical American family of Jewish descent, Harlow is the son of Rose and Buddy Kahn, and brother of Andy Harlow. His mother was a singer with the stage name Rose Sherman in New York. His father was the bandleader at the Latin Quarter in New York under the name Buddy Harlowe, the young Harlow, is affectionately nicknamed el Judio Maravilloso. Harlow is a noted salsa bandleader and multi-instrumentalist, although he plays piano. The first garnered a gold disc and spawned La Lotería, the company’s biggest selling 45 rpm to date, Larry Harlow excelled at an early age at various instruments. The music and culture of New York’s Latino community led him to Cuba where he began a study of Afro-Cuban music. Larry and his orchestra, Orquesta Harlow, was the second orchestra signed to the Fania label, Harlow also produced over 106 albums for various artists and over 50 albums on his own besides the ones he produced for Fania. Larry Harlow continues to perform with Fania Among his most popular albums were Abran Paso, larrys opera Hommy was credited as integral to Celia Cruzs comeback. He also appeared with the Fania All-Stars in the movies Our Latin Thing, Live in Africa, in 2005 he contributed to The Mars Voltas album Frances the Mute, on which he played a piano solo toward the end of LVia LViaquez. He also played piano with the group in some live shows, in 2008, Larry Harlow was presented with a Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Harlow currently resides in New York with his wife, and regularly continues to lead and perform with Larry Harlow, heavy Smokin Bajándote, Gettin Off El Exigente Me and My Monkey Ambergris
23.
Carnegie Hall
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Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1891, it is one of the most prestigious venues in the world for both classical music and popular music. Carnegie Hall has its own programming, development, and marketing departments. It is also rented out to performing groups, the hall has not had a resident company since 1962, when the New York Philharmonic moved to Lincoln Centers Philharmonic Hall. Carnegie Hall has 3,671 seats, divided among its three auditoriums, Carnegie Hall presented about 200 concerts in the 2008–2009 season, up 3 percent from the previous year. Its stages were rented for an additional 600 events in the 2008–2009 season, Carnegie Hall contains three distinct, separate performance spaces. The Isaac Stern Auditorium seats 2,804 on five levels and was named after violinist Isaac Stern in 1997 to recognize his efforts to save the hall from demolition in the 1960s, the hall is enormously high, and visitors to the top balcony must climb 137 steps. All but the top level can be reached by elevator, the main hall was home to the performances of the New York Philharmonic from 1892 until 1962. Known as the most prestigious concert stage in the U. S. almost all of the classical music. After years of wear and tear, the hall was extensively renovated in 1986. The Ronald O. Perelman Stage is 42 feet deep, the First Tier and Second Tier consist of sixty-five boxes, the First Tier has 264 seats at eight seats per box and the Second Tier seats 238, with boxes ranging from six to eight seats each. Second from the top is the Dress Circle, seating 444 in six rows, at the top, the balcony seats 837. Although seats with obstructed views exist throughout the auditorium, only the Dress Circle level has structural columns, Zankel Hall, which seats 599, is named after Judy and Arthur Zankel. Originally called simply Recital Hall, this was the first auditorium to open to the public in April 1891, following renovations made in 1896, it was renamed Carnegie Lyceum. The completely reconstructed Zankel Hall is flexible in design and can be reconfigured in several different arrangements to suit the needs of the performers, the 599 seats in Zankel Hall are arranged in two levels. The Parterre level seats a total of 463 and the Mezzanine level seats 136, each level has a number of seats which are situated along the side walls, perpendicular to the stage. These seats are designated as boxes, there are 54 seats in six boxes on the Parterre level and 48 seats in four boxes on the Mezzanine level, the boxes on the Parterre level are raised above the level of the stage. Zankel Hall is accessible and its stage is 44 feet wide and 25 feet deep — the stage occupies approximately one fifth of the performance space, the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Recital Hall seats 268 and is named after Sanford I. Weill, a chairman of the board, and his wife Joan
24.
Zaire
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Zaire, officially the Republic of Zaire is the name for the Democratic Republic of the Congo that existed between 1971 and 1997 in Central Africa. The country was a one-party state and dictatorship, run by Mobutu Sese Seko and it was established following Mobutus seizure of power in a military coup in 1965, following five years of political upheaval following independence known as the Congo Crisis. Zaire had a strongly centralist constitution and foreign assets were nationalized, a wider campaign of Authenticité, ridding the country of the influences from the colonial era of the Belgian Congo, was also launched under Mobutus direction. Weakened by the end of American support after the end of the Cold War, by the time of its disestablishment, Mobutus rule was characterized by widespread cronyism, corruption and economic mismanagement. The Republic started to collapsed in 1996, amid the destabilization of eastern parts of the state in the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide and growing ethnic violence. The following year, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, at the head of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo militia, with rebel forces making gains in the east, Mobutu fled the country, leaving Kabilas forces in charge. Mobutu died within four months after he was forced into exile in Morocco, the states name, Zaire was derived from the name of the Congo River, sometimes called Zaire in Portuguese, adapted from the Kongo word nzere or nzadi. In 1965, as in 1960, the division of power in Congo-Léopoldville between President and Parliament led to a stalemate and threatened the countrys stability, unlike the first time, however, Mobutu assumed the presidency, rather than remaining behind the scenes. From 1965, Mobutu dominated the life of the country, restructuring the state on more than one occasion. In retrospective justification of his 1965 seizure of power, Mobutu later summed up the record of the First Republic as one of chaos, disorder, negligence, rejection of the legacy of the First Republic went far beyond rhetoric. In the first two years of its existence, the new regime turned to the urgent tasks of political reconstruction and consolidation, creating a new basis of legitimacy for the state, in the form of a single party, came next in Mobutus order of priority. A third imperative was to expand the reach of the state in the social and political realms, by 1976, however, this effort had begun to generate its own inner contradictions, thus paving the way for the resurrection of a Bula Matari system. By 1967, Mobutu had consolidated his rule and proceeded to give the country a new constitution, the new constitution was submitted to popular referendum in June 1967 and approved by 98 percent of those voting. The president was to appoint and dismiss cabinet members and determine their areas of responsibility, the ministers, as heads of their respective departments, were to execute the programs and decisions of the president. The president also was to have the power to appoint and dismiss the governors of the provinces, the bicameral parliament was replaced by a unicameral legislative body called the National Assembly. Governors of provinces were no longer elected by provincial assemblies but appointed by the central government, the president had the power to issue autonomous regulations on matters other than those pertaining to the domain of law, without prejudice to other provisions of the constitution. Under certain conditions, the president was empowered to govern by executive order, but the most far-reaching change was the creation of the Popular Movement of the Revolution on 17 April 1967, marking the emergence of the nation politically organized. Rather than being the emanation of the state, the state was defined as the emanation of the party
25.
Soul Power (film)
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The film was made from archival footage, other footage shot at the time focusing on the fight was edited to form the film When We Were Kings. The DVD includes bonus tracks of James Brown, Sister Sledge, Abeti, footage was shot by a variety of camera operators, including Albert Maysles. Music played on stage makes up for half of the running time. The rest comprises documentary clips about the event, including footage of the musicians, the DVD release also includes longer clips with jam sessions, and interviews with local citizens. James Brown performs at the beginning of the film and sings two songs in the end, another of his performances is included as a feature on the DVD. Brown is also shown behind the scenes, and the musicians are seen mixing with the boxers, many of the artists express their views about Black Power and their role in it. Since Foreman was delayed on account of an injury he could not appear in time for the festival and only footage from Ali could be used. We can see a short funny box fight between Philippe Wynne from The Spinners and Ali, as well as a comparison of New York City with Kinshasa by Ali calling NYC the real jungle. Official website Soul Power at the Internet Movie Database Soul Power at Rotten Tomatoes Soul Power, a review at Catch a Vibe
26.
Eastern Air Lines
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Eastern Air Lines was a major American airline from 1926 to 1991. Before its dissolution it was headquartered at Miami International Airport in an area of Miami-Dade County. Eastern was one of the Big Four domestic airlines created by the Spoils Conferences of 1930 and it had a near monopoly in air travel between New York and Florida from the 1930s and 1940s and dominated this market for decades afterward. Labor disputes and high debt loads strained the company in the late 1970s, Frank Lorenzo acquired Eastern in 1985 and moved many of its assets to his other airlines, including Continental Airlines and Texas Air. After continued labor disputes and a strike in 1989, Eastern ran out of money and was liquidated in 1991. USAir acquired 11 of Easterns 25 Boeing 757-225s, Eastern pioneered hourly air shuttle service between New York City, Washington, DC and Boston in 1961 as the Eastern Air Lines Shuttle. It took over the South American route network of Braniff International in 1982 and also served London, Eastern Air Lines was a composite of assorted air travel corporations, including Florida Airways and Pitcairn Aviation. In the late 1920s, Pitcairn Aviation won a contract to fly mail between New York City and Atlanta, Georgia on Mailwing single-engine aircraft, in 1929, Clement Keys, the owner of North American Aviation, purchased Pitcairn. In 1930, Keys changed the name to Eastern Air Transport. After being purchased by General Motors and experiencing a change in leadership after the Airmail Act of 1934, in 1938 World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker bought Eastern from General Motors. The complex deal was concluded when Rickenbacker presented Alfred P. Sloan with a check for $3.5 million. In March 1939 Eastern had 15 weekday departures from Newark, two from Chicago to Miami, one from Tampa to Atlanta and one from Tallahassee to Memphis and those flights and their returns were Easterns whole scheduled operation. It fit on one page in the Airways Guide, then as later, Eastern was the fourth largest airline in the country by passenger-miles. Rickenbacker pushed Eastern into a period of growth and innovation, for a time, Eastern was the most profitable airline in the post-war era, never needing state subsidy. In the late 1950s, Easterns position was eroded by subsidies to rival airlines, on October 1,1959, Rickenbackers position as CEO was taken over by Malcolm A. MacIntyre, a brilliant lawyer but inexperienced in airline operations. Rickenbackers ouster was due to his reluctance to acquire jets. Like many others, he underestimated their appeal to the public, a new management team headed by Floyd D. Hall took over on 16 December 1963, and Rickenbacker left his position as Director and Chairman of the Board on December 31,1963, aged 73. In 1956 Eastern bought Colonial Airlines, giving the airline its first routes to Canada, in November 1959, Eastern Air Lines opened its Chester L. Churchill-designed Terminal 1 at New York Citys Idlewild International Airport
27.
Olympia (Paris)
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Olympia is a music hall located in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France. 28, Boulevard des Capucines, its closest métro/RER stations are Madeleine, Opéra, Havre – Caumartin, co-Founded in 1888, by Joseph Oller and Charles Zidler, the co-creators of the Moulin Rouge, today easily recognizable by its giant red glowing letters announcing its name. It opened in 1889 as the Montagnes Russes but was renamed the Olympia in 1893, besides musicians, the Olympia played host to a variety of entertainment including circuses, ballets, and operettas. However, following a decline in appearances by the great stars. It may have opened as a music hall under the German occupation of France during World War II, but certainly in 1945 after the Liberation, it was a music hall free to Allied troops in uniform. Attendees had to listen to the playing of four national anthems before the programs that always ended with a spirited can-can performed by dancers. Thereafter, at times it may have reverted to movies again until Bruno Coquatrix revived it as a hall with a grand re-opening in February 1954. Édith Piaf achieved great acclaim at the Olympia giving several series of recitals from January 1955 until October 1962, before coming to America, the Beatles performed eighteen days of concerts at the Olympia Theatre, playing two and sometimes three shows a day. They were staying at the Hotel George V and after returning at the end of their first day, they were told that I Want To Hold Your Hand had reached number one in America. Jeff Buckley, long an admirer of Piaf, gave what he considered the finest performance of his there in 1995. Jacques Brels 1961 and 1964 concerts at LOlympia are legendary and preserved to this day on new CD releases, marlene Dietrichs 1962 Olympia concert was broadcast. On May 3–4,1972, The Grateful Dead played two concerts here as part of their first major European tour, both shows were recorded and songs from each were released on their 1972 live album Europe 72. Dave Gahan played concert here and it was released on the 2004 DVD, Live Monsters
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Salsa (1988 film)
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Salsa is a 1988 romance film directed by Boaz Davidson and starring Robby Rosa, Rodney Harvey, Magali Alvarado and Miranda Garrison. The film, about a Puerto Rican dancer who decides to enter a salsa dancing contest, in a nightly escape from his day job as a mechanic, Rico enters his true element, the wild exuberance of the East L. A. Dreaming of making himself and Vicky, his girlfriend the King and Queen of Salsa, but when Luna, the clubs gorgeous owner sets her sights on making Rico her dance partner, Rico must decide what drives him, his ambition or his heart
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Draco Rosa
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Rosa originally garnered fame as a member of boy band Menudo in the 1980s, singing lead on the bands biggest stateside hit, Hold Me and featuring prominently in the accompanying music video. After leaving the band he moved to Brazil where he released two albums, achieving mainstream success. Following a brief subsequent stint in California, he returned to New York and formed the band Maggies Dream, the singer and composer has released numerous studio and experimental albums, and has composed multiple songs for Ednita Nazario, Julio Iglesias and former Menudo band-mate, Ricky Martin. He has also featured on VH1s Behind the Music. In 1988, at age 18, he made his motion picture debut in the film Salsa, during the filming of the movie, he met actress Angela Alvarado who would later become his wife. In 1996 he released the Latino alternative rock album Vagabundo produced by Phil Manzanera before helping launch Ricky Martins musical career into a new setting with Vuelve. Rosa wrote and produced various of Martins hit singles including María, La Vida Loca, La Copa de La Vida, She Bangs and Shake Your Bon-Bon, Rosa toured with Lenny Kravitz during the summer of 2004 to promote his concept album Mad Love. In April 2011, Rosa was diagnosed with a non-hodgkin lymphoma cancer near his liver and he underwent alternative and traditional treatment in Houston and Santa Monica. In December 2012, he was declared cancer-free, on December 9,2013, Rosas manager confirmed his cancer had relapsed and overcame cancer once again after a second bone marrow transplant, but had to remain in quarantine for four additional months. At a young age, Rosa moved with his family to Puerto Rico where he spent much of his childhood in the towns of Peñuelas, in 1984 he joined the increasingly popular Puerto Rican boy band Menudo. As the only member of Menudo who had a grasp of English, Rosa sang lead vocals on many of the English-language tracks released by the group, including their stateside hit. However, Rosa started to grow disenchanted with the band, particularly after he was denied the opportunity to write songs for them, Rosa quit the group in 1987. After moving to Barra Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Rosa spent time with local artists and he would go on to release two commercially successful Portuguese-language solo albums in quick succession in the late 1980s. Rosa subsequently moved to Los Angeles where he had gotten the lead-role in the film Salsa, during its filming, Rosa met his future wife, Angela Alvarado. Like Rosa, Alvarado was also born in New York to Puerto Rican parents, Rosa also appeared alongside Christopher Mitchum in a German film entitled Gummibärchen küßt man nicht. Rosa wrote, produced and performed two songs for the soundtrack of the film, which was released by RCA Records under his publishing company. A planned follow-up album, Elysium was recorded in 1992 but never officially released, in 1993 a solo contract with Sony Music Latin enabled Rosa to record in Spain the first of his Spanish-language solo albums, Frío. The 1996 release of his album, Vagabundo, recorded in England
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Grammy Award
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A Grammy Award, or Grammy, is an honor awarded by The Recording Academy to recognize outstanding achievement in the mainly English-language music industry. The annual presentation ceremony features performances by prominent artists, and the presentation of awards that have a more popular interest. It shares recognition of the industry as that of the other performance awards such as the Emmy Awards, the Tony Awards. The first Grammy Awards ceremony was held on May 4,1959, to honor, following the 2011 ceremony, The Academy overhauled many Grammy Award categories for 2012. The 59th Grammy Awards, honoring the best achievements from October 2015 to September 2016, was held on February 12,2017, the Grammys had their origin in the Hollywood Walk of Fame project in the 1950s. The music executives decided to rectify this by creating a given by their industry similar to the Oscars. This was the beginning of the National Academy of Recording Arts, after it was decided to create such an award, there was still a question of what to call it, one working title was the Eddie, to honor the inventor of the phonograph, Thomas Edison. They finally settled on using the name of the invention of Emile Berliner, the gramophone, for the awards, the number of awards given grew and fluctuated over the years with categories added and removed, at one time reaching over 100. The second Grammy Awards, also held in 1959, was the first ceremony to be televised, the gold-plated trophies, each depicting a gilded gramophone, are made and assembled by hand by Billings Artworks in Ridgway, Colorado. In 1990 the original Grammy design was revamped, changing the traditional soft lead for a stronger alloy less prone to damage, Billings developed a zinc alloy named grammium, which is trademarked. The trophies with the name engraved on them are not available until after the award announcements. By February 2009,7,578 Grammy trophies had been awarded, the General Field are four awards which are not restricted by genre. Album of the Year is awarded to the performer and the team of a full album if other than the performer. Record of the Year is awarded to the performer and the team of a single song if other than the performer. Song of the Year is awarded to the writer/composer of a single song, Best New Artist is awarded to a promising breakthrough performer who releases, during the Eligibility Year, the first recording that establishes the public identity of that artist. The only two artists to win all four of these awards are Christopher Cross, who won all four in 1980, and Adele, who won the Best New Artist award in 2009 and the other three in 2012 and 2017. Other awards are given for performance and production in specific genres, as well as for other such as artwork. Special awards are given for longer-lasting contributions to the music industry, the many other Grammy trophies are presented in a pre-telecast Premiere Ceremony earlier in the afternoon before the Grammy Awards telecast
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Ray Barretto
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Ray Barretto was an American Grammy Award-winning Latin/Latin jazz musician of Puerto Rican parents. Barretto was born in New York City and his parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico in the early 1920s, looking for a better life. He was raised in Spanish Harlem and at a young age was influenced by his mothers love of music and by the jazz music of musicians such as Duke Ellington. In 1946, when Barretto was 17 years old, he joined the Army, while stationed in Germany, Barretto met Belgian vibist Fats Sadi, who was working there. However, it was when he heard Dizzy Gillespies Manteca with Cuban composer/percussionist Chano Pozo that he realized his calling in life. In 1949, when Barretto returned home from service, he started to visit clubs and participated in jam sessions. On one occasion Charlie Parker heard Barretto play and invited him to play in his band, later, he was asked to play for José Curbelo and Tito Puente, for whom he played for four years. Barretto developed a style of playing the conga and soon he was sought by other jazz band leaders. Latin percussionists started to appear in groups with frequency as a consequence of Barrettos musical influence. In 1960, Barretto was a musician for the Prestige, Blue Note. He also recorded on Columbia Records with Jazz flautist Herbie Mann, New York had become the center of Latin music in the United States and a musical genre called pachanga was the Latin music craze of the time. In 1961, Barretto recorded his first hit, El Watusi and he was quite successful with the song and the genre, to the point of being typecast. During this period, Adalberto Santiago was the lead vocalist. In 1972 Barrettos Que viva la musica was released, cocinando, a track from the album, opened the soundtrack of the Fania All Stars film Our Latin Thing in which Barretto had a role. After a number of albums, and just as his Afro-Cuban band had attained a remarkable following, most of its members left it to form Típica 73. This left Barretto depressed and disappointed with salsa, he redirected his efforts to jazz. In 1975 he released Barretto, also referred to as the Guarare album, with new vocalists Ruben Blades, Barretto played the conga in recording sessions for the Rolling Stones and the Bee Gees. In 1975, he was nominated for a Grammy Award for the song Barretto, from 1976 to 1978, Barretto recorded three records for Atlantic Records, and was nominated for a Grammy for Barretto Live. Tomorrow
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Antonio Banderas
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José Antonio Domínguez Bandera, known professionally as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish actor, director, singer, and producer. Banderas also portrayed the voice of Puss in Boots in the Shrek sequels, Banderas was born on 10 August 1960, in the Andalusian city of Málaga, the son of José Domínguez, a police officer in the Civil Guard, and Ana Bandera Gallego, a school teacher. He has a brother, Francisco Javier, although his fathers family name is Domínguez, he took his mothers last name as his stage name. As a child, he wanted to become a football player until a broken foot sidelined his dreams at the age of fourteen. He showed a strong interest in the arts and formed part of the ARA Theatre-School run by Ángeles Rubio-Argüelles y Alessandri. His work in the theater, and his performances on the streets, Banderas began working in small shops during Spains post-dictatorial cultural movement known as the La Movida Madrileña. While performing with the theatre, Banderas caught the attention of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, who cast the young actor in his 1982 movie debut Labyrinth of Passion. Five years later, he went on to appear in the directors Law of Desire, making headlines with his performance as a gay man, which required him to engage in his first male-to-male onscreen kiss. After Banderas appeared in Almodóvars 1986 Matador, the director cast him in his internationally acclaimed 1988 film, the recognition Banderas gained for his role increased two years later when he starred in Almodóvars controversial Tie Me Up. Tie Me Down. as a patient who kidnaps a porn star. It was his role in Tie Me Up. Tie Me Down. that helped him on to Hollywood. Banderas having become a feature of Almodóvars movies all throughout the 1980s. In 1991, Madonna introduced Banderas to Hollywood, the following year, still speaking minimal English, he began acting in U. S. films. Despite having to learn all his lines phonetically, Banderas still managed to turn in a praised performance as a struggling musician in his first American drama film. Banderas then broke through to mainstream American audiences in the film Philadelphia and he also made success with his role as the legendary masked swordsman Zorro in the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro. In 1999 he starred in The 13th Warrior, a movie about a Muslim caught up in a war between the Northman and human eating beasts, in 2001, he collaborated with Robert Rodriguez who cast him in the Spy Kids film trilogy. He also starred in Michael Cristofers Original Sin alongside Angelina Jolie the same year, in 2002, he starred in Brian De Palmas Femme Fatale opposite Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and in Julie Taymors Frida with Salma Hayek
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The Mambo Kings
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The Mambo Kings is a 1992 French–American drama film directed by Arne Glimcher. It is an adaptation of Oscar Hijueloss 1989 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. The film stars Armand Assante and Antonio Banderas as Cesar and Nestor Castillo, brothers, the Mambo Kings marks the directing debut of Glimcher and features Banderas in his first English-language role. Glimcher purchased the rights to Hijueloss novel in 1988, before hiring Cynthia Cidre to write the screenplay. When Warner Bros. wanted Jeremy Irons and Ray Liotta in the roles, Glimcher had to convince executives to cast Assante. Filming for The Mambo Kings took place in Los Angeles, on sets recreating 1950s New York, the film received mostly positive reviews from critics, but underperformed at the box office, grossing only $6,742,168 during its domestic theatrical release. For its original song Beautiful Maria of My Soul, The Mambo Kings earned nominations from several groups, including the Academy Awards. In the early 1950s, Cuban brothers and musicians Cesar and Nestor Castillo flee from Havana, eventually ending up in New York City, the brothers work at menial jobs while attempting to revive their musical careers. Nestor, in the meantime, remains oblivious to other women while continually composing his ode to his lost Cuban love, Maria. He writes version after version of the ballad, Beautiful Maria of My Soul, until by chance one day he encounters Delores. When she becomes pregnant, they decide to get married, fate intervenes one night at a club, where the Castillo brothers have a part-time job. Nestors love ballad captures the interest of one of the customers, after a pleasant evening in Nestor and Deloress home, Arnaz generously invites the struggling Castillos to sing and act on an episode of his smash sitcom series, I Love Lucy. Nestor is not as ambitious as his brother and desires nothing more than to own his own small club and he is in love with Delores, but lacks the passion he felt for his beloved Maria back home. Cesar, meantime, suppresses his feelings, that a woman like Delores would actually be perfect for him. Cesar eventually reveals to Nestor that Maria left him for a Cuban mobster in exchange for cancelling a contract hit against Nestor, There are tragic consequences one snowy night when the Castillo brothers car veers off the road and into a tree. Cesar, in the seat of the vehicle, is barely hurt. The life of Cesar, shattered, is never the same, to honor his brothers memory, Cesar opens his own small club, which is well received. Delores pays him a visit and asks him to sing Nestors song for her, in 1988, Hijuelos sent Glimcher a manuscript of his novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
