Time Travel at 78rpms

Not much information to be found on Pickard’s Chinese Syncopators. They were an active string band on the Vaudeville circuit in the 1920s & 30s, and seemed to be a Chinese/American combo. This is a cool and quirky rumba called “Ali Baba”.

This is on an English-made His Master’s Voice from like 1932 I wanna say.

Florencia Morales Ramos, “Ramito”, is one of the kings of Puerto Rican Jibaro music. Born in 1915, in Caguas, PR, he was considered a really good singer by the age of thirteen; and by the late 1930s he was a renowned star. He had a long career, even playing for JFK at the White House in 1961 in a huge showcase of Puerto Rican talent.

“Una Mujer en Mi Vida” is a bolero son, and totally infectious. It is full of those famous conga rhythms, horn lines, and vocal harmonies which really make so much of Puerto Rican music so sexy and hip-swerving.  And of course, Ramito’s beautiful tenor just soars.

Recorded in New York, NY, on the rare BMC label.