“The mambo”, said Tito Puente, the legendary percussionist knows as ‘El Rey Del Timbal’, “differs, let’s say, from the rhumba in that it concentrates more on the off-beat, the after-beat, like modern jazz – whereas the rhumba is mostly ON the beat. And the mambo has much more syncopation in its melodic form than the rhumba. I think any person who digs jazz, will dig the mambo.” Tito explained the rise of the mambo this way: “Rhythm is what you dance to, and the mambo is popular because its strong rhythms make for good dance music. What is making it even more successful is the combination of jazz elements with the mambo. Bop, for example, by itself has crazy sounds harmonically and is not easy to dance to. That’s why bop bands are putting in conga drums and adding a mambo flavor to their work. Similarly, in my band, I use certains aspects of jazz. In our arrangements we use some of the modern sounds in the manner of Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Kenton, but we never lose the authenticity of the Latin rhythm.” During the Forties, Latin rhythms began to insinuate themselves into the U.S. music scene, and ultimately establishing themselves as an integral part of it. By the end of the decade the rhumba, then the most popular of all the Latin rhythms, had gone through certain changes before a new rhythm appeared on the musical scene: the mambo. From 1948 the new rhythm was played in the Latin areas of New York by bands such as that of percussionist Tito Puente (born in el Barrio, New York), and of Puerto Rican singer Tito Rodriguez. At the same time in Mexico, Perez Prado was recording mambos made specifically for the Latin-American market. However, the mambo, having attracted the attention of the Latin public, hadn’t yet made an impression in the U.S. Then in 1951 Prado made his first U.S. tour, playing the West Coast, and was a huge success, after which he became the very personification of The Mambo to the American people. But although Perez Prado symbolized the mambo to the American public at large, Tito Puente (‘El Rey Del Timbal’) and Tito Rodriguez symbolized its creative achievement. The bands of both Puente and Rodriguez continued the Machito formula of swing orchestrations, heavy on the brass and braced by a structure that preserved the Cuban coro and montunos, together with a complete Afro-Cuban rhythm section. Prado’s orchestra travelled continually, making tours of both Central and Southern America; meanwhile back in New York City the mambo era was enjoying its peak moments, culminating at the end of 1951 with the old and illustrious Palladium Dance Hall being converted into THE place for the mambo. It was there that the orchestras of Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez and Machito were constantly performing, and the whole phenomena of the mambo by far exceeded the craze of the tango some thirty years before.