In 2006 I played with a 9-piece Cuban charanga band at a big corporate event in Washington, D.C. where the master of ceremonies was a Cuban-born gentleman.  During the show this fellow jerked and gyrated wildly to the music displaying no rhythm whatsoever, let alone any Cuban swing.  This took the band by surprise given how before introducing the band he had really talked up his lifelong enthusiasm for music and dancing.  My friend Hector Torres, who was playing timbales that day, remarked how it just goes to show that someone is either born with rhythm or they’re not.  ”You know when the newborn babies in the hospital get hooked up to those monitors that go beep-beep-beep?” he explained, “For kids with real swing those things beep in clave!” I thought this was hilarious and came up with the chorus of the song right there.  And though we joked about it all the way back to New York, I told Hector that I thought there was really a song in there somewhere and that if I ever managed to record it that I would have him play on the track.  The result was “El Niño Tiene Clave,” a song about a baby whose Afro-Cuban heartbeat left the doctors scratching their heads and all the nurses in the newborn ward dancing in the halls.  And as promised I had Hector come in to sing backup and lay down the bongo track, which included a scorching solo near the end of the tune.

Written in Spanish, English translation coming soon

El dia que yo naci
Los medicos se reunieron
Porque en mi cunita oieron
Una irregularidad

Una peculiaridad
Como una arritmia cardiaca
Me sacaron una placa
Y me tomaron la presion

Y cual fue la situacion
La que a mis padres los enfermo
No sabia que hacer conmigo
Porque mi clave les confundio

Vees que mi cardiomonitor
Monitoreando mi corazon
Mientras los otros hacian "Pi-pi-pi"
El mio decia asi

De pronto las enfermeras
Se empezaron a alborotar
Y en la sala de recien-nacidos
Comenzaron a bailar

Mandaron especialista
Cardiologo pediatra
Y en lo que solto la pata
Llego a esta conclusion

Coro:
      Ese niño tiene swing,
      Ese niño tiene clave
      Ese niño tiene swing, camara
      Ese niño tiene clave

Eso niño tiene la sangre negra
Tiene ritmo pa'guarachar

Ritmo nativo de guaracha y guaguanco
Eso niño ya lo sabe

Mira que el niño tiene un swing cubano
Que servira para bailar, pa' montunear y
pa' improvisar

Y como dice el tres, tu vees