Mambo Kings

 (11 customer reviews)

It's amazing that a soundtrack this rich and diverse came from such a terrible movie. The world may have already forgotten that turkey (based on a beautiful novel by Oscar Hijuelos) but this energetic collection of of sizzling mambo standards will enrich anyone's music collection. The liner notes read like a Who's Who of Latino music. Everyone from the legendary Celia Cruz and Tito Puente to Los Lobos and Linda Ronstadt make contributions to the CD and pay homage to the great tradition of musical expression in Latino culture. Even Antonio Banderas get's into the act, singing the film version of "Bella Maria de mi Alma" with enough passion to make you wonder if he's made the right career choice. The three tracks by Celia Cruz are reason enough to purchase this disk, everything else is just gravy!

The original release of this album was a five star. I was originally attempting to replace a lost album of the same title which is no longer being distributed. 1.The remix of a perfectly good Ran Kan Kan was very disappointing. If you can't improve on an original, then leave the song alone. 2.Unfortunately someone decided that two versions of Beautiful Maria was not enough and decided to add a third and badly executed track. The worst part of this new release is that the two new tracks are at the front of the album so that I have to manually skip through them in order to really enjoy the album. Sounds like someone was trying to further their career by attaching themselves to an orginal hot selling album. If you can get your hands on the original release, do that instead!

Superb songs arranged by the talented musician/arranger from P.R. Ray Santos,performed by The King Tito Puente, The Queen Celia Cruz,The Legendary Linda Ronstadt, etc., and a new remix of Tito's Ran Kan Kan by Pablo Flores with vocals by the powerful voice of Olga Tanon make this cd a must buy for those who love latin music.