[Dixielandjazz] Yma Sumax - redux

[Stephen G Barbone]

> "Larry Walton" <larrys.bands at charter.net> wrote:
>
>
> They did a tribute to her on PBS radio several days ago.  What an  
> amazing
> range especially to those of us who are limited to the same three or  
> four
> notes.  Her range was from Baritone to above the normal Soprano.   
> They noted
> that her real name, age and origin were uncertain.  Her name may  
> have been
> Amy Camus (Yma Sumac spelled backwards).  I think they said she was  
> from
> Peru but may not really have been from there at all.
>
> Apparently this was a woman who reinvented herself from time to time.
> True???

Dear Larry and listmates:

Here is the NY Times obit. It is pretty complete. Mentions age, real  
name and origin etc. It also mentions her website. For those who are  
interested it is:. http://www.yma-sumac.com

As an aside, it was Walter Winchell who tongue in cheek wrote in one  
of his columns in a NY Newspaper and mentioned on his radio program  
that she was from Brooklyn. It got picked up by many and is the source  
of that urban legend.

One of her best selling albums was with the Billy May mambo orchestra.  
May was not amused because she did not read music and had to do her  
part by rote which consumed a lot of rehearsal and production time.

Check this quote from her when she was asked to do songs such as  
"Chuncho" exactly like it is on her albums or like she did before. Her  
answer was always the same. She said "if I perform this piece exactly  
as I have before then please, don't invite me again, instead just put  
up a picture of me and play the record in the background. My music is  
alive and flows from my being and from nature, and it does as it  
wishes, I am only an expression of it."

For "Chuncho" go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O47V652eyak

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

NY Times - November 4, 2008 - by Douglas Martin
Yma Sumac, Vocalist of the Exotic, Dies at 86

Yma Sumac, a Peruvian singer who burst on the American scene in the  
1950s in a tornado of exotic publicity with a voice that glided  
preternaturally across four octaves, leading her to top record charts,  
fill nightclubs and become a cult heroine, died Saturday in Los  
Angeles. She was 86.

Her death was announced on her Web site, yma-sumac.com. The Associated  
Press quoted her assistant, Damon Devine, as saying that she had had  
an eight-month bout with colon cancer. He confirmed that she was born  
on Sept. 13, 1922, not 1926, 1927 or any other year that has been  
variously given, almost always making her younger.

What is indisputable is that Ms. Sumac created a sensation as an  
otherworldly chanteuse who sold millions of records, appeared onstage  
and in movies, filled European concert halls and fetched $25,000 a  
performance in Las Vegas. Most critics and musicians heard four  
octaves in her voice — compared with two for the average singer —  
though she claimed she could cover five. But few doubted a vocal  
ability that many experts thought belonged in opera.

“She sings very low and warm, very high and birdlike; and her middle  
range is no less lovely than the extremes of her scale,” Virgil  
Thomson wrote in The New York Herald Tribune in 1954. “That scale is  
very close to four octaves, but is in no way inhuman or outlandish in  
sound.”

Her image was pleasantly jolting in what many saw as the staid 1950s.  
She wore long, heavy braids in her raven hair; traditional Indian  
costumes; lots of gold and silver jewelry; and exotic makeup. She  
spoke of jungle animals as musical influences.

The appeal persisted. Many were not surprised at how the Incan  
Princess became a venerable queen of camp, popping up decade after  
decade with her unsettling mix of strange sounds, folk roots and a  
vivacious stage personality. Fans ranged from aficionados of lounge  
music to rockers attracted by ethereal sounds to lovers of classic pop.

The Tampa Tribune in 1996 suggested that Ms. Sumac’s “tribalisms” were  
perfect for a “space-age bachelor pad.”

“It’s a South American travelogue scripted by Disney, directed by  
Dali,” the paper said.

The largest and most persistent fabrication about Ms. Sumac was that  
she was actually a housewife from Brooklyn named Amy Camus, her name  
spelled backward. The fact is that the government of Peru in 1946  
formally supported her claim to be descended from Atahualpa, the last  
Incan emperor.

But that was not enough for show business publicists. Her first  
American album, 1n 1950, on Capitol Records was called “Voice of the  
Xtabay”; the album’s liner notes said Xtabay refers to “the most  
elusive of all women,” describing her as “a virgin who might have  
consumed your nights with tender caresses now seems less than the dry  
leaves of winter.”

The hyperbole grew. The liner notes say 30,000 Indians rioted when  
their revered singer moved to Lima to pursue larger ambitions. The  
actual number of protesters, Ms. Sumac told Collier’s magazine, was  
one: her mother. “Mama seem like 30,000,” she said in her then-broken  
English.

The album quickly sold 500,000 copies, and was No. 1 on Variety’s best- 
seller list at the end of 1950, surpassing albums by Bing Crosby and  
Ethel Merman.

Ms. Sumac was born Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo in  
the Andes. Different towns are cited in different sources as her  
birthplace. Her father was part Spanish, her mother a full-blooded  
Incan.

Ms. Sumac was the last of six children. Incan descent is passed  
through the youngest child, on the theory that that child most  
benefits from the experience of others in the family, Fate magazine  
reported in 1951. She received no formal music lessons.

“The creatures of the forest taught me how to sing,” she said in an  
interview with Newsday in 1989. Her talent became known to Peru’s  
national government, which brought her to Lima to perform. She moved  
to the United States in 1946, and first played in places like a  
Greenwich Village delicatessen.

Ms. Sumac first used the name Imma Sumack, then shortened it to the  
spelling Capitol Records deemed more exotic. Her first breakthrough  
came with a successful concert in Hollywood Bowl. She soon played  
Carnegie Hall, flanked onstage by two miniature erupting volcanoes.

Ms. Sumac appeared in the Broadway musical “Flahooley” in 1951, and in  
several movies, including “Secret of the Incas” (1954) with Charlton  
Heston. Other albums included “Mambo” (1954) and “Fuego del  
Ande” (1959).

By the 1960s, with her popularity waning, she made a triumphant tour  
of the Soviet Union, where its leader, Nikita S. Khrushchev, was a  
fan, then toured in other parts of Europe and Asia. Her later work  
included a rock album, “Miracles,” in 1971, and a 2005 anthology,  
“Queen of Exotica.”

She twice married and divorced the Peruvian composer and bandleader  
Moisés Vivanco. She is survived by their son, Charles, and her three  
sisters.

In 1957, Brooklyn made Yma Sumac — not Amy Camus — an honorary citizen  
of the borough. The response of the exalted Virgin of the Sun God:  
“Must all talent come from Brooklyn?”