Given that he was in charge of entertainment at Tropicana, Ardura was probably aware of the vast tourist marketing appeal of a Cab Calloway or a Josephine Baker. But this could not explain why he was instrumental in opening Tropicana on Sunday afternoons so that jazz musicians, Cuban and American, could jam together in a free, unstructured environment. Those legendary sessions, which were the brainchild of Guillermo Barreto, were among the first meetings of the Club Cubano de Jazz. Every Sunday afternoon, a quintet that featured Barreto on drums, Bebo on piano, tenor saxophonist Rafael “Tata”
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