Original Latin Dance King
One of Latin music's original 20th-century superstars of stage, record,  and screen, the bandleader bornFrancisco de Asis Javier  Cugat Mingall de Cru y Deulofeomay have delivered the rumba, tango, and  mambo with a slick mainstream veneer, but it was precisely those shrewd  commercial instincts that undoubtedly brought a rich, rhythm-charged world of  music to audiences who might never otherwise have been exposed to it. The 23  gloriously remastered tracks here span the '40s and '50s, an era when "Cugie"  was a household name due to his myriad radio and film appearances. The material  ranges from an energetic 1941 Miguelito Valdes performance of the Afro-Cuban  staple (and laterDesi  Arnazsignature tune) "Babalu" and a Cugie-ized take onTito Puente's evergreen  "Suavecito" to more jazz-kitschy renditions of "The Brand New Cha-Cha" and "The  Anything Can Happen Mambo" by third wife Abbe Lane (Cugat would later marry pop  culture icon Charro). The mambo and merengue fads of the '40s and '50s are also  given their due via Pérez Prado's "Mambo Jambo" and "A Bailar Merengue"  respectively.Machitomay  have been more "authentic," but few could quibble with the effervescence and  missionary zeal Cugat brought to Latin music for eight remarkable decades. Let  this be your appetizer.--Jerry McCulley