The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love

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The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love: A Novel

Author: Oscar Hijuelos
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Publisher: Perennial
It’s 1949. It’s the era of the mambo, and two young Cuban musicians make their way up from Havana to the grand stage of New York. The Castillo brothers, workers by day, become by night stars of the dance halls, where their orchestra plays the lush, sensuous, pulsing music that earns them the title of the Mambo Kings. This is their moment of youth—a golden time that thirty years later will be remembered with nostalgia and deep afection. In The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Oscar Hijuelos has created a rich and enthralling novel about passion and loss, memory and desire.
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Amazon.com

Inspired by their heroes Xavier Cugat and Desi Arnaz, brothers Cesar and Nestor Castillo come to New York City from Cuba in 1949 with designs on becoming mambo stars. Eventually they do—performing with Arnaz on “I Love Lucy” in 1955 and recording 78s with their own band, the Mambo Kings. In his second novel, Hijuelos traces the lives of the flashy, guitar-strumming Cesar and the timid, lovelorn Nestor as they cruise the East Coast club circuit in a flamingo-pink bus. Enriching the story are the brothers’ friends and family members—all driven by their own private dreams. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love won a Pulitzer Prize in 1990.

Related works

The Mambo Kings: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

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Ten of the 13 tracks here are from the great Machito and his orchestra, which featured Mario Bauza and Charlie Parker as well the lesser-known but legendary Chano Pozo and Jose Mangual. Dizzy Gillespie and His Orchestra, including Quincy Jones and Mongo Santamaria, contribute the 16-minute "Manteca Suite." Other highlights include the first-ever-recorded Cuban jam session--"Con Poco Coco" by Andre's All Star--and "Cubop City" by Howard McGhee and his Afro-Cuboppers (basically Machito and his orchestra). These historical recordings come from the third stage of…

The Mambo Kings

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This period drama is hot, hot, hot. Stylish and sexy, it is adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, by Oscar Hijuelos, the story of two brothers who flee from Cuba in the early 1950s, heading for New York. Hoping to make a name for themselves as famous musicians, the duo face hardships and painful discoveries along the way. Armand Assante is the older of the two, with a smoldering Antonio Banderas as his younger, more impetuous brother. (In his first English-speaking role, Banderas delivered all of his lines…
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