Customer Reviews

Voice of the Xtabay

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

How ever did this exciting and exotic album see the light of day during the 50's? (You know, the era of Perry Como, Patty Paige, Dean Martin...all the sloopy, stringy-swoopy sounds of big orchestral pop hits with smooth crooning vocalists.) But this recording somehow caught the imagination of the times, perhaps as a crossover during a Latin music fad. However it came about, this CD has some of the most unusual and enjoyable songs. It's still in print--so it's gone from hit to cult.

Supposedly Yma Sumac is the daughter of the last remaining Inca King and was abducted by anthropologists, seduced by her five-octave range and incredible bird-like trills. As they fled down the mountains of the Andes with their prize, they were pursued by wildly angry natives, distraught over the loss of their Princess-Songbird (picture all this in black and white, like a B-grade movie.) Or, as some would have it, she's really Amy Camus, (Yma Sumac spelled backwards) a Jewish gal from Brooklyn with a fantastic schtick and a great voice. She is supposed to have written 5,000 songs and can sing coloratura opera. Her concerts still were selling out in the 80's, though she really was a 50's phenomenon.

What to believe? Is she Amy Camus of Brooklyn, or Yma Sumac, neé Zoila Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo of Peru? Well, I like fairy stories, so Yma Sumac is an Inca princess, and these are genuine songs of the lost people of the high Andes. Whatever...

I love this album. Not a bad track on it! This cd contains 2 complete 10" original lps from 1950 and 1953 respectively, Voice of the Xtabay and Inca Taqui. The highest note from a human voice can be heard on Chuncho (The Forest Creatures). High Andes! is a magnificent majestic piece of music so far ahead of it's time it's not true! The songs on this album are like cinema music for the mind...you hear the most spiritual profound sounds that have such incredible vibrancy and color...the range of the voice is unheard of, the music itself is masterful (from Moises Vivanco), and there is a reason why this album has never gone out of print in over 50 years! Buy it and hear for yourself what makes Yma so special!It's truly one of the best albums -ever-!!

This album is incredible. I am 15 years old, and a massive fan of hip-hop, RnB and pop, and yet this unusual indescribable album is incredible and I love it! The music and that stunning voice is completely in a league of its own. The songs are incredible; a heady mix of mambos, salsas and sambas along with steady and engaging beats. The voice itself has the 'stop you in your tracks to listen' effect as it is mesmerising and incredible; it truly has to be heard to be believed. The best song, by far in my opinion, is the incredible 'Chuncho'. The range, technique and beat in this song is unique; out-standing. This album is a musical and vocal masterpiece.

you'll ever hear. I've owned this on vinyl since the late sixties, and I've never grown tired of it. I don't know the answer to the controversy over whether she is a Peruvian princess, or a home grown lady named Amy Camus... and frankly, I don't care. Yma's vocal chords must be one of the seven wonders of the world. It ranges all over the map, from super high down to sub-contralto depths with everything in between. If I remember correctly, she's still singing and still beautiful... though I can't vouch for the accuracy of that claim personally.

I can add little here to what the other reviewers have written. Xtabay is a gorgeous number, reminiscent of the winds blowing through the mighty peaks of the Andes. Monos is amusing, as is Andean Don Juan, which has a really catchy beat to dance to. Then, there is Chuncho- a one woman display of the varied and weird sounds of rain forest animals all doing their best to out-sing one another. As one of the other reviewers said, you'll hear one of the highest notes a human ever put to disk. But there's far more to it than that- this high note is part of a series of incredible trills and runs, which covers about 5 octaves. It literally has to be heard to be believed. All this goes onward insanely to another catchy beat. If you like unusual music and a rather strange mixing of styles (Yma sounds everything here from operatic to country to Peruvian to several things I can't describe!), then this is a wonderful album to have.

This album proved such a runaway bestseller, Capitol kept reissuing it dizzingly through its first year. First it was a 78 r.p.m. set, then a 45 r.p.m set, then a 45 r.p.m. EP set (two songs to a side). The cover went through some changes, the back cover from black and white to color and on and on. Yma Sumac, meanwhile, was dizzingly racing from soldout engagement to soldout engagement with her strange, haunting, but-what-in-heaven's-name does it mean? music. This album still can shake the earth. Les Baxter's arrangements are the best ever done for her (it was the only album he arranged for her, I believe). The real story behind Yma Sumac and Capitol Records' brilliant marketing strategy for her will be told one day but someone I'm sure, but for now it's Yma's to tell and she isn't. She was here in Chicago some years back, nearly wore out her young band in rehearsals, sold out nightly, gave a fabulous show and was very funny to boot. She still looks beautiful, too. She also, believe it or not, did a Letterman appearance and knocked him out.

The range of this singer's voice is truly incredible - one moment she sounds like a twittering nightingale as her voice quivers along the highest of the high notes, the next it's down to the ground in a rumbling thunderstorm or shuddering earthquake. There's nothing quite like it. Some info on Yma can be found in the Re/Search publication Incredibly Strange Music by V Vale & Andrea Juno, available here on amazon.com. I recommend this album to all who are interested in the exotic, like world music or the equally strange sounds of Meredith Monk.

Yma Sumac is possibly the greatest female vocalist of the 20th Century. If you like female vocal music and/or virtuosity, you do yourself a great disservice by not listening to Voice of the Xtabay.

In 1960, as a youth, I "discovered" this record in the Kansas City library files, tucked away in the historical files. After hearing it, I was an instant fan and recorded the record. Recording, in those days, was on reel-to-reel that does not compare favorably with today's sounds.

I am delighted to find this remarkable work available on CD. If you admire an extraordinary voice, give yourself the unforgetable pleasure of listening to the entire volume.

My parents had both of the 10" records that were eventually combined on one LP, available now as a CD. The music caught my ear as a child, and then I rediscovered it as a young man, when experiments with pot and psychedelic drugs lead to this music being in heavy rotation on my turntable. But you don't need chemical augmentation to enjoy this incredible stuff, just an adventurous spirit; there is nothing else like either the music of Yma Sumac, or her voice, and few have bothered to imitate her (it's impossible, anyway; with the help of Les Baxter, Bas Sheva tried and failed). What, exactly, IS this music? Is it exotica? Opera? Avant-Garde? Latin Dance Music? The answer is "all of the above," and then some ... it harkens back to primitive times and anticipates acid rock. It would be at home in a tiki lounge, yet not be out of place on club dance floor. Check out a lounge/remix album called (what else?) ELECTRO LOUNGE, which samples Yma Sumac's music on a couple of tracks. Back to VOICE OF THE XTABAY, what was once a 10" record called INCA TAQUI makes up the second half of this album, and includes some of Ms. Sumac's most astounding vocal work. Among the first artists to play with vocal double-tracking, Yma's performances on 'Chuncho (The Forest Creatures )' and 'Maylaya! (My Destiny)' may be heard yet still not be believed. The first half of the LP features the musical arrangements of Les Baxter, and is slightly more conventional than the more ethnic sounding second half (arranged by then-husband Moises Vivanco), yet taken as a whole, this is probably Sumac's most powerful effort. For a look at the beautiful Yma Sumac in person, see the campy 1954 Charlton Heston adventure film SECRET OF THE INCAS, in which she pantomimes to a couple of songs from VOICE OF THE XTABAY. The cover of this album is taken from the set of that movie. For further listening, seek out the stereo version of FUEGO DEL ANDE (my personal favorite Yma Sumac record). I am still waiting for a CD issue of 1972's MIRACLES, a failed attempt at a comeback, which is, nevermind the dismal reviews it got at the time, a stunner, sounding like a cross between the Yma of old and Led Zeppelin! Unfortunately, this album did see digital reissue as YMA ROCKS for a brief time and, drat it, I missed it ... I think its time has come again. Is anyone listening?

The first time I heard the Yma Sumac album I was 20 years old. It was aired by Fred Robbins, a disc jockey in New York who had a show called the 1280 Club on WOV-am. He played several tracks from Voice of the Xtabay. One of my favorite tracks was called High Andes. It does not appear on this CD and I could not locate it on any of the others.

Nevertheless, I still get chills when I hear her voice and it brings back a lot of wonderful memories. Is she still alive?