Saturday, June 17, 2006

Yma Sumac


Good god, why has no one ever told me about this woman?

Bought her Mambo! on a whim yesterday, and can't stop playing it. Sorta goofy and beautiful all at once -- my favorite combination. And what a range, navigated with such ease! I would say she was the proto-Bjork (listen to "Five Bottles of Mambo," f'r'instance). In any case, she's anything but "easy listening" (though she usually gets classified that way).

I shouldn't talk about her in the past tense, of course, cuz she's still alive. For the record, though, her heyday was the 50s. Such a repressive time, such interesting music. Wonder if they'll say the same about this decade... anyway, I digress.

Also picked up a bunch of DVDs for Thandie: concerts by Etta James (talk about great art, check out her "I'd Rather Be Blind"), George Clinton (at Montreaux, of all places), Bob Marley, The Buena Vista Social Club documentary (hell, she loved the one about Howlin' Wolf, so I figured why not?), the original Batman movie (that's right, the cheesy one -- Yo Ho!), and The Wiz (say what you will about this Sidney Lumet / Diana Ross / Nipsy Russell / Michael Jackson weird-fest, it's still much hipper than the 1939 Judy Garland film).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Indeed! I came across Yma a few years ago during a satisfying journey into "Ultra Lounge" -- the folks that Capitol put together a helluva set when I came upon, and Yma was featured prominently. I ended up using parts of Gopher Mambo for a sound design I was doing at the time...

As far as the movie go, the original Batman is a GIGANTIC hit in our house, as is the original Wonka movie. (The Wonka remake was accepted, but not adored as the first.)

Kris Tiner said...

Goomba Boomba! looks like Jill's got her work cut out for her now... really nice arrangements too...