[Dixielandjazz] Yma Sumac Obit

[Stephen G Barbone]

Maybe not OKOM, but many of us Old Boys loved her voice & personae.  
But then like she said; "All men is cuckoo."

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Yma Sumac, 86; Postwar Sensation Had Unique Voice
By Adam Bernstein - Washington Post Staff Writer - November 3, 2008;

Yma Sumac, a Peruvian folk entertainer with an astonishing vocal range  
who surged to fame in the 1950s with an "Incan princess" mystique that  
captivated millions of record-buyers in search of exotic sounds, died  
of cancer Nov. 1 at an assisted living facility in the Silver Lake  
section of Los
Angeles.

She was believed to be 86, according to personal assistant Damon  
Devine, who said he had seen the birth certificate.

Nearly every biographical aspect of Ms. Sumac's life was long in  
dispute, including her age, her town of birth and her ancestral claims  
that on her mother's side she was a descendant of the last Incan  
emperor, Atahualpa.

Fueled by an intensive publicity machine, the rumors grew so thick at  
one point that she was jokingly rumored to be a "nice Jewish girl from  
Brooklyn" who had merely reversed her
name, Amy Camus.

Ms. Sumac (pronounced EEE-maw SUE-mack) thrived during a postwar  
period of American music when the exotic was hip and the composer Eden  
Ahbez ("Nature Boy") was briefly in vogue.

Los Angeles Times music critic Don Heckman once called Ms. Sumac "a  
living, breathing, Technicolor musical fantasy -- a kaleidoscopic  
illusion of MGM exotica come to life in an era
of practicality."

Onstage and off, Ms. Sumac adopted a regal poise and stretched back  
her raven hair to make her haughty cheekbones even more pronounced.  
She was fond of flamboyant clothing often laden with gold and silver  
jewelry, and she spoke of her musical influences among jungle animals.

"At night in my bedroom I hear the whoo-whoo of the little birds and I  
hear the dogs barking very sad," she told People magazine. "That's  
what I put in my records. I don't bark bow-wow, but I bark whoo, and I  
sing like the birdies."

As an interpreter of Andean folk-influenced songs, her voice sailed,  
growled, roared and yelped effortlessly across four octaves -- from  
bass to soprano to coloratura soprano. She was adept at mimicking  
animal calls, from toucans to jaguars, and one never knew where she  
would dot melody with quick, piercing high-D notes.

"She's either got a whistle in her throat or three nightingales up her  
sleeve," said a bassist with whom she recorded early in her career.

Composer Virgil Thomson found her voice "impeccable" and recommended  
her for "the great houses of opera."

Ms. Sumac extended her heyday through the late 1950s with albums for  
Capitol Records, selling hundreds of thousands of copies.

After headlining in Las Vegas and touring internationally, Ms. Sumac  
drifted into obscurity by the 1970s. Her older recordings popped up on  
film soundtracks, ensuring that her sound, if not her name, remained  
in the popular consciousness.

Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavárri del Castillo was born Sept. 13,  
1922, possibly in the Andean community of Ichocán. Ms. Sumac said she  
was self-taught and developed great discipline in breathing technique.

She caught the attention of Moisés Vivanco, a musicologist and  
composer from Lima, and they married in 1942. She joined his 46-member  
troupe of Indian singers and dancers, became a presence on South  
American radio and began recording folk music under the name Imma  
Sumack.

In 1946, Ms. Sumac and her husband started a folk trio that mostly  
played on the Borscht Belt circuit and the back room of a Greenwich  
Village delicatessen. Her breakthrough was a 1950 engagement at the  
Hollywood Bowl, which attracted record and film executives.

Her subsequent album, "Voice of the Xtabay" (1950), sold more than  
500,000 copies. (The "Xtabay" of the album title was fabricated as an  
Incan word.)

Other albums followed, including "Mambo!" (1954), with fiery  
arrangements by Billy May, and "Fuego del Ande" (1959). Many of the  
songs were composed by her husband and based on Andean folk themes,  
even if purists found them less than authentic.

She played an Arab princess in a short-lived Broadway musical  
"Flahooley" (1951) and appeared in the Hollywood films "Secret of the  
Incas" (1954) with Charlton Heston and "Omar Khayyam" (1957) with  
Cornel Wilde.

By the early 1960s, her popularity in the United States was waning,  
but she made a triumphant tour of the Soviet Union in 1961 -- Nikita  
Khrushchev reputedly was a fan -- and cultivated a small but devoted  
following in Asia, Europe and Latin America.

A comeback album of rock music, "Miracles" (1971), had a limited  
release, and her appearance on David Letterman's late-night show in  
1987 was greeted by sarcasm by the host, who asked "Who is this  
woman?" after her heartfelt rendition of one of her earliest hits,  
"Ataypura."

Periodic concerts and the 2005 release "Queen of Exotica," a massive  
anthology of her work, kept her most-fervent fans happy and renewed  
her cult appeal. The magic-comedy team Penn & Teller used her music to  
score their stage routines.

To some music writers, she was an inspiration to punk and rock  
performers. "All the big stars came to see Yma Sumac," Ms. Sumac told  
Newsday in 1989. "What is the name of that one, I think Madonna?"

Ms. Sumac's personal life was troubled at times. Her marriage to  
Vivanco ended in divorce in 1957 after it was revealed that he had  
fathered twins with his wife's former secretary. She later told a  
reporter that Vivanco was "cuckoo," adding, "All men is cuckoo."

Survivors include a son from her marriage, Charlie, and three sisters.