Eliseo Grenet
Encyclopedia
Cubans
Cubans or Cuban people are the inhabitants or citizens of Cuba. Cuba is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...
pianist and a leading composer/arranger of the day. He composed music for stage shows and films, and some famous Cuban dance music. Eliseo was one of three musical brothers, all composers, the others being Emilio (Neno', 1901–1941) and Ernesto (1908–1981). Emilio went on composing even after having an arm and a leg bitten off by a shark
Shark attack
A shark attack is an attack on a human by a shark. Every year around 60 shark attacks are reported worldwide, although death is quite unusual. Despite the relative rarity of shark attacks, the fear of sharks is a common phenomenon, having been fueled by the occasional instances of serial attacks,...
in 1930; Ernesto was a drummer who became leader of the Tropicana's
Tropicana Club
Tropicana is a world known cabaret and club in Havana, Cuba. It was launched in 1939 at Villa Mina, a six-acre suburban estate with lush tropical gardens in Havana's Marianao neighborhood.-Influence:...
orchestra.
Life & work
Eliseo studied music under Mercedes Valenzuela and Leandro Simón Guergué, the father of Moisés SimonsMoisés Simons
Moisés Simons , 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...
. In 1905 he played piano in the silent film theatre La Caricatura, and in 1909 directed the orchestra of the Politeama Habanero theatre, which mostly showed zarzuela
Zarzuela
Zarzuela is a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating operatic and popular song, as well as dance...
s. Later he joined the company of Regino López at the Teatro Cubano.
In 1925 Grenet founded a jazz band which played in the cabaret Montmatre and the Jockey Club. The line-up included Grenet (piano); Manolo Castro (alto sax); José Ramón Betancourt (tenor sax); Pedro Mercado (trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
); Jorge Bolet (piano sub); Enrique Santiesteban (percussion and singer). In 1927 came the premiere of the zarzuela La Niña Rita, o La Habana de 1830 at the Teatro Regina, with music by Grenet and Ernesto Lecuona
Ernesto Lecuona
Ernesto Lecuona y Casado was a Cuban composer and pianist of Canarian father and Cuban mother, and worldwide fame. He composed over six hundred pieces, mostly in the Cuban vein, and was a pianist of exceptional quality....
. In this zarzuela, Grenet's number, the tango-congo Ay, Mamá Inéz, became a huge hit, and remains popular today and is often heard at wedding receptions. Its origins lie in a comparsa
Comparsa
A comparsa is the band which plays a conga during a Latin American Carnival celebration. It consists of a large group of dancers dancing and traveling on the streets, followed by a Carrosa where the musicians play...
number of 1868, and in its new guise became one of the signature numbers for the vedette Rita Montaner
Rita Montaner
Rita Montaner, born Rita Aurelia Fulcida Montaner y Facenda , was a Cuban singer, pianist, actress and star of stage, film, radio and television. In Cuban parlance, she was a vedette , and she was well known in Mexico City, Paris, Miami and New York, where she performed, filmed and recorded on...
. In 1930 he set a number of Nicolas Guillén
Nicolás Guillén
Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista was a Cuban poet, journalist, political activist, and writer. He is best remembered as the national poet of Cuba.Guillén was born in Camagüey, Cuba...
's poems Motivos del son to music.
Grenet left Cuba in 1932 after falling foul of some of Gerardo Machado
Gerardo Machado
Gerardo Machado y Morales was President of Cuba and a general of the Cuban War of Independence...
's henchmen, for the lyric of his Lamento cubano, which had the line:
- Ay Cuba hermosa, primorosa, por qué sufres hoy tantos quebrantos? (Beautiful Cuba, why do you suffer such troubles [disruption] today?)
He returned after Machado was forced out of office. Whilst abroad in Spain he directed the orchestra for the operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
La virgen morena, in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
. Next, in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, he directed the same work. In Paris, too, he played piano at La Cueva
La Cueva
La Cueva is a town in the Sánchez Ramírez province of the Dominican Republic.- Sources :* – World-Gazetteer.com...
, the nightclub he partly owned, in the resident band of Julio Cueva
Julio Cueva
Julio Cueva was a Cuban trumpeter, composer and band leader. He was an important figure in the spread of Cuban popular music in the 1930s.- Life and career :...
. There he joined his brother Ernesto, who played percussion. It was here that playing La comparsa de los congos, that he realized the potential of this carnival rhythm. It has been said that he introduced the conga
Conga (music)
Conga music is a style of Cuban music used to dance Conga. The most known Conga song is "Conga" of Gloria Estefan.-Parodies:*In Sesame Street, this type of music is titled "The Monster Clubhouse Conga" where the purple monster with pigtails named Googel, green monster Phoebe and blue monster Mel...
to America, and this may or may not be true. The Lecuona Cuban Boys
Lecuona Cuban Boys
The Lecuona Cuban Boys was a popular Cuban orchestra which toured the world for over forty years.The band was founded by Ernesto Lecuona, whose role was that of a patron-entrepreneur. He did not actually play with the band, but sometimes gave a piano recital before the band played. The core of the...
, a touring band, were writing and playing congas at the same time.
In 1936 he founded the night-club El Yumurí, on Broadway
Broadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...
and 52nd St
52nd Street (Manhattan)
52nd Street is a long one-way street traveling west to east across Midtown Manhattan.-Jazz center:The blocks of 52nd Street between Fifth Avenue and Seventh Avenue were renowned in the mid-20th century for the abundance of jazz clubs and lively street life...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. This which featured a local Puerto Rican group led by Pedro Flores
Pedro Flores (composer)
Pedro Flores born was one Puerto Rico's best known composers of Ballads and Boleros.-Early years:Flores was one of 12 children born into a poor family in the town of Naguabo, Puerto Rico. Flores' father died when he was only nine years old and therefore, he was forced to work at a young age...
, and a cabaret. In 1938 Grenet presented the review La Conga in his club, and later put on a spectacular at the Teatro Hispano in New York, with the leading Cuban singer Panchito Riset (Havana, 21 October 1911–New York, 8 August 1988).
Summary of main compositions
Grenet wrote, arranged and sometimes directed music for a number of musical stage shows and films, and recorded for Columbia RecordsColumbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
and Brunswick Records
Brunswick Records
Brunswick Records is a United States based record label. The label is currently distributed by E1 Entertainment.-From 1916:Records under the "Brunswick" label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company...
. Overall, his style and influence was part of the afrocubanismo
Afrocubanismo
Afrocubanismo: the movement in black-themed Cuban culture with origins in the 1920s, as in works by the cultural anthropologist Fernando Ortiz. The movement marks the time, between the two world wars, when white intellectuals in Cuba acknowledged openly the significance of African culture in Cuba....
movement between the two world wars.
Film music
He wrote film music for La Princesa Tam-tam, starring Josephine BakerJosephine Baker
Josephine Baker was an American dancer, singer, and actress who found fame in her adopted homeland of France. She was given such nicknames as the "Bronze Venus", the "Black Pearl", and the "Créole Goddess"....
(Paris); Escandolo de estrellas, Conga bar and Estampeas coloniales featuring Miguelito Valdés
Miguelito Valdés
Miguelito Valdés, born Miguel Ángel Eugenio Lázaro Zacarias Izquierdo Valdés Hernández , also called Mr. Babalú, was a Cuban popular singer of high quality...
, (México City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
); Milonga de arrabal, (Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
); Noches cubanas, (New York); and Susana tiene un secreto, (Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
).