The Groove
Saturday October 11th, 2025 with Elorious Cain
OLÉ! - Latin gems from 1950 - 1964

The photograph is of a post card from the early 1950's of the 'Lounge Restaurant': the newly constructed ultra-chic club at New York’s recently renovated Waldorf-Astoria Hotel . Acts like DESI ARNAZ, the Cuban born musician who played the leader of a MAMBO conjunto (music ensemble) in the era’s #1 leading TV show, “I Love Lucy" performed at and frequented the club. Then, there was the superstar XAVIER CUGAT who excelled so much at both music and art. That club featured both of his talents. This wonderful 1940s-style linen postcard served as an exquisite and highly collectable souvenir for New York’s hottest nightclub of those days that featured MAMBO and RUMBA. We are featuring selections from both of those artists in this show. Note the art work of XAVIER CUGAT painted on the walls of the lounge that had a large dance floor! Many nightclubs in New York, Miami and San Francisco featured MAMBO. There was an international "MAMBO craze" in the 1950's and early 1960's. This is a classic illustration of the popularity of LATIN MUSIC in the 1950's. Some sources claim that there were discotheques in Cuba and other Latin American countries in the 1950's. We have not been able to verify that. It is not entirely impossible, maybe even likely. Many sources describe a group of extremely private discotheques that started appearing in early 1960's in certain centres like Rio De Janeiro, New York, the Hamptons on Long Island, Paris, Rome, and on the French Riviera. These were private to the point of being secretive. Most of them were "invitation only" and some of them were actually sex clubs also. They ended up actively separating and distancing themselves from the rest of nearby discotheques that they thought to be just playing "the hits". These discos had their own distinct sound and some observers insisted that these dj's in those discotheques were playing music that was the "real original disco music" that had nothing to do with "commercial music". When that sound was discovered by many dj's in the late 1960's in Europe, for the most part they didn't know what to do with it all. The music had a sophistication and continuous flow, It included SAMBA, BOSA NOVA and Brazilian PSYCODELIC ROCK like "E Assim Falava Mefistofeles" by O BANDO. Some of the clubs were playing MAMBO and CUBAN JAZZ records from the 1950's. Some salesmen used to drive back and forth from New York to Montreal and Ottawa back in 1970's with vans filled with new DISCO records. They would park by DISCO record shops like Dorval Records in Vanier (now Ottawa) and Pierre Musique in Montreal. If the store wouldn't buy all of the records they would open their back doors and sell records to costumers off the street. One of those salesmen offered reel-to-reel recordings for a high price claiming that the music was mixes from one of these exclusive discotheques. An argument once ensued on a sidewalk of Montreal Road in Vanier and the salesman defended the value of those old mixes. He said to a costumer who questioned their value by saying, " Where do you think the musical sophistication in DISCO came from? It didn't just suddenly appear out of nowhere. These dj's were playing sophisticated music in their discos for decades. It all started back then with Cuban and Brazilian music" The first major dance craze to hit the discos in early 1950's was the created by ENRIQUE JORRIN in Cuba. He called it the "Cha Cha Cha" and it quickly became all the rage; first in Cuba, then Mexico and then throughout the Latin world and the Congo. By the early 1960's it would become extremely popular in discos and various private parties all over the planet. Although we are not featuring any music by ENRIQUE JORRIN, we have included several popular examples. Apart from CHA CHA CHA and MAMBO, we are featuring RUMBA, PORRO and CUBAN JAZZ. We are happy to offer information about some of the artists we feature. This show just touches the tip of the iceberg. There is a wealth of LATIN gems from the 1950's and early 1960's and we offer only some examples.