Pérez Prado

Cuban Latin music composer and pianist

• Born: November 13, 1922
• Birthplace: Matanzas, Cuba
• Died: December 4, 1983
• Place of death: Mexico City, Mexico

One of the first to combine Latin musical elements with big band jazz, Prado was responsible for the mambo’s widespread popularity and commercial success in Europe and the United States during the 1950’s.

Member of The Pérez Prado Orchestra

The Life

Dámaso Pérez Prado’s mother was a schoolteacher, and his father worked for a newspaper. He began playing classical piano in his early childhood, and as a teenager he played professionally, expanding his repertory while working in nightclubs and motion picture theaters. The Afro-Cuban city of Matanzas was musically rich with African and traditional Cuban music. In 1942 Prado moved to Havana, where he arranged music for musical groups and orchestras, including the famous Sonora Matancera and Orquesta Casino de la Playa. He experimented with traditional Cuban rhythms, combining jazz and traditional music, and thus he angered musical purists. In 1948 he moved to Mexico City to form his own orchestra and to record for RCA Victor. He adapted the mambo (a fast version of the Cuban danzón) using his big band sound. Prado and his orchestra recorded numerous singles in Mexico City.

In 1954, during a second tour to the United States, their performances at New York nightclubs sparked a fascination with the mambo. In 1955 Prado made his American breakthrough with his arrangement of “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White,” by Louiguy (Louis Gugliemi), as the theme from the 1955 film Underwater! (starring Jane Russell). It topped the Billboard hits chart and remained there for months. In 1958 he had another hit with the cha-cha-cha “Patricia,” which he composed. His compositions and arrangements enjoyed much commercial success worldwide. Prado also composed large, serious works. He is remembered for adding percussive shouts and grunts (usually indicating song breaks). Prado was at the height of his career in the 1950’s and 1960’s, but he continued working, releasing records and making appearances on television into the 1980’s. In 1989 he died of a stroke in Mexico City.

The Music

Prado’s upbeat big band flashy music combined elements of classical music, jazz, traditional Cuban, and newly composed music based on traditional Afro-Cuban dance rhythms. Brass, saxophone, and rhythm sections frequently shared the foreground, though trumpet solos were often featured. The hit song “Patricia” is unusual for featuring Prado on organ in the foreground. His music initiated the mambo craze in the United States. Sound engineers were not nearly as innovative with Prado’s recordings as they were with those of Esquivel’s Orchestra. However, Prado recorded during a period in which people enjoyed listening to music at home on their stereos as much as they would at nightclubs.

Mambo Mania. A compilation of Prado’s Mexican singles released in 1955, this album contains the hit song “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.” The song is characterized by its slurred trumpet solo, portamento pitch glides, and bent notes. The purpose of this collection was to make this highly requested song and other songs accessible to listeners in North America. Prado’s homage to Stan Kenton, “Mambo a la Kenton” (composed by Prado and Armando Romeu), and a cover of the popular standard “Skokiaan” (composed by August Msarurgwa) are also included.

Voodoo Suite Plus Six All-Time Greats. The serious composition, Voodoo Suite, was performed and recorded in 1955, just at the time Prado was enjoying the success of “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.” Venturing into the exotic around the same time as Les Baxter and Martin Denny, this recording paired Prado with Shorty Rogers, a creator of West Coast jazz. Prado and his orchestra perform Latin versions of the Dixieland standard “St. James Infirmary” and “Stompin’ at the Savoy.” The latter, composed by Chick Webb, exemplifies Prado’s shouts and grunts, which suggest his sensitive hearing of the musical form.

Havana 3 A.M. This 1956 recording contains two famous songs, “The Freeway Mambo” (composed by Prado) and “The Peanut Vendor (El monicero)” (composed by Moises Simon), and it concludes with Prado’s impressionist composition “Mosaico Cubano” (Cuban sketch). The saxophone section opens “The Freeway Mambo” with a catchy melody accompanied by drums and shouts; saxophone sections in unison alternate with the familiar sound of a blaring trumpet chorus. “The Peanut Vendor” features a guitar solo followed by a meandering, blaring trumpet.

Exotic Suite of the Americas. The title song of this 1962 recording was another serious work by Prado that has many similarities to his Voodoo Suite. Its instrumental impressions of the exotic employ strings and drums more often than the earlier Voodoo Suite. Other songs included were his musical salute to the ladies in President John Kennedy’s life, “Jacqueline and Caroline,” and his mambo-inspired arrangement of Alan Jay Lerner’s “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady (1956).

Musical Legacy

Prado stimulated interest in Latin music long before the Latin Grammy Awards existed. His style of conducting, arranging, and composing influenced the music of Latin contemporaries Esquivel, Tito Puente, and Xavier Cugat (who covered many of the same songs with their orchestras) as well as the jazz of Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker. His music is frequently used in films and commercials. Examples include “Patricia” in Federico Fellini’s La dolce vita (1961) and Billy Kent’s The Oh in Ohio (2006); “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White” in an episode of the television series The Sopranos (2004); and “Guaglione” and “Mambo No. 5” in television commercials for Guinness draught stout (1994 and 1999). In 1999 Lou Bega’s vocal version of ”Mambo No. 5” revived interest in Prado.

Principal Recordings

albums (solo): Pérez Prado, 1950; Pérez Prado Plays Mucho Mambo for Dancing, 1951; Mambo Mania, 1955; Voodoo Suite Plus Six All-Time Greats, 1955 (with Shorty Rogers); Havana 3 A.M., 1956; Prez, 1958; Latino!, 1959; Pérez, 1959; A Touch of Tabasco, 1960 (with Rosemary Clooney); La chunga, 1961; Exotic Suite of the Americas, 1962; Lights! Action! Prado!, 1964; Dance Latino, 1965; El unico, 1972; Salsa ala Pérez Prado, 1972.

albums (with the Pérez Prado Orchestra): Mambo by the King, 1956; Latin Satin, 1957; Mambo Happy!, 1957; Dilo (Ugh!), 1958; Pops and Prado, 1959; Rockambo, 1961; The Twist Goes Latin, 1962; Our Man in Latin America, 1963.

Bibliography

Fernandez, Raul A. From Afro-Cuban Rhythms to Latin Jazz. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. The author discusses Prado’s work with Latin musicians and his impact on jazz in the United States.

Gerard, Charley. Music from Cuba: Mongo Santamaría, Chocolate Armenteros, and Cuban Musicians in the United States. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001. This describes Prado’s adaptation and transmission of the charanga mambo and the cha-cha-cha.

Moore, Robin D. Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. This covers Prado’s use of big band mambo from the late 1940’s and his success with recordings.

Roberts, John Storm. Latin Jazz: The First of the Fusions, 1880’s to Today. New York: Schirmer Books, 1999. In this Latin jazz survey, musicologist Roberts provides details about Prado’s Victor recordings, his musical sound, and other artists with whom he worked.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Latin Tinge: The Impact of Latin American Music on the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. This explores Prado, along with other Latin bandleaders in New York, and how he introduced the mambo and Latin jazz to the United States.

Sublette, Ned. Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2004. This history covers Prado’s arrival in Havana and life in Cuba during the mambo’s formative years.