by Tony Wilds
Twist With Cugat holds great promise, but no real progress is made for Latin, twist, or Latin-twist. It is an album of contrasts, such as the jacket photo of Abbe Lane twisting while a beaming, reflective, pipe-smoking Cugat looks on. The liner notes warn &hold on to your sacroiliac,& as if these are the uptempo dance tracks of the future. But they are all dated, non-exotic instrumentals. Someone had played it too safe, not wishing to alienate decades' worth of aging, nostalgic Cugat fans. Side two starts off well with the surefire standards &Chattanooga Choo Choo,& &The Hucklebuck,& and &Patricia.& The last was Perez Prado's smash of the summer of 1958; four years later Prado updated it on his own Latin-twist album.