Moisés Simons

Moisés Simons

Moisés Simons (Moisés Simón Rodríguez, Havana, 24 August 1889 – Madrid, 24 June 1945), was a leading Cuban composer, pianist and orchestra leader. He was the composer of the Peanut Vendor, possibly the most famous piece of music created by a Cuban musician.^[1] The Peanut Vendor (original title: El manisero) has been recorded more than 160 times.^[2]

Biography

Early years

The son of a Basque musician, he started studying music with his father, Leandro Simón Guergué. By nine, he was the organist at his local church in the barrio of Jesús María, and choirmaster of the Pilar church. At fifteen, he undertook advanced studies on composition, harmony, counterpoint, fugue and instrumentation, under various maestros.

Career

Later, he became a concert pianist and musical director of lyric theatre companies. He worked at the Teatro Martí, where they put on musical comedies by Ernesto Lecuona. Then he moved to the Teatro Peyret under contract to the Spanish composer Vicente Lleó, who directed a zarzuela company. With them he toured México, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Central America.

In 1924, Simons founded a jazz band which played on the roof garden of the Plaza Hotel in Havana. It consisted of piano, violin, two saxes, banjo, double bass, drums and timbales. As well as Simons (piano), its members included Virgilio Diego (violin); Alberto Socarrás (alto sax, flute); José Ramón Betancourt (tenor sax); Pablo O'Farrill (d. bass). In 1928, still at the same venue, Simons hired Julio Cueva, a famous trumpeter, and Enrique Santiesteban, a future media star, as vocalist and drummer. These were top instrumentalists, attracted by top fees of $8 a day.^[3]

Simons did research into the history of Cuban music, and published in newspapers and magazines. He wrote the scores for stages shows and several films. He was President of the Association of Musical Solidarity and the technical director of the Society of Wind Orchestras (Orquesta típicas).

As a composer he was renowned even in that great era between the two World Wars, when Alejandro García Caturla, Amadeo Roldan, Ernesto Lecuona, Eliseo Grenet, Gonzalo Roig, Rodrigo Prats and Jorge Anckermann were working. It was the era of afrocubanismo, when at last the contribution of the black people to Cuban culture was recognised and celebrated.

Later years

Simons was in France, mostly Paris, for much of the 1930s, and was still there when World War II broke out. He was finally able to get out and return to Cuba in 1942. Soon he was off again to Tenerife and then Madrid, where he signed a contract to provide music for the film Bambú. The film included his last composition, Hoy como ayer (Today like yesterday). He died in Madrid in 1945.

El manisero

The fame of El manisero (Peanut Vendor) led to Simons' own worldwide recognition. It sold over a million copies of sheet music for E.B. Marks Inc., and this netted $100,000 in royalties for Simons by 1943.^[4][5] Its success led to a 'rumba craze' in the US and Europe which lasted until the 1940s. The consequences of the Peanut Vendor's success was thus quite far-reaching.

The number was first sung and recorded by the vedette Rita Montaner in 1927 or 1928 for Columbia Records.^[6] The biggest record sales for El manisero came from the recording made by Don Azpiazú and his Havana Casino Orchestra in New York in 1930 for Victor Records. The band included a number of star musicians such as Julio Cueva (trumpet) and Mario Bauza (saxophone); Antonio Machín was the singer.^[5] There seems to be no authoritative account of the number of 78rpm records of this recording sold by Victor; but it seems likely that the number would have exceeded the sheet music sales, making it the first million-selling record of Cuban (or even Latin) music.^[7]

The lyrics were based on a street vendors' cry, a pregón; and the rhythm was a son, so technically this was a son-pregón. On the record label, however, it was called a rhumba, not only the wrong genre, but mis-spelled as well.^[8] On the published score both music and lyrics are attributed to Simons, though there is a persistent story that they were written by Gonzalo G. de Mello in Havana the night before Montaner was due to record it in New York. Cristóbal Díaz says "For various reasons, we have doubts about this version... El manisero was one of those rare cases in popular music where an author got immediate and substantial financial benefits... logically Mello would have tried to reclaim his authorship of the lyrics, but that did not occur." ^[9] The second attack on the authorship of the lyrics came from none other than the great Fernando Ortíz. For Ortíz, the true author was an unknown Havana peanut seller, of the second half of the 19th century, who served as the basis for a danza written by Gottschalk.^[10] Of course, it may well be that elements of the song were to be found in real life. The English version is by Gilbert and Sunshine; the latter was Azpizú's sister-in-law, who toured with the band in the U.S.A. as singer. The English lyrics are, in the opinion of Sublette, of almost unsurpassed banality.^[5]

The Peanut Vendor had a second life as a hit number when Stan Kenton recorded it with his big band for Capitol Records, in 1947. This was also a great and long-lasting hit, re-recorded by Kenton twice with the band, and played by him later in life as a piano solo. The Kenton version was entirely instrumental, with the rhythmic pattern emphasised by trombones.

Several films included versions of El manisero. It appeared in The Cuban Song by MGM, with Ernesto Lecuona as musical advisor; Judy Garland sung a fragment in the film A Star is Born.

Other works

Simons' musical compositions include lyric theatre scores for the following operettas or zarzuelas: Deuda de amor; La negra Quirina; Le chant des tropiques; Niña Mercé; Toi c'est moi, several of which were premiered in Paris during the 1930s. The operetta Toi c'est moi, written with Henri Duvernois, a popular French novelist, and starring Simone Simon, was opened at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in October 1934. The work consisted of a series of extremely varied numbers, punctuated by humorous scenes. Carpentier praises Simons' good taste and technical accomplishment, and says this is by far the peak of his creative career.^[11]

Individual pieces of note include: Cubanacan, Los tres golpes, Así es mi patria, Chivo que rompe tambó, La trompetilla, Paso ñáñigo, Serenata cubana, Vacúnala, Marta, Hoy como ayer, Danzas cubanas, Rumba guajira.

References

1. ^ Giro, Radamés 2007. Diccionario enciclopédico de la música en Cuba. La Habana. vol 4, p147
2. ^ Listed in Díaz Ayala, Cristóbal 1988. Si te quieres por el pico divertir: historia del pregón musical latinoamericano. Cubanacan, San Juan P.R. p317–322. [list fairly complete up to 1988]
3. ^ Acosta, Leonardo 2003. Cubano be, cubano bop: one hundred years of jazz in Cuba. p28
4. ^ Simons' own account: see Díaz Ayala, Cristóbal 1988. Si te quieres por el pico divertir: historia del pregón musical latinoamericano. Cubanacan, San Juan P.R. p238
5. ^ ^{a b c} Sublette, Ned 2004. Cuba and its music: from the first drums to the mambo. Chicago. Chapter 27 The Peanut Vendor.
6. ^ Probably the latter date: the issue cannot be resolved from surviving records. Díaz Ayala, Cristóbal 1988. Si te quieres por el pico divertir: historia del pregón musical latinoamericano. Cubanacan, San Juan P.R. p235
7. ^ Helio Orovio, in Cuban music from A to Z (2004 translation, p36, top) describes it as "selling a million copies for the RCA Victor label"; Don Azpiazú's son Raul suggested it sold 5–10 million copies: liner notes to Harlequin HQ CD 10 Don Azpiazu. However, this is not definitive, and the text is more reserved.
8. ^ perhaps to represent the Spanish pronunciation of 'u'.
9. ^ Díaz Ayala, Cristóbal 1988. Si te quieres por el pico divertir: historia del pregón musical latinoamericano. Cubanacan, San Juan P.R. p238 [rough transl. by contributor]
10. ^ Ortiz, Fernando 1954. In Revista Bohemia, March 14.
11. ^ Carpentier, Alejo 1934. Moisés Simons el los Bufos Parisienses. Carteles, La Habana, 23 December 1934.

Persondata
Name	Simons, Moises
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	24 August 1889
Place of birth
Date of death	24 June 1945
Place of death