You are on page 1of 2

BAY OF PIGS INVASION

, MARIO BAUZA

(19111993). Mario Bauza , multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and composer, was one of the foremost figures in the creation of a new style of music that mixed together jazz and Afro-Cuban music. He was born April 28, 1911, in Havana. The son of a black cigar maker, he was raised by his white godfather, a military man of wealth and family. He studied classical music and by age sixteen was playing bass clarinet with the Havana Symphony Orchestra. He first visited New York in 1927 as a member of a Cuban dance band. He took up saxophone and trumpet and moved to New York for good in 1930. By 1933 he was playing with the great swing band of drummer Chick Webb at the Savoy; Webb made him musical director in the following year. In 1939 he joined the band of Cab Calloway, whom he encouraged to hire his friend, Dizzy Gillespie. Bauza s dream of marrying jazz and Cuban music came true with the founding of a band led by his brother-in-law, Machito and his Afro-Cubans, in 1940. He was lead trumpeter and musical director of that band for decades thereafter. This group played for Latin audiences at the Palladium in New York as well as for African American audiences at the Savoy and Renaissance ballrooms. Surprisingly, the band did not play in Bauza s native country. Nevertheless, it was one of the most influential bands of the day. Bauza left Machitos band in 1975 and created his own orchestra, which he led until his death on July 12, 1993.

1965. He started working on the conservative newspaper La Prensa in the early 1980s. A right-winger, he promoted Mario Vargas Llosas presidential candidacy in 1990. The late-night show 1990 en Ame rica was his first success in Peruvian TV; he interviewed celebrities and politicians with provocative and almost disrespectful questions, copying the style of the American talk-show host David Letterman. In Miami, he hosted late-night shows for the CBS and Telemundo networks. Bayly presents himself as a bisexual; his first novel No se lo digas a nadie (1996, Dont Tell Anybody), became a gay fiction bestseller and later a movie in 1998. He has written ten novels. La noche es virgen (1997, Night Is a Virgin) won the Spanish Herralde prize in 1997. His most recent novel is Y de repente, un a ngel (1995, And Suddenly, an Angel). He was distinguished in May 2007 with a media award from the gay and lesbian alliance against defamation (GLAAD) in South Florida.
See also Homosexuality and Bisexuality in Literature; Radio and Television.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ruiz Bravo, Patricia. Subversiones masculinas: Ima genes de los varones en la narrativa joven [Masculine Subversions: Male Images in the Youngs Narrative.] Lima: Flora Trista n, 2001. A critical work about No se lo digas a nadie (Dont Tell Anybody). Spanish News Agency EFE. Jaime Bayly, una figura destacada de la nueva literatura en espan ol. El Mundo, Barcelona, October 22th, 2005. Available from http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2005/10/16/ cultura/1129463511.html. JACQUELINE FOWKS

See also Music: Popular Music and Dance.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Austerlitz, Paul. Jazz Consciousness: Music, Race, and Humanity. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005. Loza, Steven. Tito Puente and the Making of Latin Music. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999. Orovia, Helio. Cuban Music from A to Z. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. ANDREW J. KIRKENDALL

BAYLY LETTS, JAIME (1965). Jaime Bayly Letts, a Peruvian journalist, writer, and television show host, was born in Lima on February 19,
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LATIN AMERICAN

Known in Cuba as Batalla de Giro n, the Bay of Pigs Invasion was a U.S.-sponsored military venture of Cuban exiles against revolutionary Cuba in mid-April 1961. Launched with a force of about 1,500 Cuban exiles, the invasion was the result of growing antagonism between exiled Cubans and Fidel Castros increasingly radical regime as well as U.S. desire to topple Castro against the backdrop of the cold war. The failed invasion stands as a pivotal moment both for the Cuban revolution and CubaU.S. relations.

BAY OF PIGS INVASION.

HISTORY

&

CULTURE

521

BAZAINE,

FRANC OIS ACHILLE

Training of Cuban exiles began in March 1960. Led by Jose Pe rez San Roma n, the exile force eventually came to be known as Brigade 2506. Manuel Artime served as the brigades political chief. The invasions primary goal was to secure a beachhead for the establishment of a temporary government by the Cuban Revolutionary Council under the leadership of centrist former prime minister Jose Miro Cardona. While not enthusiastic about the plans, newly elected president John F. Kennedy agreed to go forward but was adamant about limiting and concealing U.S. involvement. The attack began on 15 April, when U.S. planes bearing Cuban marks bombarded several military installations. Air raids scheduled for 16 April, however, were canceled by direct orders from Kennedy. On 17 April approximately 1,300 brigade troops landed on the southern coast locations of Giro n Beach and the Bay of Pigs; the landing sites proved to be inauspicious owing to swampy conditions, isolation, and reefs that surrounded the area. After two-and-a-half days of intense fighting, Cuban militia and army troops under Castros command defeated Brigade 2506. Instrumental in the Cuban armys victory were elite cadet troops led by Captain Jose Ramo n Ferna ndez as well as successful air strikes by Cuban fighter planes. The final death toll on the brigades side was somewhere around 125; another 1,197 were taken prisoner, ten of whom died while being transported to Havana in an overcrowded and airtight truck container. According to Cuban official statistics, 157 Cuban army and militia troops were killed in action. Most other sources, however, place the estimate much higher, between 1,800 and 2,200. After months of intense negotiation, brigade captives were released in exchange for $53 million in medicine and food. The causes of the Bay of Pigs defeat have been the subject of much reflection and study. Among the most salient ones stand the failure of the Kennedy administration to provide adequate air and naval support and the CIAs overestimation of discontent of the Cuban people toward the revolution. CIA agents and operatives also alienated the exile force. The Bay of Pigs invasion turned out to be a fiasco for the U.S. government. Kennedy later reminisced that it had been the worst experience

of [his] life. For the exiles, the defeat represented a major setback in the struggle against Castro, but many continue to commemorate the battle as a heroic attack against a much larger and betterequipped force. Castro, for his part, took credit for having stopped the imperial aggression of the worlds mightiest military power. The Bay of Pigs not only demonstrated revolutionary Cubas military effectiveness but also demonstrated the extent of popular support for the revolution. The failed invasion allowed Castro to consolidate his power over the island and to declare openly the socialist nature of the revolution. In terms of U.S.-Cuba relations, the invasion marked the end of any possible rapprochement and pushed Cuba deeper into the Soviet orbit.
See also Castro Ruz, Fidel; Cuban Missile Crisis; United States-Latin American Relations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Johnson, Haynes. The Bay of Pigs: The Leaders Story of Brigade 2506. New York: Norton, 1964. Kornbluh, Peter, ed. Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba. New York: New Press, 1998. Wyden, Peter. Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980.
NEZ-FERNA NDEZ LUIS MARTI

BAZAINE,

FRANC OIS

ACHILLE

(18111888). Franc ois Achille Bazaine (b. 13 February 1811; d. 23 September 1888), French military commander in Mexico (18631867). Born near Metz, Bazaine joined the French Foreign Legion in 1832, serving in Algeria and Spain. He lie-Fre served with General E de ric Forey in the Crimea (18541856) and in the Italian campaign (1859). Bazaine took North African troops with him to Mexico in 1863, and Napoleon III appointed him on 16 July 1863 as supreme commander of French Intervention forces, replacing Forey. In Mexico, Bazaines aim was to reconcile the various factions and win over moderate opinion to the empire. He disliked the Mexican Conservatives and followed Napoleons policy of blocking any reversal of the Reform Laws. He became critical of Emperor Maximilians indecision. The peak of

522

ENCYCLOPEDIA

OF

LATIN

AMERICAN

HISTORY

&

CULTURE

You might also like