When Yuba Plays the Rhumba on the Tuba

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When Yuba Plays the Rhumba on the Tuba ( When Yuba Plays The Tuba Down in Cuba ) is a novelty song , the Herman Hupfeld published written and 1931st

background

Classic zigzag wire in a four-bar with a bass note on beat one and the associated chord as a triad inversion on beat 2. Playing ? / iAudio file / audio sample

For the music revue The Third Little Show , which followed similar events in 1929 and 1930 and premiered in June 1931, Herman Hupfeld wrote the song When Yuba Plays the Rhumba on the Tuba , presented by Walter , in addition to his greatest hit As Time Goes By O'Keefe . In the humorous lyrics of the song, a tuba player teaches the Cubans classical oom-pah or um-papa music on his instrument, that is, folk marching or brass music based on the German pattern and the usual ostinato .

The song has been described by a contemporary music critic as " one of the dumbest songs of all times ". With When Yuba Plays the Rhumba on the Tuba, Herman parodied the enthusiasm of the Americans for the rumba dance in the period around 1930. Rumba is now also in 4/4 time, but the dance steps and the rhythmic accentuation are based on the offbeats, more precisely said the claven . Rudy Vallee set the piece to music as a comparatively fast foxtrot and skilfully switched between the various aspects. The piece has longer tuba solos and thus changing vocals with mainly piano accompaniment and ends with the classic Um Om in quarters apart.

First recordings and later cover versions

Rudy Vallée on saxophone, late 1920s or early 1930s

Rudy Vallée and His Connecticut Yankees made the song known in 1931 with their recording on June 15, 1931 for Victor Records in the United States; He was also popular through his use in the cartoon You're an Education (1938) from the series Merry Melodies and from the cartoon When Yuba Plays the Rhumba on the Tuba (1933) of the Max Fleischer Studios, in which he was from the Mills Brothers , who imitated the instrumental parts of saxophone, trumpet and tuba with their voices.

Other musicians who recorded the song in 1931 were The Revelers (RCA 70203), Freddie Rich and The CBS Studio Orchestra (Melotone, with Bunny Berigan , Jimmy Dorsey , Joe Venuti , Eddie Lang and Paul Small, vocals), the studio formation Six Jumping Jacks (actually Harry Reser , with Tom Stacks (vocals); Panachord 25235), Al Lack's City Radiolians (Crown 1150, with Dick Robertson) and the orchestra of Ben Selvin (Harmony, also with Dick Robertson, vocals). The Comedian Harmonists interpreted the song in a German version (The Uncle Bumba from Kalumba only dances Rumba) , which can be seen in Joseph Vilsmaier's film Comedian Harmonists (1997). Singers Scrappy Lambert , Leonard Stokes, and Randolph Wayant made a test recording of the song as the Three Minute Men for Brunswick Records in 1931 , accompanied by Joe Tarto (tuba) and Eddie Lang (guitar).

In later years the pop song was also performed by Bert Ambrose and his Orchestra (HMV 6190), the Durium Revellers (1932), Benny Goodman / Johnny Mercer (1939), Spike Jones and his Other Orchestra (1947, with Joe "Country" Washbourne ; RCA Victor 20-2118), Les Elgart (1954), Enoch Light ( Big Bold And Brassy, ​​Percussion in Brass , 1960) and George Barnes (1961) covered, also in Moscow by Ferdinand Krish (1939).

Walter Kempowski mentions the song in his novel Tadellöser & Wolff .

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ David A. Jasen Tin Pan Alley : An Encyclopedia of the Golden Age of American Song , 2004, 215.
  2. ↑ a b c Don Tyler: Hit Songs, 1900-1955: American Popular Music of the Pre-Rock Era . McFarland, April 2, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7864-2946-2 , p. 184.
  3. ↑ oompah , The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English, 2008
  4. ↑ Oompah . YourDictionary.
  5. ^ John Bush Jones: Our Musicals, Ourselves: A Social History of the American Musical Theater . 2011.
  6. ^ The New York Times Film Reviews 1999-2000. 2001, p. 30.
  7. ^ Robert Stockdale: The Dorsey Brothers: That's It! . 2008, p. 156.
  8. ↑ With Arthur Lally (you). Max Goldberg and Tony Thorpe (trumpet) and Sam Browne (vocals)
  9. ^ Billboard, January 25, 1947
  10. ↑ Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed January 6, 2016)