For this show, Ned Sublette features the hip Cuban rhythms of 1960, the pachanga, as interpreted by Rolando La Serie and by Arsenio Rodriguez. There is a stunning bolero by Benny Moré and some of the maximum stars of the era in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Latin New York: Pacho Alonso, Celeste Mendoza, La Lupe, Juanito Marquez, and Pello El Afrokán, as well as Eddie Palmieri's La Perfecta, the Joe Cuba Sextet with the young Cheo Feliciano, El Gran Combo's "Jala Jala," Pete Rodriguez, the bugalú king, Ismael Rivera with Cortijo, and from 1971, Machito's foray into mambo-bugalú. Damn!
We are featuring this show in 2012 in honor of Jimmy Sabater, a singer and timbales player who was one of the architects of the hybrid Latin style known as boogaloo in the 1960s and ’70s, who died recently at his home in the Bronx. He was 75.
