Edmundo Ros

Bandleader Edmundo Ros was the living embodiment of Latin music in World War II-era Britain. The toast of London's high society, he effectively introduced the rhumba and samba to the U.K. shores. Born December 7, 1910, in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, to a Scottish father and an African-Venezuelan mother, Ros spent much of his childhood in military school, playing percussion in the military band. The experience was otherwise miserable, however, and at 17 he ran away to Caracas, where he served as tympanist in the Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. A decade later Ros migrated to Londo...