Mambo Kingdom: Latin Music In New York

Latin Beat Magazine, April, 2003 by Rudy Mangual

By Max Salazar 309 pages: 42 classic photographs Schirmer Trade Books Publishing Pacific Beach Publishing Dec. 2002/ISBN: 0.8256.7277.5

Born in Spanish Harlem of Puerto Rican ancestry, Max Salazar began writing and documenting his fascination with Latin music in the late 1960s. In 1968, he began a parallel radio career hosting the popular program called the Latin Musician's Show (a forum for Latin musicians).

Mambo Kingdom: Latin Music in New York (1926-1990) is a collection of profiles and essays from the pen of Max Salazar, one of the most illustrious Latin music historians in the United States. Having lived through most of the key eras of the Afro-Caribbean experience in "The Big Apple," Salazar witnessed up close and personal the music and the musicians who headed this movement, including Tito Puente, Machito, Tito Rodríguez, Charlie and Eddie Palmieri, Joe Cuba and Héctor Lavoe, among many others. His storytelling style of writing adds another dimension to the pleasure of reading. Artists of the past seem to come alive and the past becomes the present. After his opening essay, "The Development of Latin Music in New York City," the book unfolds with over 40 profiles of the top luminaries of this music, from Rafael Hernández, to Miguelito Valdés, to Cheo Feliciano. Other essays include "Salsa Origins" and "Two Centuries of Charanga." The bulk of the stories featured in the book were originally published in the pages of Latin Beat Magazine, where Salazar has been a senior editor since 1990. Music historian, radio personality, and close friend of Salazar, Al Angeloro wrote the excellent foreword for the book. Mambo Kingdom: Latin Music in New York documents almost an entire century of Latin music within the contents of 300 exciting pages of text and classic photographs.