Music: Darwin & the Mambo

The Roseland State Ballroom in Bos ton's Back Bay, just down the street from Symphony Hall, was jumping last week.

It was jumping higher than Bostomans had seen in a long while. Cause: the mambo a dance named (some claim) from a slang word used by Cuban sugar cane workers meaning "shake it." The Boston crowd (1,140 Paid admissions) was shaking it with glee. So were the bright-sleeved musicians on the band stand and their round-faced, sleepy-eyed leader Perez Prado, self-confessed inventor of the mambo. In his dress suit and stiff shirt Prado never even blinked at the deafening brass screeches that...

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