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1949 : Feel the beat of the music – the Mambo is King!
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
What you need to know before your trail
An exciting time for music for it’s the era of mambo. Two young Cuban musicians make their way from Havana to the grand stage of New York City with dreams of becoming stars on the NYC stage.
They work in Havana but have always dreamed of becoming stars of the dance halls by night. They put their heart and soul into the music and it becomes well known – the sensuous, pulsing music earns them the title of the Mambo Kings. This is their moment of youth, exuberance, love, and freedom a golden time that decades later is remembered with nostalgia and deep affection.
This literary journey to Havana and New York re-creates the sights and sounds of an era in music and an unsung moment in American life.
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Book V film
The Mambo Kings was made into a movie starring Armand Assante and Antonio Banderas as Cesar and Nestor Castillo, brothers and aspiring musicians who flee from Cuba to America in the hopes of reviving their failed musical careers.
Havana
As the protagonist and narrator of the novel sits in his hotel room and thinks back he paints a picture of Cuba then and now, of the music scene then and now – Cuba before Castro and now, and of course the numerous immigrants who have fled the island and have headed to New York in order to chase the AMerican dream. The truth about some musicians it would seem involves alcohol and sleeping with women and very little else!
New York
The Palladium Ballroom, a former New York City concert hall, was recreated to serve as a centrepiece in the film. Most New York scenes were actually filmed in Los Angeles
The music permeates each and every page of the book:
“The Mambo Kings… an orchestra that packed clubs, dance hals and theaters around the East Coast – and excitement of excitements, they even made a fabled journey in a flamingo- pink bus out to Sweet Ballroom’s in San Francisco, playing on an all-star mambo might, a beautiful night of glory, beyond death, beyond pain, beyond all stillness”
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
Author/Guide: Oscar Hijuelos Destination: Cuba (Republic of), New York City (NYC) Departure Time: Late 1940s onwards
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