Circa 1930's Self Portrait of Xavier Cugat

Apparently, in addition to popularizing Latin music in the United States in the 1930's Xavier "Rumba King" Cugat was also an accomplished artist and was once a cartoonist for The Los Angeles Times. In fact, it was tenor Enrico Caruso who taught Cugat how to draw caricatures. According to a Los Angeles Times obituary, Cugat explained, "When they tell you to be funny by 10:30 tomorrow morning … I can't do it - I finally quit, and get these six guys to play commercial music with me."

Here's a circa 1930's Cugat self portrait that I recently picked up. It's followed by a couple shots from an old video I found on YouTube (click on the images for the video).

A little "Bim Bam Bum" for your Friday afternoon...