Cuban Fire! is an album recorded by Stan Kenton and his orchestra in 1956. This has become one of the most influential Latin jazz large-ensemble recordings of all time; it was a first for the Kenton big band in terms of popularity, style, and overall album theme. The LP charted for 4 weeks in Billboard Magazine starting in the September 15, 1956 edition and topped out at #17. The concept of the original 1956 recording centers on the Cuban Fire! suite Kenton had commissioned from composer Johnny Richards
Though Stan Kenton had recorded earlier hits such as The Peanut Vendor in 1947 with Latin percussionist Machito, as well as many other Latin flavored singles, the Cuban Fire! suite and This LP stands as a watershed set of compositions for Johnny Richards' career and an outstanding commercial/artistic achievement for the Kenton orchestra, and a singular landmark in large ensemble Latin jazz recordings. "The reason we (i.e Kenton) made CUBAN FIRE! is interesting. We had recorded a lot of Afro-Cuban music, and a lot of the Latin guys around New York complained: 'It's wrong, you're not writing the music correctly.'" Stan Kenton then asked composer Johnny Richards (long time staff arranger for Kenton) to write an authentic Latin “suite” that would abide by all the rules many Afro-Cuban musicians had complained about.
The original LP and recording sessions were completed on a highly compressed timeline. Before the first notes of Recuerdos and Fuego Cubano where recorded on May 22, 1956, Kenton and his orchestra had been on a two-month tour of Europe (set sail back from Cherbourg, France to New York on May 10) with only having looked at "El Congo Valiente" beforehand. The band had less than a week to prepare while in New York. While the great majority of the personnel for the LP was on tour, Richards had taken great care to meticulously rehearse the suite with the Latin percussionists who would be added for three days of recording.
Though the listing for the liner notes contains six trumpets, only five are called for in Richards' scores. Due to the 'heavy lifting' the music required for the brass section, a rotation of trumpet players was utilized on the sessions.
Soloists are abundant on the original recording of the Cuban Fire! suite; most interesting of them being the tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson. The Thompson tenor solos on the second half of "Fuego Cubano" and the up tempo "Quien Sabe" are a new addition and contrast to the normal style and harmonic/melodic practices of known Kenton tenor sidemen such as Bill Perkins, Zoot Sims, or later Bill Trujillo. Along with the 'heavy-weight' addition of Thompson, jazz luminaries such as Carl Fontana, Lennie Niehaus, Sam Noto, and Mel Lewis are prominent in solo spots adding to the credibility and legendary status of the dates. Thompson and Curtis Counce (bass) on the Cuban Fire! sessions (and previous tour) serve as
positive credits in the dispelling of myth about Kenton having racist tendencies towards the hiring of sidemen.