The King Of The Mambo

Pérez Prado was a Cuban bandleader and a composer who became known as the “King of the Mambo.” Pérez Prado was born in Cuba in 1916 where he learned classical piano and began playing in the Havana night clubs and working as an arranger. He played with Cuba’s best known band, Sonora Matancera, and worked in some casino orchestras in Havana for the better part of the 1940s. Prado developed a unique solo style five years before it became known as bebop music to the rest of us.

In 1948, Pérez Prado moved to Mexico to start his own band and start recording for the major record label RCA Victor. Prado began playing mambo music which soon became his specialty. Mambo music is a lively and upbeat form of Cuban danzón, a Cuban musical form and dance style. Like the music of his more experimental contemporary, Juan García Esquivel, the mambo music of Pérez Prado is instantly recognizable by his elaborate use of the saxophone, big riffs from the brass section and his trademark grunts and sounds during his songs.

While on vacation in Mexico in 1950, the arranger Sonny Burke heard one of Pérez Prado’s mambos which was later re-recorded and released in the U.S. as “Mambo Jambo.” Soon afterwards, Pérez Prado toured the U.S. seeing nothing but sell-out crowds which lead to him recording mainstream U.S. record releases for RCA Victor. Pérez Prado is probably most famous for his “Mambo No. 5” which, of course, was covered by Lou Bega in 1999 and Bob the Builder in 2001. The 1999 movie, Office Space, contained two of Prado’s songs (Mambo No. 8 and The Peanut Vendor).

Pérez Prado also appeared in several movies in the U.S., Mexico and Europe. In these movies, he always wore his trademark turtle-neck sweaters, vests and his impeccable goatee. Rock ‘n’ roll eventually took over the popularity of the Latin wave during the mid 1950s. Sadly, his contract with RCA Victor ended in the 1960s and his mambo music only found its way to smaller labels and Latin music compilations in the following years.