Mambo Birdland

Fittingly, Tito Puente's final album (save for a collaboration with Eddie Palmieri) finds the great bandleader-percussionist taking a young audience into the past with an in-concert set of classics including the title track, "Ban Ban Quere," and, of course, "Oye Como Va." The energy never wanes as Puente visits his many styles ("Cha Cha Cha Mambo," for one) and tempos. Particularly hot is the percussive breakdown on "Guaguanco Margarito," which is both smashing and subtle in the way of only the very finest jazz. "I'm gettin' to ya!" the ebullient Mambo King exclaims more than once between songs; he sounds as if he were just as pleased as in the midcentury years he spent inventing this music. Mambo Birdland won a 2000 Grammy (for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Performance), Puente's fifth. --Rickey Wright