Edmundo Ros

Edmundo Ros was born on December 7, 1910 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, British West Indies as Edmundo William Ros. He was married to Britt Johansen.

He received a music scholarship from the Venezuelan government of Eleazar Lopez Contreras, and, from 1937 to 1942, studied harmony, composition and orchestration at the Royal Academy of Music. At the same time he was the vocalist and percussionist in Don Marino Baretto's band at the Embassy Club, and also recorded several sides as a sideman to Fats Waller, who was visiting London in 1938.

Arguably the foremost exponent of Latin American dance music in Britain during the 1940's and 50's. Often used popular tunes set to traditional Afro/Cuban rhythms.

He was with Decca Records from 1944 to 1974, and altogether he made more than 800 recordings.

By 1946 Ros owned a club, a dance school, a record company and an artistes' agency. His band grew to 16 musicians and was renamed Edmundo Ros and His Orchestra.

His number "The Wedding Samba", 1949, sold three million 78s. His album Rhythms of The South (1958) was one of the first high-quality LP stereo records: it sold a million copies.

During the 1950s and 1960s the Ros orchestra appeared frequently on BBC Radio, continuing into the early 1970s on Radio Two Ballroom.

In 1951 Ros bought the Coconut Grove on Regent Street and in 1964 renamed it Edmundo Ros's Dinner and Supper Club. The club became popular for its atmosphere and music, but it closed in 1965, when legalized casino gambling had drawn away many of its best customers.

In the early 60s, he collaborated with the Ted Heath orchestra on the album Heath versus Ros (Decca Phase 4 1964) that exploited the relatively new stereo recording process. The shift in musical tastes during the decade affected Ros's standing but he played on into the 70s.

Ros was a Freeman of the City of London, having been admitted to the Freedom of the Worshipful Company of Poulters on 5 January 1965 and subsequently clothed with the Livery of the Poulters' Company on 22 June 1965.

In 1975, during Ros's seventh tour of Japan, his band's Musicians' Union shop steward tried to usurp Ros's authority by making arrangements with venues behind his back. Upon their return to the UK Ros organised a celebratory dinner after a BBC recording session and announced the disbanding of the orchestra. He destroyed almost all the charts (arrangement sheets), which conclusively ended the orchestra's existence.

In 1994 Edmundo conducted and sang with the BBC Big Band with Strings at The Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. The other conductor was Stanley Black. The concert was broadcast over BBC Radio 2 and it was such a success that a Japanese recording company invited them into a recording studio in London to make yet another Edmundo Ros CD.

In the 2000 New Year Honours, Ros (then aged 90), was appointed by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in ceremony at Buckingham Palace.