89 year-old Cuban Legend Cachao Back in New York

New York (NY), USA - For four nights in July, 89 year-old Cachao will take the Blue Note stage with his band that is sure to bring the audience to its feet at 131 W. 3rd St., New York, New York. The concerts will take place Thursday, July 12 – Sunday, July 15, 2007 ~ 8:00pm & 10:30pm .
 
 Israel "Cachao" López was born some 88 years ago in the same house where the father of Cuban independence, Jose Martí, had lived. Every Jan. 28, Marti's birthday, Cachao and his family had to leave Calle Paula at 6 a.m. and stay away from the house until 9 p.m. to allow schools from all over Havana to conduct field trips into his home. This happened every year until his family moved out and the Cuban government made the house a historic monument.
Cachao and his brother, experimenting with this type of music, added a nuevo ritmo part and called the result "mambo." This happened in the late 1930s, and it revolutionized Latin music. There are those who like to credit Pérez Prado for inventing the mambo, but he did not. Prado did popularize it because he was at the right place at the right time - in Mexico in 1948. A musicians strike in the U.S. prevented recordings here. Prado, who was under contract to RCA Records, which at the time was one of the biggest record labels in the world, recorded a tune titled "Que Rico el Mambo." It swept the country. The mambo craze had begun.

Buy his latest CD, Ahora Si.