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Raised in Cuba, he played violin in the Havana Symphony Orchestra from an early age. When he moved to the United States at the age of 21, he began composing tango for the cinema, then conducted the orchestra at the Waldorf Astoria palace in New York, which included Rita Hayworth. In the '40s, he composed several hits for Catarina Valente ("Brazil" and "Balabu"). With his "typical" style, as this genre of music was described in the 50s, Xavier Cugat made a major contribution to popularizing Latin-Cuban sounds, including the mambo, among Western audiences.
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