Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Mambo Madness with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra

This Sunday, July 28, the award-winning Spanish Harlem Orchestra presents a dance concert in the Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Latin American Artin Long Beach, CA.

Titled "Remembering the Palladium Days,"  the show is a tribute to the great mambo/Latin jazz bands that packed New York City's Palladium Ballroom with dancers from 1948 to 1966.  The bands of Arsenio Rodriguez, Tito Puente, Machito and Tito Rodriguez popularized dances like the mambo and the cha cha cha at the Palladium's Wednesday night dance contests, and the dance craze spread from there to the rest of the US.  By the late 1950s, nearly every middle-class home in America had at least one mambo record.

http://youtu.be/Ao5FLTa59ps

The Spanish Harlem Orchestra (SHO) played Jazz Alley in Seattle this past May to sold-out crowds.  Here's more about the band in a nicely done video from WHYY.

Listen for the SHO and more on Jazz Caliente, Thursdays at 2pm on KPLU's Mid Day Jazz...and don't forget your dancing shoes!

Originally from Detroit, Robin Lloyd has been presenting jazz, blues and Latin jazz on public radio for nearly 40 years. She's a member of the Jazz Education Network and the Jazz Journalists Association.