About the film
Rumba! Mambo! Cha-cha-cha! Hot Cuban dance crazes have swept America onto dance floors for decades. Routes of Rhythm with Harry Belafonte is a joyous and colorful musical odyssey that follows the powerful flow of Afro-Cuban music from its origins five centuries ago in Africa and Spain to the contemporary sound of such exciting popular artists as The Miami Sound Machine, Ruben Blades, and the jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie.
In tracing the journey of this music from its African and Spanish roots (Program One) through its cultural blending in the Caribbean (Program Two) to its popularity in the United States (Program Three) our host/narrator Harry Belafonte travels to equatorial jungle villages, New York’s hottest dance and jazz clubs, lavish night spots and exuberant street carnivals.
The series features an astonishing variety of musical styles—jazz, pop, traditional, avant-garde, and folk—with both archival and contemporary performance footage of world-renowned jazz and pop stars as well as beloved traditional musicians, including Xavier Cugat, Desi Arnaz, Carmen Miranda, Dizzy Gillespie, Perez Prado, Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth, Gloria Estefan, Ruben Blades, Conjunto Libre, King Sunny Ade, Los Van Van, Irakere, and Son de la Loma, among many others.
Reviews
“Far reaching yet accessible, packed with information and still fun to watch…Routes of Rhythm proves to be a road that, once you get on, you won’t want to get off.” –Los Angeles Times
“…Get out your dancing shoes.” –New York Times
“Will want to make viewers bop along… Belafonte is a superb tour guide…and all along the journey he exhibits a genuine sensitivity toward the subject…the message is clear. No matter what their own roots, people like to party and as far as this music goes, nobody does it better than folks doing the rumba, the mambo or the cha-cha-cha.” –Daily Variety
“As an overview, the three-part series Routes of Rhythm is a comprehensive survey of the incendiary music that today rocks the house and blisters the soul.” –Hollywood Reporter
“…superb…at once scholarly and riotously colorful. Whether you’re a gaucho or a Groucho, the rhythm is definitely gonna getcha. I can’t think of a musical form that has gotten a more devoted examination on television than this, nor one that is more fascinating. Grade A.” –People Magazine
“Fast-paced, rhythmic… a hip swinging, rousing three-part musical series… definitely should be on you must see list” –New York Daily News
“I’ve hung out with spies and I’ve hung out with musicians, and I far prefer hanging out with musicians” —Howard Dratch in the Washington Post
Special Award
To Routes of Rhythm with Harry Belafonte—Episode Three
The 1992 Blue Ribbon Award From The American Film And Video Association
A Companion Guide
Written to accompany the television programs and music albums, this Companion Guide provides a discussion of the musical highlights of the series, a description of the making of Routes of Rhythm, a valuable bibliography and discography, and questions for further study.
View Guide
