St. Louis Blues/El Manisero

The Orquest Hermanos Castro jazz band, which would persist as a group until 1960, also recorded one of the earliest forms of "Latin" jazz. They managed to almost seamlessly fuse "St. Louis Blues" with "El Manisero," although still not quite as successfully as efforts of the 1940s. Nevertheless, this 1931 recording may be a good indication of how early Cuban jazz bands sounded. Leonardo Acosta's history of Cuban jazz indicates that many of the groups formed in the 1920s imitated the "society" music of Paul Whiteman and other white jazz groups. This is definitely true, but the 1930s ushered in some interesting developments in Cuban jazz. 

Saint Louis Blues Louis Style

A definitive take on W.C. Handy's classic, "Saint Louis Blues." Handy's use of the habanera rhythm illustrates how "Latin" music has been part of the jazz repertoire for over 100 years, and part of the reason why I annoyed by the ways in which some define "Latin Jazz" as a genre or sub-genre of jazz. Moreover, Armstrong's honking orchestra did in the 1920s what came to define early R&B so well with artists like Louis Jordan.