Word: xavier
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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CAPRICORNIA - Xavier Herbert - Appleton-Century...
...Scores. La Prensa's poll gave long-nosed Xavier Cugat. captain of the U.S. rumba industry (TIME, Dec. 28, 1942) only eighth place among bandleaders. The winner (pulling more than twice as many votes as his nearest competitor) was a stocky Cuban named Machito ("The Kid"). One of the chief attractions at Manhattan's La Conga, kinky-haired Machito (real name Frank Grillo) has built his reputation among knowing Latins with a high-octane rumba style that would rattle the fenders off a jeep. Often he prances before his ten-piece band in a solo rumba routine known...
...took a long time before rumbas caught on with Los Angeles' dancing public. Professional Cuban dancers, featured on Cugat's programs, frightened the average nightclubber with the intricacy and speed of their steps. Shrewd Xavier Cugat gradually slowed up the professionals, lured the amateurs to try a step or two. After five years of spade work, he had made Los Angeles the most rumbatic of U.S. cities, and Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria beckoned with a fat contract...
Stocky, shrewd Xavier Cugat's secret lies not so much in the importing as in the processing of his hip-cajoling products. A master showman, on state occasions he waves a baton three times as long as Toscanini's. He dresses his men in lustrous Cuban silks and colored lights. His music, tinted to the romantic debutante's taste, features Latin violins rather than brasses. It contains just enough subtle tropical pounding and gourd rattling to give it pith, not enough to ruffle the polite suavity of an expensive hot spot. Four weeks ago Cugat added...
...successful has Xavier Cugat become as a salesman of their music that Latin Americans regard him as one of their most important cultural ambassadors. The gratified Cuban Government has awarded him the Order of Honor & Merit of the Cuban Red Cross, with the rank of Commander...