Cachao dies at 89.

This was close enough to the truth about their real lives - they were musicians and songwriters who had left Havana for New York in 1949, the year they formed the Mambo Kings, an orchestra that packed clubs, dance halls, and theaters around the East Coast - and excitement of excitements, they even made a fabled journey in a flamingo-pink bust out to Sweet’s Ballroom in San Francisco, playing an all-star mambo night, a beautiful night of glory, beyond death, beyond pain, beyond stillness.

- The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love: A Novel by Oscar Hijuelos