HMR Project: History of Music & Modern Recording

Rita Montaner

Latin Music/Recording: The Caribbean: Rita Montaner

Rita Montaner

Born Rita Aurelia Fulcida Montaner y Facenda on 20 August 1900 in Guanabacoa, Cuba, spicy actress, pianist and vocalist, Rita Montaner, had a pharmacist for a father who sent her at age ten to study music at the Peyrellade Conservatory in Havana, from which she graduated with a gold medal. Montaner was both an opera and cabaret singer, as well as a recording, radio, theatre, film and television star. She largely put Cuba on the international map of music as she assumed roles in numerous Mexican films.

Montaner began her professional career in 1922, and is said to have sung on Cuba's first radio broadcast in October that year. Her initial recordings were made in March 1923 for Victor, in matrix order: 'Amar, eso es todo', 'Por tus ojos', 'Presentimiento', 'Linda cubana', and 'Vivir sin tus caricias'. Her debut recordings were made with Eusebio Delfin who also made his first tracks that day (three solos).

'Amar, eso es todo' ('Love, That's All') Cuban bolero by Rita Montaner w Eusebio Delfin

Recorded 15 March 1923 in Havana Victor 73879 B

Composition by Eusebio Delfin

Montaner pursued opera and toured internationally until she began working in theatre, her style transforming about that time. She began recording for Columbia in 1927. The three largest recording companies in the world during at that time were RCA Victor, Columbia and Decca.

'Ay, Mamá Inés!' Rita Montaner

Recorded 1927 in Havana Columbia 2926-X

Composition: Antonio Castells / Aurelio Rianchon / Eliseo Grenet / Ernesto Lecuona

'El Manisero' ('The Peanut Vendor') Rita Montaner

Recorded Nov 1927 in Havana Columbia 2965-X

Composition by Moisés Simons

'Negrita' Danza by Rita Montaner

Recorded Aug 1928 in NYC Matrix W96680 Columbia 3226-X

Composition by Ernesto Lecuona

'Jurame' Song for tango by Rita Montaner

Recorded 23 Jan 1927 in Havana Matrix W96681 Columbia 3226-X

Composition by María Grever

In 1929 Montaner went to Paris to work with Josephine Baker, her style to further transform of that experience. She continued recording for Columbia and further toured Europe until returning to the States in 1930. In 1931 she joined Al Jolson on a road tour of the musical, 'Wonder Bar'. Montaner often returned to Cuba to perform, also traveling to Mexico City in 1933. The next year she began appearing in films, also emphasizing radio into the forties.

'El Manisero' ('The Peanut Vendor') Rita Montaner Film: 'Romance del Palmar' 1938

Composition by Moisés Simons

In 1946 Montaner began working at the Tropicana nightclub in Habana for the next four years. The Tropicana had first opened as a theatre and restaurant in 1939, closed during World War II, being dependent on tourism, then reopened in 1945. Montaner had married four times and had a couple of sons from her second marriage to lawyer, Alberto Fernández Díaz, until his death in 1932. She was yet actively pursuing her career when she herself died on 17 April 1958 in Habana, several years into Castro's Cuban Revolution.

Sources & References:

edwom (Last.fm)

Robin Moore (Nationalizing Blackness / University of Pittsburgh Press 1997)

VF History (notes)

Catalogues:

Filmographies:

Sessionographies: DAHR

Wonder Bar Road Tour (1931-32): Claire Windsor