They aren't actually collaborating, just sharing the same stage at The Birdland in New York City for this broadcast from the All Star Parade Of Bands series from NBC Radio, recorded on June 4, 1955.

Erroll Garner opens the broadcast, and it includes his latest composition, Misty along with a lot of other great sounds for the first half of the show.

And then Perez Prado takes over the second half, opening with Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White), which was a huge hit for him around this time. The rest of his set is high-voltage, just like all of his material.

Two great sets from a very unlikely pairing, but that was what radio in the 1950's was all about.

Big Band this week - actually Big Latin Band this week. Xavier Cugat and his orchestra performing live at the Last Frontier in Las Vegas (not sure if the announcer meant The Frontier but . . .) and recorded by NBC on November 30, 1953.

Xavier Cugat is probably best remembered as the band leader who brought Latin Jazz to the U.S. - dubbed The King Of The Rhumba, he put Latin Music pretty much in the mainstream from the 1940's onwards and paved the way for a lot of artists to expose their work to the American audience and turn on a lot of Jazz people on to the heady style of Cuban and Afro-Cuban music.

Towards the end of his set he plays the iconic Mambo #5 which was made an international hit by another Cuban bandleader, Perez Prado around the same time - so if it sounds familiar but not quite, that's the reason.

Something just a bit different this week - but swingin' nonetheless.