“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. 

“Mano Cruel” by Carlos Gardél [1928]

A hundred years ago, twenty-something couples would not head to the movies for a Friday evening date (large-scale cinema was still years away). Instead, as people had done for centuries, they’d often go dancing. Whether a street dance or a ball, in the 1910s and ’20s the dance of choice was the tango. A sultry Afro-Latin dance from Argentina, the tango fad swept through every class and spread throughout the western world in the 1910s, and carried through the ’20s on the back of stars like Carlos Gardél.

Raised in Buenos Aires, Gardél was destined for big things. His very first recording of a tango in 1917 sold thousands of copies and began the long association of the genre with tales of tragic love. By 1928, the year “Mano Cruel” was released, he was touring Europe, selling 70,000 records in Paris alone. When cinema finally took off, the singer used the medium to showcase his vocal talents (though his acting was lacking).

“Mano Cruel,” the tango posted above, is characteristic of Gardél’s style. Two guitarists accompany the singer as he croons a typically tragic love story: Lower-class narrator fell in love with a girl he met down the street. She reciprocated and everything seemed perfect… until a sweet-talking rich dude swept in and stole her away. Now she lives in a nicer part of town, worn out, unhappy and longing for the boy and the neighborhood she abandoned so many years before.

Makes you want to go to an old-fashioned Latin dance this weekend, doesn’t it?

“Always True to You in My Fashion” by Peggy Lee & George Shearing Sextet [1959]

Much like Tony Bennett’s 1952 recording of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” Peggy Lee and George Shearing took a traditional musical number and Latinized it. Where Bennett’s version offered a twist on the famous habanera rhythm, Lee and Shearing turned what began as straight Cole Porter pop into a swinging mambo. Compare this version to the original Broadway recording performed by Lisa Kirk. 

Though the music for Lee and Shearing’s 1959 album Beauty and the Beat! was recorded in studio, Capitol Records decided to market the album as a live performance, which explains the poorly-overdubbed applause at the end of the track. Still, it’s another phenomenal record.

“Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Tony Bennett [1952]

“Boulevard of Broken Dreams” was written by talented composer Harry Warren and his longtime songwriting partner Al Dubin for the 1934 film Moulin Rouge. Compared to that forgettable film, however, the song will always hold a stronger connection to Tony Bennett. The singer’s demo recording of “Boulevard”—accompanied only by piano—impressed Mitch Miller enough to earn him an initial contract with Miller’s Columbia Records.

With Miller at the helm, Bennett recorded four songs at his first “professional” session, including “Boulevard,” this time backed by strings. (I can’t find a full clip anywhere online, but you can hear a sample on Amazon.) From the four tracks, “Boulevard” was selected to be Bennett’s first single. It sold over 500,000 copies and instantly made Bennett a minor star.

Two years later, Bennett re-recorded “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” backed by a Latin-styled orchestra. While at first listen it sounds a bit forced, I think this recording stands among Bennett’s best. Ever. I love it. 

“Se a Cabo” by Santana [1970]

Latin jazz had been a small but strong style of jazz back into the early 1940s. Mario Bauzá, a Cuban who had previously played in the orchestras of Chick Webb and Cab Calloway, made Machito and His Afro-Cubans stars, “discovered” Puerto Rican timbales player Tito Puente in New York, and introduced Dizzy Gillespie to Cuban conguero Chano Pozo. (Follow the hyperlinks for examples of each.) 

Carlos Santana worked within that legacy, but he did so in 1967 San Francisco. Instead of trumpets and saxophones taking the lead over traditional Latin percussion, Santana used electric guitar and Hammond B3 organ. After live success at Woodstock in 1969, Santana (the band) released Abraxas, their second and most popular LP. In line with the wild experimentation of the times, the album featured Fleetwood Mac’s bluesy “Black Magic Woman” right next to the Tito Puente Latin jazz of “Oye Como Va” and Santana’s own guitar ballad “Samba Pa Ti.” Written by Santana percussionist José “Chepito” Areas, “Se a Cabo” was a short Latin percussion showcase.

While often considered mostly in the rock idiom, early Santana was jazz fusion at its best.

“Livin’ La Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin [1999]

Random Music History Song of the Day

Here at Music History, we don’t shy away from much, not even overplayed pop songs from our early teen years (I don’t know about you, but I was awkwardly attending awkward 7th grade dances when this song came out).

Almost exactly eleven years ago, at the 1999 Grammy Awards show, Latin pop star Ricky Martin splashed onto the mainstream American pop scene with a sizzling performance of “La Copa De La Vida (The Cup of Life)” (see video post), which had been the official song of the 1998 World Cup. Within two months, Martin released the first single from his first English album. That song, “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” flew to #1 and dragged the self-titled album right with it. You know the rest of the story… (Props to my girlfriend for getting the chronology of these events exactly right.)

What I find more interesting about “Livin’ La Vida Loca” is its songwriter. If songwriters were not credited on songs and albums, no one would know who Desmond Child is. Even so, most pop and rock fans still have no idea what Child has accomplished. In a career that extends from a song on last year’s Katy Perry album all the way back into the 1970s, Child has written, co-written, or produced 70 Top 40 hits. Among them: KISS’ “I Was Made for Lovin’ You,” Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “You Give Love a Bad Name” and Aerosmith’s “Angel,” “Dude (Looks Like a Lady),” and “Crazy.”

Yep, the same man who wrote hard rock/hair metal anthems in the ’80s came up with Latin smash hits “Cup of Life” and “Livin’ La Vida Loca” in the 90s. And you thought Ricky Martin had nothing in common with KISS.