Ardura was the other reason why, by 1952, Tropicana was the place for jazz in Cuba. No one with a superficial knowledge of Martín Fox’s dour-faced partner could have imagined that Ardura was a jazz lover. (“Cómo? Are you sure?” exclaimed Ofelia and Rosa incredulously, when I showed them a note to that effect in Cubano Be, Cubano Bop, a history of jazz in Cuba written by musicologist and alto saxophonist Leonardo Acosta.) But Bebo Valdés echoed the sentiment. “One day I was at Rita Montaner’s house rehearsing and I heard this clarinet playing [Cole Porter’s] ‘Begin the Beguine,’” explained the
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