Word: cugat
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...given characters to play, songs to devise, scenes to act out--all, we are told, instantly ad lib. A skit with a Zorro theme required that each actor's speech begin with consecutive letters of the alphabet. Series regular Ryan Stiles got the letter X. No problem: "Xavier Cugat once said...
...trees and concrete mausoleums with a martial theme. And everywhere the gaze of the maximum leader. Hundreds of billboard-size portraits are painted on buildings, framed in traffic circles, displayed in lobbies: Saddam drawing sword, Saddam on stallion, Saddam in sunglasses, Saddam in camouflage fatigues, Saddam looking like Xavier Cugat in white suit, Saddam slaying the infidels. In the city center is a new statue, 60 ft. high: Saddam, ramrod straight, arm outstretched in salute...
Merengue has been part of the Latin music scene in the States at least since the '50s, when Xavier Cugat dished out some slicked-up, watered-down rhythms that had made their way north from the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Legend has it that the merengue was inspired by a Dominican general who trailed a disabled leg behind him as he navigated a ballroom. Another myth says the dance originated with slaves brought from Africa to work the fields. The slaves, in chains, would move off the ships by lifting one leg and dragging the other...
Died. Tito Rodriguez, 50, the "Frank Sinatra of Latin Music" who made his singing debut on Puerto Rican radio at the age of 13, sang during the '40s with the band of Xavier Cugat, then sold more than 12 million recordings of softly rendered, romantic love songs; of complications following a bleeding ulcer; in Manhattan...
There is something ludicrous about any Pops program, just as there is always a touch of the absurd in any attempt to poularize high culture, but this evening transcended even the normal insipidity of such things. For the benefit of a television audience, the orchestra wore powder-blue Xavier Cugat uniforms, and played an archetypal program. Gems like the Nutcracker Suite, Peter and the Wolf, and Bolero were featured, along with the Pops's own arrangement of the score of Hair. Maybe it was the heat from the spotlights, maybe it was the lack of rehearsal, but somehow the program...