you you you in 1930 a 19 year old Cuban named Mario Bauza arrived in New York a classically trained clarinetist he had visited the city four years earlier and fallen in love with jazz now he was back intent on making it in the burgeoning big band scene in Cuba prejudiced against his dog skin had held him back New York had race barriers as well but in Havana there was no Harlem unless you know rhythm unless you like music unless you keep dancing you can't live in Harlem all the big club will those terrific shows in Harley riding trio groaning money was like a dog rolling day in Times Square in his own words well he found that it was a place where he could walk down the street and not experience the same kind of racism that he was experiencing in Havana at the time that he could feel free as a black man walking down the street and not feel that oppression in the same way pumping of this hour just a few years later after a switch to trumpet Bowser was playing at the Savoy Ballroom for Harlem's King of Swing Chick Webb Bowser became the orchestra's musical director and lead trumpet player taken with Bowser's musicianship Webb had personally rehearsed him in what he called the vocabulary of jazz helping him adapt to the feel of Swing getting more da-da-da-da-da b'doop b'doop b'doop b'doop b'doop but uh whereas latinus it tends to be strictly even as Bowser made inroads into American jazz Cuban music was entering the American mainstream in 1931 an orchestra from Havana released el Manny said oh the peanut vendor it became a surprise smash hit the million seller launched the Rumba dance craze of the 30s and so called Latin bands became a standard ballroom attraction the stage was set for a musical revolution led by Mario Bauza it started with an insult Mario was insulted by some comments by a musician in the cab calloway orchestra when he played him some of the music of Cuba today that sounds like hillbilly music country music's yeah it's the music of my country goo'bye but one day they'll be a band just like this band the cab calloway been real classy elegant with modern harmonies accelerative is gonna have a an afro-cuban rhythm cinch and i'm gonna tell you it's gonna sound better than this band you ever hear the expression merengue lemon pie this is sucker what it is just in the top and they are procured live in the bottom Bowser's first step was to recruit his brother-in-law bringing him up from Cuba to the world he'd become known as machito machito his real name was Francisco raul Gutierrez griot de Ayala his nickname when he was a kid was macho and then the story goes that a promoter in New York City told them that sounds like too harsh isn't any way to make that a little bit softer like how would you say little macho so he goes all machito so that's uh how basically he got his moniker he was the kind of man that was assault of the earth really the salt of the earth and what a pair man nobody could play maracas like him and the way he sang was just completely endearing Bowser's fusion of an african-american big band with traditional Cuban rhythms was groundbreaking right down to its name just the fact that the name that they chose that band was machito and his afro Cubans says a lot my teeth on his Africa well one of the people get that and that awful thing there it's the first time where we see this kind of public acknowledgment through the naming of the band of something that is African derived I'm African descent and the rhythm the producing music we play is African nobody was acknowledging Africa all of a sudden this band comes out and right in your face it says machito and the Afro Cubans now we know we're not we boughs on machito had a strong base to work from granted US citizenship in 1917 over 30,000 Puerto Ricans had migrated to New York many settling in East Harlem which came to be known as El Valle or Spanish Harlem now we're now we're not me the mix of jazz and traditional rhythms spoke directly to this new generation of New York Latinos they provided both an audience and musicians for the band get your finger phone aqui I stood in front of that Bandstand it changed my whole life changed my whole life everything changed I changed you know what I hope that band in person in the flesh I heard those drums are and go and how they started nicest looking around you know I felt like that that feeling you get in your nose and you're gonna cry or something and you try to just it just destroyed down and I'm looking at move I look at the people I'm fit for desert oh yeah by your papi and I'll say this is impossible this is impossible no no no man it changed my whole life that was one of the experience that stay with me till I'm in the tomb happy now we're now an immediate success in lottery machito and his afro-cubans became a bridge between world when they also found success with white audiences in midtown Manhattan becoming the house man at the la conga club for three years though the afro-cuban succeeded with varied audiences that didn't mean everyone heard the music the same way it's almost like a double performance performing a piece that was translating to a general audience as a swinging Kellan dance piece but at the same time there would be messages coded messages for those people in the know hunga boo boo yeah I put a boy yeah you know it goes by so fast that you hardly recognize it but anybody who was a practitioner of Santeria would look up and because it's a traditional greeting during the 1940s the Afro Cubans developed what became a landmark composition and the band's theme song Dan de Banta there is a nice balance there it's what mario bauzá and Machida were really pushing for jazz improvisation over really you know intense afro-cuban grooves and you get this wall of sound happening with the horns it's like a tidal wave of sound coming at you - stays on one cord boom and it just gets more intense and more intensive it was the harbinger of the experiments that Miles Davis would eventually start doing much much later with music like Ganga the afro-cubans quickly drew the attention of the most innovative jazz artists including an old friend and bandmate of Mario bosons who comes in at the very end dizzy gillespie the trumpets were here Saturday and the rhythm he said right here you wanted to hear that thing coming right through and so Mario seen that dizzy there is it oh I guess let's take out the heavy stuff this new Toronto Merit hey baby knock me out play some more and I know we're dizzy left that night and he didn't know where to put his brains in in the late 1940s a handful of cuban conga players arrived in new york and began transforming popular music almost immediately one was Candido Camero along with his peers conga rows like Santamaria and Armando Peraza dandy though would introduce the u.s. to an entirely new level of conga mastery the instrument itself would be at the heart of a new fusion in jazz created by one of the afro-cubans greatest fans Dizzy Gillespie as a founder of Biba Gillespie had already revolutionized jazz but he saw one aspect of it as stubbornly resistant to change in his autobiography he said you know the rhythm of jazz was boring in the sense that it was ding-ding-ding-ding-ding for the most part with an upcoming concert with his big band at Carnegie Hall late in 1947 Gillespie asked Bowser to suggest someone to play in Gillespie's words one of those tom-toms vows I introduced him to Chano Pozo who had recently arrived in New York from Cuba where he was a successful songwriter showman and conga player he had risen out of one of the roughest tenements in Havana Chanos our street dude man he'll cut you your bitch-slap you sonna was so famous for getting into fights etc he had like a bullet lodged near his spine I couldn't get the bullet up you got this guy who was like pure Street but he's got all of his incredible folkloric alot knowledge and mystical knowledge and rhythmic knowledge at Carnegie Hall Chano Pozo performed in a two-part number written to feature his plane who wanna be Cubana Bob channels appearance went over very big people went absolutely nuts so the band that did the most way out afro-cuban jazz was dizzy afterward dizzy acid channel to stay with a band not everyone was pleased most of the musicians in the band they were all african-american did not want him in the band jungle me we're beyond that communication wasn't easy channel didn't speak English no one in the band spoke Spanish but a bridge between cultures was found in music when channel approached dizzy with attune he'd made up man deca you say DC first the bow is your face he gave me the bass like I wrote that down pretty video Bing Bing Bing bong and then he said a Fraggle um Saxo saxophone boom pink the trombone don't will be these people the troubles and all this we learn at the same time it sure sounds good to me Integra is probably one of the the most you know distinctive tune really identified what is after Cuban gas all about does he wasn't the first one to create what we call afro-cuban jazz or Latin jazz like that title goes to the machito afro-cubans but jesse was the first person to champion it outside of the realm of the close-knit Society of those musicians that were from the culture unfortunately one year later somebody killed channel in the bar in Harlan but he left us such a great impression on DC this is never stopped to talk about Channel you