Yma Sumac - The Best Of Latin Music (Classics Mambo Tracks) [The Greatest Exotica Music]
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00:00 Malambo No.1
02:52 Cha Cha Gitano
06:41 Bo Mambo
09:58 Taki Rari
11:45 Indian Carnival
13:46 Carnavalito Boliviano
15:44 Chicken Talk
18:45 Gopher
20:58 Goomba Boomba
25:09 Five Bottles Mambo
27:52 Jungla
Yma Sumac (/ˈiːmə ˈsuːmæk/; September 13, 1922, or September 10, 1923 – November 1, 2008), also called Yma Súmac, was a Peruvian soprano. In the 1950s, she was one of the most famous proponents of exotica music.
Sumac became an international success based on her extreme vocal range, which was said to be “well over five octaves“ at the peak of her singing career.
Sumac recorded an extraordinarily wide vocal range of 5 octaves, 3 notes and a semitone ranging from E2 to B♭7 (approximately 107 Hz to 3.7 kHz). In one live recording of “Chuncho“, she sings a range of over four and a half octaves, from B2 to F♯7. She was able to sing notes in the low baritone register as well as notes above the range of an ordinary soprano and notes in the whistle register. Both low and high extremes can be heard in the song Chuncho (The Forest Creatures) (1953). She was also apparently able to sing in an eerie “double voice“.
In 1954, classical composer Virgil Thomson described Sumac’s voice as “very low and warm, very high and birdlike“, noting that her range “is very close to five octaves, but is in no way inhuman or outlandish in sound“. In 2012, audio recording restoration expert John H. Haley favorably compared Súmac’s tone to opera singers Isabella Colbran, Maria Malibran, and Pauline Viardot. He described Súmac’s voice as not having the “bright penetrating peal of a true coloratura soprano“, but having in its place “an alluring sweet unique in our time“.
She was born on either September 13, 1922, or September 10, 1923, most likely in Callao, a seacoast city in Peru; but according to herself in Ichocán, in an indian village. Her parents were Sixto Chávarri and Emilia Castillo. Her father was born in Cajamarca and her mother was born in Pallasca. Stories published in the 1950s claimed that she was an Incan princess, directly descended from Atahualpa. The government of Peru in 1946 formally supported her claim to be descended from Atahualpa, the last Incan emperor“.
Chávarri adopted the stage name of Imma Sumack (also spelled Ymma Sumack and Ima Sumack) before she left South America to go to the United States. The stage name was based on her mother’s name, which was derived from Ima Shumaq, Quechua for “how beautiful!“ although in interviews she claimed it meant “beautiful flower“ or “beautiful girl“.
Yma Sumac first appeared on radio in 1942. She recorded at least 18 tracks of Peruvian folk songs in Argentina in 1943. These early recordings for the Odeon label featured Moisés Vivanco’s group, Compañía Peruana de Arte, a group of 46 Indian dancers, singers, and musicians.
She married composer and best friend Moises Vivanco on June 6, 1942. She had a son, Charles, in 1949. In 1946, Sumac and Vivanco moved to New York City, where they performed as the Inka Taky Trio, Sumac singing soprano, Vivanco on guitar, and her cousin Cholita Rivero singing contralto and dancing. She was signed by Capitol Records in 1950, at which time her stage name became Yma Súmac. Her first album, Voice of the Xtabay, launched a period of fame that included performances at the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall.
In 1950 she made her first tour to Europe and Africa, and debuted at the Royal Albert Hall in London and the Royal Festival Hall before the Queen. She presented more than 80 concerts in London alone and 16 concerts in Paris. A second tour took her to travel to the Far East: Persia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma, Thailand, Sumatra, the Philippines, and Australia. Her fame in countries like Greece, Israel and Russia made her change her two weeks stay to six months offering fabulous concerts. During the 1950s, Sumac produced a series of lounge music recordings featuring Hollywood-style versions of Incan and South American folk songs, working with the likes of Les Baxter and Billy May. The combination of her extraordinary voice, exotic looks, and stage personality made her a hit with American audiences. Súmac appeared in a Broadway musical, Flahooley, in 1951, as a foreign princess who brings Aladdin’s lamp to an American toy factory to have it repaired. The show’s score was by Sammy Fain and E. Y. “Yip“ Harburg, but Súmac’s three numbers were the work of Vivanco with one co-written by Vivanco and Fain.
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