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Stan Kenton: 'Cuban Fire!,' 1956

Day No. 3 of my deep dive into spectacular jazz suites

Marc Myers's avatar
Marc Myers
Jun 10, 2026
∙ Paid

One of arranger-composer Johnny Richards’s many masterpieces in the LP era was Cuban Fire!, a 12-inch album recorded by the Stan Kenton orchestra in 1956. Richards’s six Afro-Cuban pieces for the band form the movements of a suite, and the album today is widely considered a masterpiece.

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