Malagueña

Originally the sixth movement of the Suite Andalucia for solo piano by Ernesto Lecuona, Malagueña has since become a popular, jazz, marching band and drum corps standard and has been provided with lyrics in several languages. Bill Holman's arrangement for the Stan Kenton Orchestra, re-imagined the song as a fiery Big Band showpiece. Performances of Holman's arrangement appeared on Kenton's 1961 album Adventures in Jazz, from which the inspiration for this arrangement comes from. One of the most well-known performances of this piece in recent years has been as part of the Broadway musical "Blast", a fusion of Drum Corps style musical arrangements and stage movements with theatric elements.

Ernesto Lecuona y Casado (1895-1963) was a Cuban composer of Spanish Heritage. Lecuona graduated from the National Conservatory of Havana when he was only sixteen. He was a prolific composer of songs and music for stage and film, which regularly used stylistic combinations of Spanish Zarzuela, Afro-Cuban and Cuban rhythmic patterns. In 1960, thoroughly unhappy with Castro's new régime, Lecuona moved to Tampa, Florida and lived his final years in the USA. He died 3 years later at the age 68; his will instructs that his remains be repatriated back to Cuba once the current régime runs its course.

‍