One of my very earliest music memories was watching Edmundo Ros on television. He's 96 today. Does anyone else remember him?

Absolutely. I was far too young to go to the 'nightspots' he played at, though my parents did, I'm sure. He always seemed very exotic and debonair back then and having a band that played only Latin American dance music marked him out as special. Single-handedly he made Latin American popular with the kind of people who frequented what were some pretty exclusive and expensive places for dancing here and its popularity went on to spread to all dance halls and dance teaching in time. When my father was taught by Victor Sylvester (remember him?), he was never taught or offered any Latin American.That was back in the late thirties and 1940s Everything then was strictly ballroom, just the four standard dances of which the only one remotely Latin was the tango . Edmundo Ros changed that.Perhaps the interest in Latin American here started with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers first film together 'Flying Down to Rio' but it was Edmundo Ros who made it really popular.He was quite catholic in his dances too, trying dances far beyond rhumba, samba and paso doble. (Some of us are so old that we think the cha-cha is new and still wonder why the jive was classified as Latin American )

So, Happy Birthday, Edmundo !