“Elube Chango”
Sacasas Royal Havana Orchestra; Doroteo Santiago, vocal
(Decca 3377-B mx 67988) August 19, 1940
“The Breeze And I”
Sacasas Royal Havana Orchestra
(Decca 3377-A mx 67986) August 19, 1940
Here are two rumba recordings from 1940, too recent for Radio Dismuke’s 1920s & 1930s format. But I was sufficiently impressed by the sound of this band that I cannot resist sharing them.
Cuban dance bands were very popular in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly on the East Coast and in New York City, where, for many years, the Xavier Cugat Orchestra was the house band at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
Anselmo Sacasas was a Cuban pianist who, in 1937, founded the Casino de la Playa Orchestra which became one of Cuba’s most highly regarded bands. While the band was successful, it was organized as a cooperative and Sacasas did not feel he was being appropriately compensated and left to form a new band in the United States in 1940.
When this recording was made, the band had an extended engagement at the Colony Club in Chicago, an upscale mobster-owned nightclub where patrons could also engage in illegal gambling. The club was raided and closed the following spring. Sacasas continued to lead Latin bands throughout the 1940s and 1950s.
“The Breeze and I” is an adaptation of a 1927 piano piece called “Andaluza,” which was part of the “Andalucia Suite” by Cuban composer/musician Ernesto Lecuona. In 1940, Salvador “Toots” Camarata, a trumpet player and arranger for the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, reworked the song with lyrics by Al Stillman as “The Breeze And I.” Dorsey’s recording of the song was very successful, rising up to the number 2 position on the Billboard charts. Xavier Cugat also had a successful recording of the song.
Image courtesy https://chuckmanchicagonostalgia.wordpress.com/