Customer Rating: 
Summary: A great, but unfortunately overlooked and forgotten, album.
Comment: Dance Mania is pure Latin jazz fury, hitting you with its bombastic rhythms, beckoning you to move your body to the beat, lift your feet, and dance, dance, dance.
Once the dancing begins it won't stop. This music is enticing, titillating, and every other apt adjective that can describe the euphoria that comes from dancing.
It's maniacal, even. Dance maniacal.
Released in 1958, Tito Puente's Dance Mania still sounds modern. It was the album upon its release, but now it is relegated as a footnote in Latin jazz. A shame, really, considering that Dance Mania transcends its status. Tito Puente was not an album artist. Indeed, most Latin jazz albums are not; mostly comprised of several hits and the rest in filler (but good filler), they serve to showcase the artists, not the songs. Dance Mania does both.
Every track on Dance Mania is a testament to the genius of Tito Puente, both in his compositional and instrumental skill. And much credit goes to the sessions artists contributing to the recording. All the elements forged together perfectly to create an album that catapults Latin jazz to another level. This album will move you.
Dance Mania. Long forgotten. Until it makes you sway your hips.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Pioneer dance music
Comment: It is unnanimous, up to this point everyone here has given this disc five stars! Tito Puente was a pioneer who started the first wave of Latin music to capture attention worldwide. One of his signature songs, "Oye Come Va" was made popular by Santana Oye Como Va. I was lucky enough to have seen him perform live in a little Hermosa Beach auditorium many years before his death; he was amazing even at his than advanced age. He could wail on the timbales and work his band into a frenzy. The performance here is taken from the early fifties when he was in his prime and the result is an awe-inspiring blend of soulful vocals, horns, rhythms and percussion that results in pure dance music or as the title indicates, dance mania. This disc captures the dance crazes taht were prevelant than like the cha-cha-cha, mambo and salsa. The latin jazz influences and salsa vibe are spread throughout this winner. Everything but one song, "Estoy Siempre Junto a Ti," which is a bolero, or ballad is a cooker; this is the only song where the tempo is slowed down. A very good tune is "Hong Kong Mambo"(love the title)that features some great vibe(vibraphones)work that finishes with crashing high hat and Asian sounding vibe rhythms. If you are a DJ these are some great riffs to work into your creations. There are many good Tito Puente discs including but not limited to The Mambo King: His 100th Album, Out of This World, King of Kings: The Very Best of Tito Puente which are all highly recommended. Flat out, this one is the goods.
Customer Rating:
Summary: if this doesn't get your feet moving.......
Comment: ....then you probably don't have a pulse. Every song is eminently danceable, and the band never sounded tighter. What's amazing is that is not a compilation CD, it was an album released in 1958, a true CLASSIC.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Pure BIG Band Salsa
Comment: This is true big band sound salsa, before the name salsa became popular. Originally released in 1958, You can go back and feel how great this music was back then and still feel the how great it still is today. This tells you this is a treasure chest of great music. Just enjoy and dance as if he is playing at the good old days at the Palladium Dance night,in NYC. The recordings allow you to hear clearly every instrument that was played and precise harmony of the full orchestra. Be carefull playing this while driving in the car, you will be force to pull over and dance a few cuts.
Customer Rating:
Summary: It doesn't get better than this!
Comment: One of Tito's tightest and most soulful albums, with sharp-sounding horn charts and funky rhythms galore. Recording with the full technical expertise of the RCA studios behind him, Puente's late '50s albums had much richer, better defined sound than competitors on smaller, independent labels, and the brass tones that distort into distorted shrillness on other albums are smooth and clear here. Great material, and a ton of tight session players who were the cream of the crop in the latin dance scene. Highly recommended!
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