Celia Cruz : Yo Viviré

We had landed in Orlando and were heading into DisneyWorld. I thought, as I rarely do, let's see what's on the radio. But rather than flip on the FM dial and tune into the same homogenous satellite-driven pap, we'd scan the AM dial to see what showed up. I turned it on, tuned it up, and lo and behold, out of the speakers came this driving latin beat, distinctly Spanish, but also vaguely familiar. We're cruising over the blacktop, the sun is shining, everyone's excited about Disney, and the rhythm and horns are just lifting me up. I'm driving and grooving (at the same time, which always makes my wife nervous), and suddenly, as the strings crest over the chorus, I realize, "Holy shit, that's 'I Will Survive'!" and I'm catapulted into sheer giddiness.

Yes, a killer upbeat ass-kicking salsa version of the 70's disco classic. There's not much else to say about it, except that it keeps the fiery spirit of the original, but it's even spicier with the latin rhythms, the horns and the chanted Spanish background vocals. If you're not dancing around the room while you listen to this, you may not have a soul.

Celia Cruz is apparently pretty popular in the latin music community and released a flood of albums between 1958 and 2003, when she passed. You can find this cover on her 2000 release, Siempre Vivire.

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Ralph Font : Cosita Linda

"Ay, Cosita Linda" (which I think means "Hey, pretty little thing") was written by Pacho Galan, a Columbian composer, and was made somewhat popular by a recording of the song by Nat "King" Cole on 1959's A Mis Amigos LP. I can't tell for sure, but I think this recording came out before that, most likely in the early fifties.

Ralph Font was a New York jazzster put out a couple of latin-themed albums. The music on his album Tabu is relatively generic small-combo latin jazz, and there are (literally) a thousand records that sound just like this one. But it's a peppy little record and fun listening, chock full of latin standards, like "Bésame Mucho", "The Peanut Vendor" and "Tabu", with "Cosita Linda" being my favorite.

Font kicks off his take with a nifty little piano run, into a snare hit, and then the vocals. Now the vocals (in what seems to be a running theme here) are what makes the song for me. The combo is solid. It's a fine latin-tinged cocktail-jazz workout, led by the piano and backed by a plethora of percussion instruments. There's some good horn work and a nifty trumpet solo, but what truly puts it over the top are the vocals. Every time the singers pipe in with a line, everything else stops and drops out. The vocals themselves are relatively quiet next to the bustle of the rest of the tune and they're sung in an oddly low-register falsetto. They're almost... cute. As if some shy hispanic guy just tapped a pretty lady on the shoulder and is politely asking her to dance.

As I mentioned before, this fun little ditty can be found on Font's album Tabu. If you see it in a thrift store (it's not on CD), it's definitely worth a buck. You'll at least have something fab to drop the needle on the next time you're making margaritas. And as for the cover art, well, we'll just say it's clearly the product of a bygone era, and leave it at that.

[You can listen to Ralph Font's "Cosita Linda" by navigating to the post "Song010" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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