rostasi Posted March 23, 2008 Report Posted March 23, 2008 http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jkI1Be...Kjdyq9eVc-bSX6w Cuban Mambo pioneer Cachao dead at 89 2 hours ago MIAMI (AFP) — Legendary Cuban musician Israel Lopez, known to the world as Cachao and credited with being one of the originators of the mambo musical style, died on Saturday in Miami, his spokesman announced. He was 89. A gifted bassist and an innovative composer, Cachao was born in Havana in 1918 and began his career playing music for silent movies. By the 1930s he was well known as a Latin jazz virtuoso along with his brother Orestes Lopez. The two had a prolific musical output, recording scores of records. In this period he wrote songs in the style that became known as mambo by combining the traditional danzon music with upbeat Afro-Cuban rhythms. Mambo became popular around the world in the 1940s when Cuban band leader and composer Damaso Perez Prado -- known as the King of Mambo -- came up with a special dance for the music and it began to be treated as a separate genre. In the 1950s Cachao and his brother recorded a series of successful records of jam sessions with local musicians that combined mambo and jazz. Cachao fled Cuba in 1962, three years after the triumph of the revolution led by Fidel Castro. After a brief exile in Spain he moved to New York, then Las Vegas, and eventually to Miami in the 1980s, where he performed along with other renowned Latin musicians such as Tito Puente and Gloria Estefan. Cuban-American Hollywood star Andy Garcia produced a documentary on Cachao's life in 1993. Cachao and his brother Orestes won Grammy record awards in 1995 and 2005, as well as a Latino Grammy in 2003. Cachao died early Saturday due to kidney failure, spokesman Nelson Albareda told local media Quote
rostasi Posted March 23, 2008 Author Report Posted March 23, 2008 Oh, yes - a very fine recording! As a matter of fact, you can get all of that LP plus eight more tracks in this: Quote
David Gitin Posted March 23, 2008 Report Posted March 23, 2008 When I saw him lead his band at North Sea in 2006, he was stunning. His abiility to excite his band into playing so well reminded me of Lionel Hampton. He will be missed. Quote
robviti Posted March 23, 2008 Report Posted March 23, 2008 please move this thread to where it belongs. cachao was a true artist, a master of the bass and the descarga. Quote
CJ Shearn Posted March 23, 2008 Report Posted March 23, 2008 damn, I heard him deliver a blistering set back in 1995 when NPR broadcast the Playboy Jazz Festival live. Quote
Adam Posted March 23, 2008 Report Posted March 23, 2008 Very sad - saw him a couple of time, a real master, and always hoped to see him again. A brilliant career and a full life. R.I.P. Quote
mikeweil Posted March 23, 2008 Report Posted March 23, 2008 One of the towering figures in Cuban music - he will be missed. The rhythmic aspect is so much more prominent in Cuban bass stylistics, and he was the first great master of this in the 20th century. R.I.P. Quote
rpklich Posted March 24, 2008 Report Posted March 24, 2008 The recent stuff he did was pretty good too. We have Andy Garcia to thank for those. They're not as good as those 50's descargas he recorded with Tata, Tojo, El Negro, Nino Rivera et al. Those are gems. Quote
alocispepraluger102 Posted March 24, 2008 Report Posted March 24, 2008 ..a hell of a bassist. i treasure the one record of his that i own. Quote
JSngry Posted March 25, 2008 Report Posted March 25, 2008 Cacaho got mini-props on Dancing With The Stars this evening. Nice. Quote
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