“La Paloma” by Sebastian Yradier [1863], performed by La Banda de Zapadores de Mexico on Edison Gold Moulded cylinder 18734 [1905]

Highlights of Latin Music in the U.S., Day 2

Yesterday I wrote that the habanera rhythm was the first form of Latin music exported from any of the Latin American nations to international audiences. Yesterday’s example, the “Habanera” aria from the opera Carmen, showed the music’s expansion into western Europe (Bizet was a French composer). Sebastian Yradier, a Spaniard, had actually composed the melody Bizet used after he visited Cuba in about 1860. Yradier composed another important habanera around the same time. “La Paloma” (“The Dove”) became especially popular in Mexico, where Emperor Maximilian (of Habsburg lineage) supposedly loved it. (Perhaps his connection to Old World relatives helped popularize the song in Germany, where it first appeared in 1865.) 

Some forty years later, the song was apparently still relevant when Thomas Edison recorded a Mexican band on one of his early commercial cylinders. Two things are of note for our purposes. First, the Cuban habanera rhythm supports the song throughout. Second, the instrumentation and the band’s name give this away as a typical turn-of-the-century military band. To be in the band’s repertoire, “La Paloma” must have carried national significance (despite its history as a Spanish interpretation of Cuban music).  

It is easy speculate on the connections between the music of imperial Mexico (and Spanish Caribbean world in general) and the music of New Orleans, the first and foremost American melting pot. That’s where we’ll follow the story of Latin music in America tomorrow. As for “La Paloma,” the song refuses to die. Artists from around the world have recorded interpretations in many genres in every decade since the 1890s.

For anyone interested in the variety of music performed in the early years of recorded music, check out this wonderful, descriptive website that explores fifty early recordings. 

“Habanera” from Carmen by Georges Bizet [1875] performed by Rita Noel with the Nuremburg Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hans Swarowsky.

Highlights of Latin Music in the U.S., Day 1

Latin music has taken many forms and many names. The United States has seen repeated waves of Latin styles infiltrate popular taste. For the next few weeks I will post some of the influential songs and crucial recordings in that history. I am in no way an expert on Latin music of any particular kind and I will undoubtedly overlook innumerable worthy recordings.

The inspiration for this came from a project I did in 2008 as an intern at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. With little background, I had three weeks to come up with a presentation on the history of Latin Jazz. I have learned a ton working on that project and have learned even more since. I don’t plan to write too much… just enough to give a little bit of context for each recording. They each speak for themselves in terms of quality. On with the music…

The first Latin music to be exported and become an international craze came from Cuba. The habanera, both a dance and the specific rhythmic pattern that defined it, inspired a number of Cuban visitors, including Basque composer Sebastian Yradier. Two of his compositions remain arguably the most famous habaneras ever composed. One of them, “El Arreglito,” at first not given significant recognition, gained second life when Georges Bizet mistook it for a folk song. The resulting song became known by its stylistic name “Habanera” when Bizet included it as an aria in the popular 1875 opera Carmen. Even if you think you’ve never heard opera, you all know this song and you recognize the bumm-da-dum-dum rhythm. 

Come back tomorrow for Yradier’s other important habanera.