Rumba Rumbero - Xavier Cugat video free download

Miguelito Valdés sings with Xavier Cugat orchestra.

Xavier Cugat (1 January 1900 -- 27 October 1990) was a Catalan-American bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a key personality in the spread of Latin music in United States popular music. In New York, his was the resident orchestra at the Waldorf-Astoria before and after World War II.

Cugat was born as Francesc d'Asís Xavier Cugat Mingall de Bru i Deulofeu in Girona , Spain. His family emigrated to Cuba when Xavier was five. He was trained as a classical violinist and played with the Orchestra of the Teatro Nacional in Havana. On 6 July 1915, Cugat and his family arrived in New York as immigrant passengers on board the S.S. Havana.

Cugat was married five times. His first marriage was to Rita Montaner (1918--1920) ; this contradicts all authoritative biographical accounts of her; his second was to Carmen Castillo (1929--1944); his third to Lorraine Allen (1947--52); his fourth to singer Abbe Lane (1952--64); and his fifth to Spanish guitarist and comic actress Charo (1966--78). His last marriage was the first in Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip.

Entering the world of show business, he played with a band called The Gigolos during the tango craze.

In the late 1920s, as sound began to be used in films, he put together another tango band that had some success in early short musical films. By the early 1930s, he began appearing with his group in feature films. He took his band to New York for the 1931 opening of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, and he eventually replaced Jack Denny as the leader of the hotel's resident band. One of his trademarks was to hold a Chihuahua while he waved his baton with the other arm.

For 16 years Cugat helmed the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel's orchestra. He shuttled between New York and Los Angeles for most of the next 30 years, alternating hotel and radio dates with movie appearances in You Were Never Lovelier (1942), Bathing Beauty (1944), Week-End at the Waldorf (1945), On an Island with You (1948), and Neptune's Daughter (1949), among others.

Cugat recorded on Columbia Records (1940's and 1950s, also Columbia's Epic label), RCA Victor (1930's and 1950s), Mercury Records (1951--1952 and 1960s) and Decca Records (1960's). Dinah Shore made her first recordings as a vocalist with Cugat in 1939 and 1940 (Victor Records). In 1940, his recording of "Perfidia" became a big hit. Cugat followed trends closely, making records for the conga, the mambo, the cha-cha-cha, and the twist when each was in fashion. Several of the songs he recorded, including "Perfidia", were used in the Wong Kar-wai films Days of Being Wild and 2046. In 1943, "Brazil" was a big hit, reaching #17 in the Billboard Top 100.

Cugat died of heart failure, aged 90, in Barcelona and was buried in his native Girona.

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Miguelito Valdés

In origin, he was a white mestizo of a Spanish father and a Mexican Yucatec mother. He was born in the largely black barrio of Belén in La Habana Vieja, and moved to another barrio, Cayo Hueso (in Centro Habana), when his father died. In his youth he worked as an auto mechanic and was a good amateur boxer. In 1934 he won the Amateur Championship of Cuba at his weight. One of his closest friends from his days in the barrio was Chano Pozo, and in his singing style he has been called "as black a white guy as you would meet in Havana".

Miguelito began his musical career in the Sexteto Habanero Infantil, where he played, variously, the guitar, tres, double bass, timbal and sometimes sang. Soon, his capability as a singer was realized, and from that moment he was constantly in demand. After a brief spell with María Teresa Vera's Sexteto Occidente, he was one of the founding members of the Septeto Jóvenes del Cayo in 1929. In 1933 he moved to the charanga of Ismael Díaz, and then to the Charanga Gris, directed by the pianist and composer Armando Valdés Torres, and to the Orquesta Habana, directed by Estanislao Serviá.

In 1934 he made his first journey abroad, to Panama, and on his return joined the Orquesta Hermanos Castro, which was a leading band of the day. He was their lead singer until 1936. In 1937 he joined a group of top musicians who formed the Orquesta Casino de la Playa. He was now perhaps the top singer in Cuba, on the verge of international fame. In 1939 the La Playa toured South and Central America, and started a series of recordings for RCA Victor which would make them famous throughout the world.

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)