专辑简介

Pupi Campo was leader of one of the best Cuban bands on the rhumba and mambo circuit. When talking about his influences he said, “We’re all trying to copy Kenton.” One of the reasons the Latin leaders had come under the Kenton influence was that they had already been heavily influenced by Perez Prado, whom Campo named the Stan Kenton of Cuba. The jazz influence was inevitable, when one considers that those Latin bands working in the ‘40s all contained a sprinkling of American musicians. As a general rule, the lead trumpet, and the entire saxophone section were Americans. “It’s because we’re copying American harmony and style”, Pupi explained. “The Cuban musicians just can’t play it. Any American rhumba band could go down to Cuba and teach those Cuban bands how to really play. The Cuban saxophone men spend one or two years learning the fundamentals, then don’t bother to learn any more. They put it off. Mañana, mañana. But the rhythm section has to be Latin, and the first trumpet too. They have to have that beat. They have the feeling for the music just like the great Negro jazzmen have for theirs.” In 1949 Pupi Campo began contracting jazz musicians, and two of the first to be engaged were saxophonist Frank Socolow, who was with Artie Shaw at the time, and Johnny Mandel as arranger and soloist, who played both trombone and bass-trumpet. (Other notable arrangers were pianist Joe Loco and Tito Puente, who plays timbales on these recordings.) In 1950 Campo’s orchestra played jazz themes with a kind of undulating rhumba rhythm that was very popular with the dancing public. Pupi, an attractive and sophisticated man, would often leave the bandstand while the orchestra was playing to dance with the most beautiful ladies present. According to legend, Campo dropped dead on the dance floor on account of the excitement generated by his own band – but legends cannot always be proven. It seems he already knew that his heart might fail him one day, and that quite possibly he had only a few more months to live. The story also has it that at the fatal moment he was partnered with a beautiful blonde, the two of them executing some particularly difficult steps during a lively number. Such was the end of a real charmer.