There, But for the Mambo, Go I

The Mambo craze had reached an apogee in Los Angeles in the 1940s, when my Mexican parents first met and found love. My parents, now 96, always danced well and passed their passion down to me. I am an avid Latin music fan. Mambo, meaning "conversation with the gods" in Kikongo, a Bantú language spoken by vast numbers of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean, became a popular Cuban music form that kept nightclubs, house parties, and other dance scenes jumping for several decades. Cuba's music and d...