Cuban Originals: Beny Moré

Editors’ Notes El Bárbaro del Ritmo was one of the great voices of Cuban music’s golden age, and this collection struts with all the confidence and contradictions of mid-century Havana. Moré’s agile tenor swings and swaggers on brassy mambos and big-band cha-cha-chas like “La Culebra,” but positively aches on such slow-burning boleros as “Y Hoy Como Ayer.” We absolutely love the classic “Bonito y Sabroso,” which Moré recorded in Mexico with bandleader Perez Prado in the mid-'50s, when Mambo Kings still walked the earth.