Rhumba

Rhumba, spelled with an 'h' in its international form, is the ballroom adaptation of Cuban son and rumba that swept the United States and Europe from 1930. Simplified and slowed for social dancing, it combined Cuban percussion — conga, bongo, claves, maracas — with dance-orchestra strings, flutes and brass, and romantic Spanish- or English-language songs. Popularised by bandleaders such as *Don Azpiazú*, *Xavier Cugat* and *Machito*, rhumba became a fixture of hotel ballrooms, radio and Hollywood film, and was codified as one of the five international Latin ballroom dances.