Amazon.com: Roots of Rhythm: Celia Cruz, Rubén Blades, Desi Arnaz, Dizzy Gillespie, Gloria Estefan, Harry Belafonte, Xavier Cugat, Tito Puente, Howard Dratch, Gene Rosow: Video

Roots of Rhythm (1994)

Starring: Celia Cruz, Rub�n Blades Director: Howard Dratch, Gene Rosow Rating

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Actors: Celia Cruz, Rub�n Blades, Desi Arnaz, Dizzy Gillespie, Gloria Estefan
Directors: Howard Dratch, Gene Rosow
Format: Box set, Color, NTSC
Language: English
Rating:
Number of tapes: 1
Studio: New Video Group
VHS Release Date: April 24, 2001
Run Time: 171 minutes

Average Customer Review:

(6 customer reviews)

ASIN: 0767000927
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #43,436 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)
Popular in these categories: (What's this?)
#5 in Video > Music Video & Concerts > Artists > Gillespie, Dizzy
#13 in Video > Boxed Sets > Music Video & Concerts
#54 in Video > Music Video & Concerts > World Music

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Amazon.com
Latin music has always been a fixture in American popular culture, but its history reflects centuries of change and complexity from diverse sources. Roots of Rhythm, an incredible three-hour film originally shown on PBS in 1997, traces the development of this exciting musical genre, going back 500 years across three continents. Hosted by the famed Caribbean American entertainer Harry Belafonte, the film begins in West Africa, in the villages that ring with the ancestral anthems of sacred Yoruba beats and bata drums. The focus shifts to Spain, where modern-day troubadours sing their haunting, Moorish-tinged ballads and Gypsies dance their heated flamenco dances. Those musical influences are brought together by the transatlantic slave trade in the island of Cuba, where enslaved Africans and Spanish immigrants mixed and melded each others' music into a myriad of new, hybrid creations like the rumba, tumba francesa, danzon, and mambo. Belafonte quotes a poet who said, "Cuban music is a love affair between the African drum and the Spanish guitar."

In America, this love affair bloomed in New York, where Cuban and African American jazz musicians like Machito, Mario Bauza, and Dizzy Gillespie melded mambo rhythms to bebop, creating Latin jazz. Belafonte then brings us to the dazzling timbales master Tito Puente and vocalist Celia Cruz, who reigned as the king and queen of salsa, the stateside version of Cuban dance music that emerged in the '60s. The film offers revealing interviews and music clips with many Latin music stars, including Gloria Estefan of Miami Sound Machine and Panamanian Rubén Blades. The rare archival footage features Dizzy Gillespie's 1948 number "Manteca," bandleader Xavier Cugat's "Gypsy Mambo," and a cartoon clip of Donald Duck doing "Tico Tico." After watching this engaging and encyclopedic film, you'll never dance to Latin music the same way again. --Eugene Holley Jr.

Product Description
Before "World Music" ever appeared in record stores, Americans danced the Rumba and Mambo and sang along with Xavier Cugat and Desi Arnaz. Join host Harry Belafonte for a globe-trotting, star-studded celebration tracing the fiery history of Latin Music.