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The Palladium Ballroom was a New York City night club. The US mambo craze that started in 1948 began at the Palladium Ballroom. On March 15, 1946, it opened at the northeast corner of Broadway and 53rd Street. [1]
In 1948, the Palladium Ballroom gained in stature because of the Big Three acts: Tito Puente, Tito Rodríguez, and Machito. The careers of the Big Three expanded on the strength of their bookings there. These bands recorded many mambo hits such as "Asia Minor" and "Babarabatiri", "Picadillo", "Ran Kan Kan", and "Mambo Mona". Dámaso Pérez Prado's "Mambo No. 5" (1952) was a cross-over hit.
The Palladium was known for its dancers as well as its music, fueled by weekly dance competitions and pie contests along with a Female Best Leg Contest. Ability to dance, not class or color, was the social currency. The Palladium's top dancers, Augie and Margo Rodríguez were the mambo dancing champions. Carlos Arroyo, who partnered with Mike Ramos as The Cha Cha Taps, and also known as Mr Cha Cha Taps is featured in the 1955 short film Mambo Madness. Another popular act was the groups of The Mambo and Cha-Cha Aces Carlos and Mike-Aces with Andy and Tina Vasquez. Joe Vega and Freddie Rios did their side by side act. Marilyn Winters covered the entire floor in her one-woman show, as did Carmen Cruz. The Palladium became a showcase for the chachachá, merengue, and the pachanga. These became as popular as the mambo.
At its height, the Palladium attracted Hollywood and Broadway stars, especially on Wednesday nights, which included a free dance lesson. Dance instructors such as "Killer Joe" Piro — who briefly served as master of ceremonies when Federico Pagani was not available — Augie and Margo were featured dancers there. Pedro Aguilar, better known as Cuban Pete, and Millie Donay appeared internationally. Carmen Marie Padilla offered mass dance lessons.
The Palladium was near jazz clubs on West 52nd Street such as Birdland, CuBop City, and the Onyx Club. Jazz musicians and some celebrities sat in and played with the Latin bands. Others watched and enjoyed the show. Examples of notables who went to the ballroom include Count Basie, Desi Arnaz, Marlon Brando, Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Joe Morello, Sammy Davis Jr., Pupi Campo Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Gene Krupa, Jerry Lewis, Peter Lawford, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, George Burns, Bing Crosby, Buddy Rich, Tony Bennett, George Shearing, Cal Tjader, Pedro Vargas, Chano Pozo, Arturo Sandoval, and Ed Sullivan. Wayne Shorter, who lived in the New York City area during the ballroom's heyday, composed a piece during the 1970s called "Palladium" while he was a member of the jazz-fusion group Weather Report. The song appears on their album Heavy Weather, and features a driving Latin rhythm.
By the early 1960s, tastes had shifted, ending the Palladium's run in 1966. Dancers' and music fans' enthusiasm for the music was not diminished. The Village Gate in Greenwich Village offered Latin Night on Mondays and Wednesdays. Federico Pagani started Latin Nights with radio host Symphony Sid Torin and Joe Gaines. Federico Pagani offered a Latin Night at various clubs, including Tony Roma's El Corso on 86th Street andThird Avenue, Barney Googles, and the Cheetah, Casa Blanca, Caboroeno, Broadway 96, Trudiheller's Trix, Peppermint Lounge, Les Violins, Village Gate Nightclub, The Roseland, Manhattan Center, The 3 In One In Brooklyn Heights Prospect Park, St. George Hotel, La Epoca, Cerromar, Nightclub, Hippocampo, Caravana Club, Hunt's Point Palace, Bronx Casino, La Campana Bar Restaurant, and Carlos Ortiz El Tropicoro Bronx. These venues hosted "the scene" after the Palladium. Pagani was an advisor for Nuestra Cosa (Our Latin Thing ) at the Cheetah and The Red Garder with Symphony Sid Torrin.('Mambo Kings'). Pagani produced and was responsible for all the Latin concerts In Madison Square Garden.
Mambo is a genre of Cuban dance music pioneered by the charanga Arcaño y sus Maravillas in the late 1930s and later popularized in the big band style by Pérez Prado. It originated as a syncopated form of the danzón, known as danzón-mambo, with a final, improvised section, which incorporated the guajeos typical of son cubano. These guajeos became the essence of the genre when it was played by big bands, which did not perform the traditional sections of the danzón and instead leaned towards swing and jazz. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, mambo had become a "dance craze" in Mexico and the United States as its associated dance took over the East Coast thanks to Pérez Prado, Tito Puente, Tito Rodríguez and others. In the mid-1950s, a slower ballroom style, also derived from the danzón, cha-cha-cha, replaced mambo as the most popular dance genre in North America. Nonetheless, mambo continued to enjoy some degree of popularity into the 1960s and new derivative styles appeared, such as dengue; by the 1970s it had been largely incorporated into salsa.
Salsa music is a style of Caribbean music, combining elements of Cuban, Puerto Rican, and American influences. Because most of the basic musical components predate the labeling of salsa, there have been many controversies regarding its origin. Most songs considered as salsa are primarily based on son montuno and son Cubano, with elements of cha-cha-chá, bolero, rumba, mambo, jazz, R&B, rock, bomba, and plena. All of these elements are adapted to fit the basic Son montuno template when performed within the context of salsa.
Arsenio Rodríguez was a Cuban musician, composer and bandleader. He played the tres, as well as the tumbadora, and he specialized in son, rumba and other Afro-Cuban music styles. In the 1940s and 1950s Rodríguez established the conjunto format and contributed to the development of the son montuno, the basic template of modern-day salsa. He claimed to be the true creator of the mambo and was an important as well as a prolific composer who wrote nearly two hundred songs.
Dámaso Pérez Prado was a Cuban bandleader, pianist, composer and arranger who popularized the mambo in the 1950s. His big band adaptation of the danzón-mambo proved to be a worldwide success with hits such as "Mambo No. 5", earning him the nickname "King of the Mambo". In 1955, Prado and his orchestra topped the charts in the US and UK with a mambo cover of Louiguy's "Cherry Pink ". He frequently made brief appearances in films, primarily of the rumberas genre, and his music was featured in films such as La Dolce Vita.
Boogaloo or bugalú is a genre of Latin music and dance which was popular in the United States in the 1960s. Boogaloo originated in New York City mainly by stateside Puerto Ricans with African American music influences. The style was a fusion of popular African American rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul music with mambo and son montuno, with songs in both English and Spanish. The American Bandstand television program introduced the dance and the music to the mainstream American audience. Pete Rodríguez's "I Like It like That" was a famous boogaloo song.
Carlos Manuel "Charlie" Palmieri was a Puerto Rican bandleader and musical director of salsa music. He was known as the "Giant of the Keyboards".
Pablo Rodríguez Lozada, better known as Tito Rodríguez, was a Puerto Rican singer and bandleader. He started his career singing under the tutelage of his brother, Johnny Rodríguez. In the 1940s, both moved to New York, where Tito worked as a percussionist in several popular rhumba ensembles, before directing his own group to great success during the 1950s. His most prolific years coincided with the peak of the mambo and cha-cha-cha dance craze. He also recorded boleros, sones, guarachas and pachangas.
Mambo is a Latin dance of Cuba which was developed in the 1940s when the music genre of the same name became popular throughout Latin America. The original ballroom dance which emerged in Cuba and Mexico was related to the danzón, albeit faster and less rigid. In the United States, it replaced rhumba as the most fashionable Latin dance. Later on, with the advent of salsa and its more sophisticated dance, a new type of mambo dance including breaking steps was popularized in New York. This form received the name of "salsa on 2", "mambo on 2" or "modern mambo".
Pachanga is a genre of music which is described as a mixture of son montuno and merengue and has an accompanying signature style of dance. This type of music has a festive, lively style and is marked by jocular, mischievous lyrics. Pachanga originated in Cuba in the 1950s and played an important role in the evolution of Caribbean style music as it is today. Considered a prominent contributor to the eventual rise of salsa, Pachanga itself is an offshoot music played by charangas. Very similar in sound to Cha-Cha but with a notably stronger down-beat, Pachanga once experienced massive popularity all across the Caribbean and was brought to the United States by Cuban immigrants post World War II. This led to an explosion of Pachanga music in Cuban music clubs that influenced Latin culture in the United States for decades to come.
Augustin "Augie" Rodriguez and Margo Bartolomei Rodriguez were American dancers who helped popularize the Mambo.
Alfonso "El Panameno" Joseph was born in the Republic of Panama, and immigrated to New York City at 11 years of age, where he studied music and became one of the forefront bassists of the Cuban bandleader Arsenio Rodríguez. Joseph is a featured guest in a major television production about the era of Afro-Cuban music at The Palladium in New York La Epoca.
Mario Rivera was a Latin jazz saxophonist from the Dominican Republic. Besides saxophone, Rivera played trumpet, flute, piano, vibraphone, congas, and drums.
The International Latin Music Hall of Fame (ILMHF) was an annual event established in 1999 and held in New York City to honor artists who have largely contributed to the Latin music genre.
Frank "Killer Joe" Piro was an American dance instructor to high society who popularized steps of the discotheque era of the 1960s and 1970s.
Ernest AnthonyPuente Jr., commonly known as TitoPuente, was an American musician, songwriter, bandleader, timbalero, and record producer. He composed dance-oriented mambo and Latin jazz music.
Carlos Vidal Bolado (1914–1996), also known as "Vidal Bolado", was a Cuban conga drummer and an original member of Machito and his Afro-Cubans. Vidal holds the double distinction of being the first to record authentic folkloric Cuban rumba and the first to play congas in Latin jazz.
Orlando Marin was an American bandleader and timbales player. He formed his first band, Eddie Palmieri and his Orchestra, in 1951–52 with himself as director and Eddie Palmieri as musical director and later on the piano. He is of Puerto Rican descent.
José Curbelo was a Cuban-born American pianist and manager. Curbelo was a key figure in Latin jazz in New York City in the 1940s and helped to popularize Mambo and the cha cha dance in the 1950s.
Jacinto "Pupi" Campo was a Cuban entertainer, dancer and bandleader who spent most of his life in the United States. As a bandleader in the 1940s and 50s, he made recordings for labels such as Seeco and Tico. His band featured percussionist and musical director Tito Puente and pianist Joe Loco.
"Chanchullo" is a danzón-mambo composed by Cuban bassist Israel "Cachao" López. It was first released as a single in 1957 by Arcaño y sus Maravillas. It was the third single released on Cuban independent record label Gema and has been covered by multiple artists including Tito Puente, Típica '73 and Rubén González. Puente himself reworked the song as the successful "Oye cómo va", later recorded by Santana, for which Cachao received no credit. Instrumental versions of the song have been recorded variously under the titles "Mambolandia" and "Mambología", often credited to Peruchín.
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