Merceditas Valdés
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Merceditas Valdés
Mercedes Valdés Granit (September 24, 1922 – June 13, 1996), better known as Merceditas Valdés, was a Cuban singer who specialized in Afro-Cuban traditional music. Under the aegis of ethnomusicologists Fernando Ortiz and Obdulio Morales, Valdés helped popularize Afro-Cuban music throughout Latin America. In 1949, she became one of the first female Santería singers to be recorded. Her debut album was released at the start of the 1960s, when the Cuban government nationalized the record industry. She then went on hiatus before making a comeback in the 1980s with a series of albums entitled ''Aché'', in collaboration with artists such as Frank Emilio Flynn and rumba ensemble Yoruba Andabo. She also appeared in Jane Bunnett's '' Spirits of Havana'' and continued performing until her death in 1996. Life and career Early life Valdés was born in Cayo Hueso, Centro Habana, on September 24 ('' Día de las Mercedes''), 1922. Her father was Ángel Valdés, known as Angelito "El ...
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Havana
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Cuba
''The World Factbook''. Central Intelligence Agency.
The city has a population of 2.3million inhabitants, and it spans a total of – making it the largest city by area, the most populous city, and the List of metropolitan areas in the West Indies, fourth largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean region. The city of Havana was founded by the Spanish Empire, Spanish in the 16th century, it served as a springboard for the Spanish colonization of the Americas, Spanish conquest of the Americas becoming a stopping point for Spanish galleons returning to Spain. ...
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Centro Habana
Centro Habana is one of the 15 municipalities or boroughs (''municipio''s in Spanish) in the city of Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.
, Cuba. There are many retail spaces (such as ''Plaza de Carlos III'' commercial center, office buildings, hotels, bars and clubs (such as the ''Casa de la Musica'' on Galliano). A chinatown - ''Barrio Chino'' - is also located in this district. It is a smaller municipality of Havana, and it has the highest population density. Centro Habana is divided into five ''consejos populares'' (wards): Cayo Hueso, Havana, Cayo Hueso, Colón, Havana, Colón, Dragones, Havana, Dragones, Los Sitios and Pueblo Nuevo, Havana, Pueblo Nuevo.


History

The infrastructure of the city, built 450 years ago, heavil ...
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Ernesto Lecuona
Ernesto Lecuona y Casado (; August 7, 1896 – November 29, 1963) was a Cuban composer and pianist, many of whose works have become standards of the Latin, jazz and classical repertoires. His over 600 compositions include songs and zarzuelas as well as pieces for piano and symphonic orchestra. In the 1930s, he helped establish a popular band, the Lecuona Cuban Boys, which showcased some of his most successful pieces and was later taken over by Armando Oréfiche. In the 1950s, Lecuona recorded several LPs, including solo piano albums for RCA Victor. He moved to the United States after the Cuban Revolution and died in Spain in 1963. Early years Lecuona was born in Guanabacoa, Havana, Cuba, Kingdom of Spain, to a Cuban mother and a Canarian father. There are inconsistencies surrounding his birthdate, with some sources indicating the year 1895, and others still giving the day as August 6. He started studying piano at the age of five, under the tuition of his sister Ernestin ...
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New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global cultural, financial, entertainment, and media center with a significant influence on commerce, health care and life sciences, research, technology, educa ...
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Celia Cruz
Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso (21 October 1925 – 16 July 2003), known as Celia Cruz, was a naturalized Cuban-American singer and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century. Cruz rose to fame in Cuba during the 1950s as a singer of guarachas, earning the nickname "La Guarachera de Cuba". In the following decades, she became known internationally as the " Queen of Salsa" due to her contributions to Latin music. She began her career in her native Cuba, earning recognition as a vocalist of the popular musical group Sonora Matancera, a musical association that lasted fifteen years (1950-1965). Cruz mastered a wide variety of Afro-Cuban music styles including guaracha, rumba, afro, son and bolero, recording numerous singles in these styles for Seeco Records. In 1960, after the Cuban Revolution caused the nationalization of the music industry, Cruz left her native country, becoming one of the symbols and spokespersons of the Cuban community in ...
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CMQ (Cuba)
CMQ was a Cuban radio and television station located in Havana, Cuba, reaching an audience in the 1940s and 1950s, attracting viewers and listeners with a program that ranged from music and news dissemination. It later expanded into radio and television networks. As a radio network it was a heated competitor of the RHC-Cadena Azul network. Founding The company was founded on March 12, 1933, by Miguel Gabriel and Ángel Cambó. Ten years later, on August 1, 1943, half of it was acquired by the business group of Goar Mestre. In the beginning, it transmitted only in the capital expanding later to the rest of the country. Pre-revolutionary Cuba was an early adopter of new technology, including TV. Cuba was the first Latin American country to have television. In December 1946, station CM-21P conducted an experimental multi-point live broadcast. Regular commercial broadcasting began in October 1950 with Gaspar Pumarejo's Unión Radio TV. This was followed by Goar Mestre Espinosa's CMQ ...
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Billboard (magazine)
''Billboard'' (stylized as ''billboard'') is an American music and entertainment magazine published weekly by Penske Media Corporation. The magazine provides music charts, news, video, opinion, reviews, events, and style related to the music industry. Its music charts include the Hot 100, the 200, and the Global 200, tracking the most popular albums and songs in different genres of music. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm, and operates several TV shows. ''Billboard'' was founded in 1894 by William Donaldson and James Hennegan as a trade publication for bill posters. Donaldson later acquired Hennegan's interest in 1900 for $500. In the early years of the 20th century, it covered the entertainment industry, such as circuses, fairs, and burlesque shows, and also created a mail service for travelling entertainers. ''Billboard'' began focusing more on the music industry as the jukebox, phonograph, and radio became commonplace. Many topics it covered were spun-off int ...
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Yoruba Culture
Distinctive cultural norms prevail in Yorubaland and among the Yoruba people.Kola Abimbola, Yoruba Culture: ''A Philosophical Account'', Iroko Academic Publishers, 2005. Art Sculpture The Yoruba are said to be prolific sculptors, famous for their terra cotta works throughout the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries; artists have also shown the capacity to make artwork out of bronze. Esiẹ Museum is a museum in Esiẹ ;a neighbouring town to Oro in Irepodun, Kwara. The museum was the first to be established in Nigeria when it opened in 1945. It once housed over a thousand tombstone figures or images representing human beings. It is reputed to have the largest collection of soapstone images in the world. In modern times, the Esie museum has been the center of religious activities and host a festival in the month of April every year. Textile Weaving is done on different types of looms in order to create hundreds of different patterns. Adire and Aso Oke are some of the popular t ...
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Afrocubanismo
Afrocubanismo was an artistic and social movement in black-themed Cuban culture with origins in the 1920s, as in works by the cultural anthropologist Fernando Ortiz. The Afrocubanismo movement focused on establishing the legitimacy of black identity in Cuban society, culture, and art. The movement developed in the interwar period when white intellectuals in Cuba acknowledged openly the significance of African culture in Cuba.Carpentier, Alejo 2001 946 Year 946 ( CMXLVI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Summer – King Otto I invades the West Frankish Kingdom with an expeditionary forc ... ''Music in Cuba'', edited and with an introduction by Timothy Brennan, translated by Alan West-Durán. Cultural Studies of the Americas 5 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). (hardcover); (pbk.) First published as ''La música en cuba'' (México: Fondo de Cultura Económic ...
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Margarita Lecuona
Margarita Lecuona (1910–1981) was a Cuban singer and composer who is remembered for composing Afro songs such as "Babalú" and "Tabú". Biography Born in Havana on 18 April 1910, Lecuona was the daughter of Eugenio Lecuona, the Cuban consul in New York. She attended the Colegio Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes and the Colegio Sepúlveda in Havana before embarking on her secondary education at the Instituto de La Habana which she left after her first two years. She studied singing under Julia Lucignani and the piano under Eulalia Santana before attending the Escuela de Guitarra de Pro-Arte Musical to study the guitar under Clara Romero de Nicola. She studied dance at the Escuela de Ballet under the ballet master Nikolai Yavorsky, performing in a number of his works. In 1930, while still studying, she wrote "Soñadora" which she sang playing the guitar. After performing in a number of stage productions, in 1942, she first created a duo with Olga Luque and then a group called the ...
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