Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White

Universally known as the King of the Mambo, Pérez Prado was the single most important musician involved in the hugely popular Latin dance craze. Whether he actually created the rhythm is somewhat disputed, but it's abundantly clear that Prado developed it into a bright, swinging style with massive appeal for dancers of all backgrounds and classes.
Prado's mambo was filled with piercing high-register trumpets, undulating saxophone counterpoint, atmospheric organ (later on), and harmonic ideas borrowed from jazz. While his tight percussion arrangements allowed for little improvisation, they were dense and sharply focused, keeping the underlying syncopations easy for dancers to follow.

Born in 1931, Michel Legrand, who is best-known as a film score composer, was in his late teens and early '20s in the decade following World War II as he divided his time between classical studies and playing jazz piano in Paris nightclubs. Obviously, he remembers the era well, and on this album he has arranged a series of songs from the period, with a few dating back to the 1930s, though he may have known them from hit versions in the '50s, such as "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes."…

The Fabulous Thunderbirds play an energized fusion of blues, rock & roll, and R&B that sounds like it came straight out of a Texas roadhouse. During their heyday in the early '80s, the band was one of the most popular attractions on the blues bar circuit, cutting no-frills albums like 1979's The Fabulous Thunderbirds and 1980's What's the Word. This eventually led to a breakthrough to the pop audience with their 1986 album Tuff Enuff. The mass success didn't last too long, and founding member Jimmie Vaughan left in 1990, but under the leadership of harmonica ace and vocalist Kim Wilson, the Fabulous Thunderbirds remained one of the most popular blues acts in America during the '90s and onward.