From the editor

Latin Beat Magazine, Sept, 2003 by Rudy Mangual, Yvette Mangual

I didn't know Celia Cruz personally. I had seen her performing live many times, had interviewed her a couple of times in a roundtable situation and been at the same functions as she had on several occasions. She was always surrounded by ah entourage that included her husband Pedro Knight, although she was approachable and unaffected so people reached out to touch her and greet her like an old friend. She was bigger than life, but underneath the wigs and sequins lived a genuine, caring individual. A few months after Yvette and I started this magazine many years ago, Celia wrote us a handwritten letter in Spanish congratulating us on our efforts and stressing the importance of teaching the world about the music she had built her life around. Her good friend Tito Puente had shown her an issue, she said. This personal note from a Latin music icon that we had admired and listened to all our lives inspired us to continua. Celia was known for her little notes and other displays of thoughtfulness. The last time we interviewed Celia was at the Playboy Jazz Festival, a short time after Tito Puente passed (sea photo) and she talked about him and their relationship, their history on the stage. That day there was a melancholic aura around her; she was mourning her friend.

On July 22, I was on an airplane to New York for business and I watched three hours of the Calla Cruz funeral, mass and procession, plus footage from the Miami viewing before that. Although those around me seemed astonished at the outpouring of grief and the amount of news coverage, I was not. Celia Cruz was loved by people of all ages, races and religion; she could have run for political office and won anywhere in the world. She literally shut down the streets of Manhattan in the greatest city in the world. What a great last performance.

Back here in Los Angeles, Yvette and I attended the pre-party for the Puerto Rican documentary entry to the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. The musicians dedicated the evening to Celia and we toasted her life with friends from the music industry. Later on we took the party to the Cuban restaurant Havana on Sunset, and there we sat, people from Sony Discos, from Universal Music, a former executive of RMM, someone from the movie industry and Yvette and I from the press. We went around the table and each told a "Celia" story, some funny, some poignant, all personal and not for print. We honored Celia Cruz in our own little way, with mojitos, good Cuban food and good thoughts.

This issue is dedicated to Celia Cruz, La Reina de La Salsa.