Tito Puente's Cha-Cha-Cha

Yesterday, as temperatures hit the mid-90s in New York, thoughts turned to Tito Puente, the Les Brown of Latin dance music. In the 1950s, Puente was one of the so-called "Big Three" mambo kings—Puente, Machito and Tito Rodriguez. While Machito veered toward Latin jazz and Rodriguez, a vocalist, was a bit more commercial, Puente, a percussionist, focused…