The Mamboniks

A repository for articles and artifacts regarding the intriguing history of Jews in Latin music.

THE MAMBONIKS began in 2001 as research for a book that remains unpublished. I hope that sharing my interviews and materials will help broaden the understanding of this unique moment in Jewish cultural history.

All material copyright Mark Schwartz, 2006

8/11/10

Players' Club, Pt. 1

Players' Club is a remix, or oral history if you like, of mambonik interviews I've done. It appeared in its entirety in the quarter...

5/9/10

Meanwhile, Back at the Park Plaza....

It may look like this blog is dead, but it's just resting. In the intervening couple of years, I have been helping veteran rumbero and w...

11/1/07

Mambo at the Raleigh

The Raleigh Hotel , in South Fallsburg, was one of the better-known resorts in the Catskills. While not as large as the Concord or Grossinge...

Cugat and the Jews

Mambo, to paraphrase Madonna, made the people come together. Not just Jews and Latinos, but also Italians, Greeks, Irish, Blacks, and the oc...

Sephardim in Harlem

One observer of Jewish Harlem in its brief heyday was the Puerto Rican activist Bernardo Vega. An early migrant who reached New York in 1916...

Sidney Siegel and Seeco Records

Sidney Siegel parlayed a ghetto jewelry store into one of the largest independent Latin record label of the ‘40s and ‘50s. Promising “The Fi...

Rumberos on the Radio: Jewish DJs

In New York City , the first radio hosts to play Latin music on English-language radio programs were Jewish, as was a significant portion o...

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