Welcome to the Tiki Central 2.0 Beta. Read the announcement
Celebrating classic and modern Polynesian Pop

Tiki Central / General Tiki

r.i.p.yma

Pages: 1 18 replies

M

A unique, classic/classy & stylish Lady with few peers.
RIP, Ms. Sumac

JB

I just heard a report on KPCC. Very sad.

J

wow.... thanks for the post! wouldn't have known.
Love this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LUSUel_kck&feature=related
this is good too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhUBJZdL8BY&feature=related
RIP Yma Sumac.

[ Edited by: jpmartdog 2008-11-03 17:29 ]

bummer deal

:(

T
twitch posted on Mon, Nov 3, 2008 9:48 PM

Just heard about it now from a friend.... very sad...

Her music will keep her with us always.

S

The last of the legendary exotica/lounge/space age " stars " ( Baxter , Denny , Lyman , Esquivel , etc ) has gone . May her 5 octave voice grace the ears of the folks wherever she is now . Love ya Yma !

Bummer.

Yma Sumac recorded an extraordinarily wide vocal range of more than four octaves, from B2 to C♯7 (approximately 123 to 2270 Hz). She was able to sing notes in the low baritone register as well as notes above the range of an ordinary soprano. Both low and high extremes can be heard in the song Chuncho (The Forest Creatures) (1950).

RH

A seriously dark bummer....

D

Wow. One of the most unique vocalists from that time. Glad I got to meet her at Hukilau a few years ago. I got her to sign my 'Xtabay' and 'Mambo' albums.

I have been so down about this.
I too treasure that I got to meet her (and that she heard me sing!).

There were photos of the two of us together, but i don't seem to have any! If you know where some are, please send them to me or direct me to them.
Pleeez!
Yma Wannabekahini

TT

What a great talent! She'll be missed.

Loved her.

wasn't she ancient?

C
Chrisc posted on Fri, Nov 7, 2008 1:58 PM

I'm much saddened...

I came to Tiki through Yma's music, and I have all her albums.
We raised a toast to her the other night at the Oxford Talking Stick pagan moot!

Gone but not forgotten.

T
TikiG posted on Fri, Nov 7, 2008 2:45 PM

Sad.

I prayed last Monday when I found out about her death.
Her soul sings on in all of us.

Wanna hear what happened (to me) last Saturday afternoon - the day she passed? Kinda cool and freaky at the same time. Read on.

I was doing my thrift store rounds in the valley looking for Poly Pop stuff. My last stop provided the best haul of the afternoon. This last stop yielded several aloha & tiki shirts, a wood Maori tiki carving, swag lamp, a book on oceanic art and something very special. I found in a wooden box under the record album table the Yma Sumac "Voice of the Xtabay" album, not the single 12" LP record but the 10" 78 RPM set of several 78s plus the album w/paper record pockets! All in great shape..I was absolutely floored because you just don't see Yma Sumac records everyday! I paid a dollar for the set! Talk about being f'king lucky..if you are lucky enough to score this set and have a decent turntable that plays 78 RPM records you know what I mean when I say the fidelity of a clean 78 record is AWESOME! WOW!

Thinking back to last Saturday I now realize I was probably playing her music in my home as she slipped away from our Earthly realm to the Heavenly realm, and just a few miles away in Hollywood. God Bless you Yma for hours of timeless entertainment.

D

The fact that she passed on All Saints Day was quite insteresting. Yma, you will be missed, but your music will continue to grace us for ever.

I

The following is an excerpt from Camille Paglia's column on salon.com. This is the first time I've read about someone actually see Yma perform in the early 50's.


"On the culture front, I was startled to read of the death last week of Yma Sumac, the virtuoso five-octave Peruvian singer who seems like a legendary figure of the misty past. Sumac's 1950 debut album, "Voice of the Xtabay," made a tremendous impact on me as a child. My family attended her performance (with her company of 20 artists) at the Binghamton Theatre in what was probably 1951. I still have the yellowed clippings and program, which lists songs eerily mimicking the sound of the Andean winds and earthquakes. The cover image of "Voice of the Xtabay" with a glamorous Sumac in the pose of a prophesying priestess against a background of fierce sculptures and an erupting volcano, contains the entire pagan worldview and nature cult of what would become my first book, "Sexual Personae," published 40 years later. Thank you, Yma!"

Pages: 1 18 replies