Xavier Cugat

• Born: January 1, 1900
• Birthplace: Gerona, Spain
• Died: October 27, 1990
• Place of death: Barcelona, Spain

Cuban Latin violinist and songwriter

A charismatic bandleader of Latin American dance music, Cugat introduced Latin rhythms to North American audiences through live performance, radio, recordings, television, and motion pictures. During the Latin music craze of the 1930’s and 1940’s, he helped to popularize rumba, tango, cha-cha-cha, conga, and mambo.

The Life

Because of his father’s political activities, Xavier Cugat (ZAY-vyahr KEW-gaht), at four years of age, and his family fled Spain, sailing from Barcelona to Havana. In Cuba he received his first violin, a quarter-sized version, and quickly demonstrated his aptitude for playing the instrument. While still young, Cugat played for a silent motion-picture theater, foreshadowing his future endeavors in Hollywood.

Cugat embarked on a career as a classical violinist, touring Europe and North America. He made his professional debut at Carnegie Hall in 1918 to tepid reviews. After the New York concert, he returned to Spain to perform with greater success. During the 1920’s he joined Vincent Lopez’s dance orchestra at the Casa Lopez in New York.

Encountering difficulties as a professional musician, Cugat moved to Los Angeles and worked as a caricaturist for the Los Angeles Times. While in California, he met actor Rudolph Valentino, leading to the formation of a tango orchestra that appeared in the actor’s silent film Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921). Cugat and his orchestra, known as Cugat and His Gigolos, also began performing at the Coconut Grove Room at the Ambassador Hotel, playing tangos and teaching audience members the Argentine dance. Cugat formed a new orchestra at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City in 1930, and that same year, he composed music for the film Gay Madrid. In 1934 he appeared on a weekly radio show Let’s Dance. However, he did not reach a national audience until appearing on the radio program The Camel Caravan.

Possibly appearing on film more than any other American bandleader, Cugat was extremely comfortable in front of the camera. For Cugat, motion pictures served as a venue to promote his conception of Latin American dance music. Playing himself in film, Cugat appeared in Let’s Go Latin (1937), You Were Never Lovelier (1942), Stage Door Canteen (1943), Two Girls and a Sailor (1944), Bathing Beauty (1944), Weekend at the Waldorf (1945), No Leave, No Love (1946), Holiday in Mexico (1946), This Time for Keeps (1947), A Date with Judy (1948), Luxury Liner (1948), Neptune’s Daughter (1949), and more.

Making frequent headlines for his numerous marriages and divorces, Cugat carried out stormy relationships with Rita Montaner, Carmen Castillo, Lorraine Allen, Abbe Lane, and Charo. In 1971 he suffered a stroke, becoming partially paralyzed. Because of his medical difficulties, he retired from music and returned to Spain. In 1990 Cugat died of heart failure in Barcelona.

The Music

During the 1930’s and 1940’s, Cugat was the bandleader associated with Latin American dance music. He recognized that many North Americans were unfamiliar with Latin music, but they enjoyed its rhythms and musical traits. In the United States and to a lesser degree in Latin America, Cugat and his orchestra appeared on stage, radio, records, and motion pictures, performing numerous Latin American dance genres. Primarily marketing his music to a North American public, he performed rumbas, mambos, tangos, sambas, congas, and cha-cha-chas; however, his music was a hybrid of Latin American models. In Cuban music, ostinatos built around the son rhythm are crucial for performance. In addition, layered percussion and polyrhythms embraced the Afro-Cuban heritage of Cuba. When Cugat worked as a bandleader in New York at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel during the 1930’s and 1940’s, two styles of Latin music, uptown and downtown, existed. Uptown music catered to a Latin American diaspora living in the Latin barrio of Harlem. Music that was intended for non-Latinos was performed downtown. Initially, Cugat provided audiences with a Latin dance music that was inauthentic, but eventually he began moving the music closer to traditional Latin American practices. As a bandleader, Cugat arranged the compositions of others for his Latin jazz ensemble.

“La paloma.” Spanish for the dove, the song is by Spanish composer Sebastián Yradier. In Cugat’s arrangement, the bandleader employed the characteristic clave rhythm, an Afro-Cuban rhythmic pattern that provides the structural framework of countless Cuban musical works. He arranged the work for a large Latin jazz ensemble, utilizing such Latin percussion instruments as the congas, bongos, and clave. Muted trumpets, piano, and guitar complete the ensemble. Cugat arranged the work as a conga, a song and dance associated with carnival processions that became popular in the United States in the 1940’s. The popularity of the conga dance in North America is largely attributed to Desi Arnaz, a former member of Cugat’s orchestra, who appeared on the long-running television series I Love Lucy as the husband of Lucille Ball. The choreography of the dance consists of three short steps and a leap that accompanies a repeated rhythmic figure. It can be danced as a couples dance or in a conga line. The term conga became synonymous with Latin American music.

“Perfidia.” By Mexican composer Alberto Domínguez, the song takes its title from the Spanish word for perfidy. Cugat arranges the treacherous nature of the music in an ironically gleeful manner. An instrumental version, his arrangement opens with a slow and rhythmically free violin introduction. Strict dance rhythms soon follow, providing a rhythmic ostinato. In place of vocals, instruments trace the melody. He orchestrates the bolero for marimba, muted trumpets, saxophones, and piano, with maracas, bongos, and congas marking time. Intended for dancing, the bolero is in duple meter with a characteristic slow-quick-quick rhythm.

“My Shawl.” The song opens with the characteristic rhythm of the rumba foxtrot, a hybrid of the Cuban rumba with the ballroom foxtrot. At a slow tempo, the Latin percussion section, consisting of clave, maracas, bongos, and congas, marks the long-long-short-short rhythm of the dance. Cugat’s arrangement employs strings to play the melody and countermelody. Intended for North American audiences, the lyrics are in English, and they alternate against the extended instrumental sections. The rumba originates from Cuba, and Cugat believed that the dance was too difficult for North Americans, especially those he encountered on the dance floor. As a solution, Cugat assembled a simplified version of the Afro-Cuban dance, emphasizing the bass conga-drum accent on the fourth beat. By removing the complex Afro-Cuban polyrhythms associated with the native Cuban model, he made the duple meter of the dance more obvious. In addition, he brought the melody to the forefront of the song.

“Babalú.” The song opens with a tribal-like drum introduction, followed by a rhythmically free vocalization on the word babalú. The introduction sets the exotic mood, and claves and cowbell mark the strict dance rhythms within a slow tempo. Highlighted in the arrangement, the piano and muted trumpets alternate with the vocalist. The lyrics are in Spanish, and on occasion the singer comically delivers the lyrics in rapid succession. The song is a mambo, and a large percentage of Cugat’s repertoire consists of mambos. In the 1940’s, the big band format of North America combined with Afro-Cuban rhythms to create a new genre called the mambo. Arrangers of big band music preferred to write for contrasting instruments in sections. The saxophone section often played an ostinato borrowing from the son, a rhythmic ostinato, and other sections such as trumpet and trombone made musical interjections. Although there are vocals for mambo, it is first and foremost instrumental dance music. Credited with creating the mambo is Cuban bandleader Pérez Prado, and the dance may be described as a slower-tempo rumba.

Musical Legacy

Often leading the band with his violin bow, the engaging bandleader of Latin American dance music introduced Latin rhythms to North American audiences. Believing that North American audiences were more visually than aurally oriented, Cugat created an amalgamated Latin persona. Known for his showmanship and self-parodying, the Spanish-born musician was often seen with a chihuahua in hand, wearing a sombrero, or wrapped in a serape, a traditional blanket shawl. Furthermore, he frequently surrounded himself with beautiful women, perpetuating the image of the Latin lover.

Cugat impacted the popular culture of the United States, appearing in all forms of media. He first reached American homes through the radio, performing his renditions of Latin American music, and then he elevated his persona in motion pictures, in which he portrayed himself.

Most of his childhood musical development occurred in Havana, and the repertoire for Cugat’s orchestra included numerous Cuban genres, such as the rumba, conga, mambo, and cha-cha-cha. In addition to the Cuban genres, his orchestra performed Argentine tangos and Brazilian sambas. The Latin music craze of the 1930’s and 1940’s facilitated the introduction of Latin American music; however, the bandleader altered Latin music to suit the musical tastes of North Americans. Cugat situated the melody in the forefront, as was popular, and simplified the syncopated Latin rhythms by removing layers of percussion. By popularizing Latin American dance music, Cugat paved the way for many other Latin artists, such as Arnaz, Miguelito Valdés, and Tito Rodríguez.

Bibliography

Cugat, Xavier. Rumba Is My Life. New York: Didier, 1948. An early autobiography, written after Cugat’s successful career in the United States.

Leymarie, Isabelle. Cuban Fire: The Story of Salsa and Latin Jazz. London: Continuum, 2002. The author explores the history of Cuban music as it spread throughout the United States. She focuses on the development of hybrid genres. Includes illustrations, glossary, discography, and bibliography.

Lowinger, Rosa, and Ofelia Fox. Tropicana Nights: The Life and Times of the Legendary Cuban Nightclub. Orlando, Fla.: Harvest Books, 2005. The authors provide a history of the Tropicana, a Havana nightclub that was significant in the cultural nightlife of prerevolutionary Cuba. The book includes a list of shows at the Tropicana. Includes bibliography.

Morales, Ed. The Latin Beat: The Rhythms and Roots of Latin Music from Bossa Nova to Salsa and Beyond. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2003. The book is a journalistic approach to the study and history of Latin music in the United States. Includes bibliography.

Orovio, Helio. Cuban Music from A to Z. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2004. A reference work that provides comprehensive coverage of Cuban music and musicians.

Roberts, John Storm. The Latin Tinge: The Impact of Latin American Music on the United States. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. The author explores the influence of Latin American music and musicians on music in the United States. Includes illustrations, glossary, discography, and bibliography.

Principal Recordings

albums:Tropical Bouquets, 1949; Xavier Cugat, 1949; Relaxing with Cugat, 1952; Cugat’s Favorite Rhumbas, 1954; Mambo at the Waldorf, 1955; The King Plays Some Aces, 1958; Chile con Cugie, 1959; Cugat in Spain, 1959; Cugat in France, Spain, and Italy, 1960; Cugat Plays Continental Favorites, 1961; Viva Cugat!, 1961; Cugi’s Cocktails, 1963; Cugat Caricatures, 1964; Xavier Cugat y su oro merengue, 1986.