“America” from West Side Story

Moises Simons

The Peanut Vendor arr Townend

Ritchie Valens (1941-1959)

La Bamba arr Mancini

In 1957, when Leonard Bernstein wrote West Side Story, Latin-American rhythms like those used to such entertaining effect in “America” had long been part of the jazz and popular-music scene. Jelly Roll Morton used to call it “the Spanish tinge.” But the beginning of the craze for Afro-Cuban music can be traced back precisely to 1930 when Don Azpiazú and his Havana Casino Orchestra introduced “El Manicero” or “The Peanut Vendor” by an obscure Cuban composer called Moises Simon to the Palace Theatre in New York. It was an instant hit and within a year Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington had recorded their own versions of it. The Latin-American influence also found its way into rock and roll, most famously of all perhaps in “La Bamba” which was arranged by Ritchie Valens from a traditional Mexican huapango. Born into a Mexican-American family, Valens died less than eighteen years later in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper. “La Bamba”, which was originally issued on the flip side of “Donna,” his first big hit, sold a million copies within a few months of his death.