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Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1910, Filiberto Rico was among the first wave of musicians to popularize Latin American music throughout northern Europe. An alto saxophonist who doubled on flute, young Rico gigged and recorded with a number of bands in Paris and Copenhagen during the late '20s, most notably Moises Simon's Orquesta Tipica Cubana. Rico's Creole Band was formed in 1930 and entertained the Parisian public with the conga, the beguine, and the bolero until a proliferation of Nazis (armed with a racist Weltanschauung that criminalized the ethnic diversity embodied in the very word "Creole") made it necessary for this Afro-Cuban artist to absent himself from the region during the years 1941-1946. Rico's postwar popularity in Paris and along the French Riviera is legendary, and has been attributed to the blending of European and Latin American styles. His early recordings were reissued in two volumes on compact disc by the Harlequin label in 1993-1994, and his postwar career is documented on a retrospective two-fer released in 2003 by Fremeaux & Associes. ~ arwulf arwulf, All Music Guide
