Home > Xavier Cugat

Cugat was born Francisco de Asis Javier Cugat Mingall de Bru y Deulofeo in Girona, Spain. With his family, he immigrated to Cuba when he was five. He trained as a classical violinist and played with the Orchestra of the Teatro Nacional in HavanaThis article is about the Cuban city. For other places named Havana, please see Havana (disambiguation Havana ( Spanish: San Cristobal de La Habana is the capital of Cuba and, with a population of 2. 1 million, the largest city in the Caribbean. History C.

Sometime between 1915 and 1918, Cugat moved to New YorkNew York is a state in the northeastern United States whose U. postal abbreviation is NY . It is sometimes called New York State when there is need to distinguish it from New York City. History See: History of New York New York was one of the thirteen col, where he played with a band called "The Gigolos" during the tango craze.

Later, he went to work for the Los Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times (also L. Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California and distributed throughout the Western United States. With a circulation of 965,633 readers per day as of 2002, it is the second-largest metropolitan newspaper as a cartoonistA cartoonist is an artist who specializes in drawing cartoons (see also comic books and strips, anime, manga). They traditionally use pencil to sketch out their drawings, then go over the sketches in black ink, using either brushes or metal nibbed pens. (Cugat's caricatures were later nationally syndicated).

In the late 1920s, as sound began to be used in movies, he put together another tango band that had some success in early short musical films. By the early 1930s, he began appearing with his group in feature films.

Cugat took his band to New York to open the new Waldorf Astoria Hotel and it became the hotel's resident group.

He shuttled between New York and Los Angeles for most of the next thirty years, alternating hotel and radio dates with movie appearances. In 1940, he recorded the song Perfidia with singer Miguelito Valdes which became a big hit. Cugat followed trends closely, making records for the conga, the mamboThis article is about Mambo dance and musical style. See Mambo (disambiguation) for other usages of the name. Mambo is a Cuban dance style and musical form. The word mambo conversation with the gods is the name of a priestess in Haitian Voodoo, derived fr, the cha-cha-chaThe Cha-cha-cha (in Spanish chachach is a Latin American dance and style of music derived from the rumba and mambo in 4/4 meter. In ballroom dancing, it is increasingly popular to call the dance Cha-cha . There are two flavors of Cha-cha-cha dance, differ, and the twistThe twist was a rock and roll dance popular in the early 1960s. It was the first major international rock and roll dance style in which the couples did not touch each other while dancing. The dance was first popularized by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters when each were in fashion. He married salsa dancer Charro in 1966.

Cugat did not lose sleep over artistic compromises: "I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve."

Cugat died at age 89 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.