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Capitol Records T 567

When night-club musicians get ready to play some of the weirdest looking rhythm instruments this side of the Amazon, it can only mean that the glorious Latin American din is about to start. Less adventuresome dancers may do a quick hesitation step and mutter to each other, "Let's sit this one out." If they do, they're missing literally the biggest kicks in dancing. Besides, with the possible exception of tennis singles, no American pastime has given participating couples so much good, clean exercise as dancing to south-of-the-border music. A few nasty sprains have been reported, but so have a lot of "I'm young again" and "at last my back feels limber" miracles.

Not that surging rhythm is always a part of Latin American music. As Luis Oliveira says, "Even Brazilians must occasionally slow down the tempo. We are, after all, romantic people." Luis proves that here with music lush as a tropical garden. And very much present also are the sambas and baiaõs that have the flavor of carnival time in Rio. This album of Latin music in many moods and tempos is a rhythmic invitation to dancing fun, to letting yourself go.

Apito. A double-barreled whistle.

Reco-reco. A corrugated bamboo tube about eighteen inches long, scraped by a stick.

Cabaca. A large hollow gourd encircled by strings of dried beans, which slide over the surface of the gourd as it is rotated.

Cuica. A small tom-tom covered by a skin at one end.  Inside, attached to the skin, is a long stick. The cuica's guttural sounds are made by pulling the closed hand along the stick.

Chocallio. A thin, metal cylinder containing beads.