Personnel: Perez Prado; Ray Rivera, Rene Bloch, Modesto Duran, Carlos Vidal, Leo Acosta, Tony Facciuto, Ollie Mitchell.

Audio Remasterer: Dick Baxter.

Recording information: Hollywood, California (1957).

Average Rating: (2 out of 5 stars) 

 I LOVED IT UNTIL...
I recall banging on pots and pans and coffee cans as a two-year-old listening to this music! All that has survived of Dad's original mono LP was the cover. So, I was glad to see this reissued and I bought it up right away. The sound is great, issued here in its original stereo, and seeming to have no added cheezy reverb or stereo gimmickry. What a fat and beautiful trumpet tone Tony Facciutto has! So, I'm thoroughly enjoying the CD, when along comes "Leo's Special," Leo Acosta's drum feature. There are several points throughout his solo where the sound just disappears for a couple of seconds at a time. At first I thought maybe this was a defect in the CD. I love the CD and its production so much that I actually bought another copy just to see if maybe it wouldn't have the drop outs. But it does! I even bought a third copy but of an earlier OOP version. No drop outs on that one (but, as is typical of many CDs imported from the EU, it was drenched with added stereo reverb, this on top of the original RCA Living Prescence original reverb). What's going on here??? How could they issue garbage like this??? I don't know... Maybe people think the drummer is leaving spaces in his solo; no one else is squawking about this. CD U, please look into this; crack open a copy and give "Leo's" a listen. Another disappointment is that "Fireworks" was left off this compilation. I don't get it! It's only a 36 minute CD, for cryin' out loud. They could've at least made the CD complete and faithful to the original. This is Mike DiMartino in Rochester, NY. Thank you.
Submitted by Mike DiMartino (Rochester, NY) 
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