Ros went to live in Spain when he retired

Ros' exhilarating Latin music gained him fame after he moved to Britain.

He kept the UK bopping during the grim years of war and the dark days of austerity which followed it, "set dance halls and night clubs alight", according to one fan, with the infectious stomp and beat of his renowned rumba band.

Ros reputedly taught the Queen, when she was Princess Elizabeth, how to dance.

Listen to BBC Radio 2 to Edmundo Ros

"I suppose you could say I was the first to teach the then Princess Elizabeth and her sister Princess Margaret how to dance," he once said.

Ros was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on December 7, 1910. His mother was a black Venezuelan and his father was of Scottish origin.

After spending his teenage years in Venezuela, he came to Britain in 1937 and soon formed his own band.

Best customers

He was a regular at the Bagatelle, one of the top clubs in London's West End, and he remained popular with the Queen, who was known to insist that his band was hired for special royal occasions.

In 1951 Ros bought the Coconut Grove, another West End club, and eventually named it the "Edmundo Ros Dinner and Supper Club".

It was very exclusive and it was said that admission would be granted only to those whose names were in Who's Who.

It closed in 1965, when legalised casino gambling had milked many of the best customers.

His number The Wedding Samba, 1949, sold three million copies, and his album Rhythms of The South (1958) sold one million copies. Altogether he made over 800 recordings.

But at the age of 64, in 1975, Ros dismantled the band and destroyed all the arrangement sheets.

He retired to Javea, Alicante, in Spain.