Blue Moon is an American song written in 1934 by composer Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Lorenz Hart. It has become a jazz standard since the second half of the 1930s. The melody was written in 1933 for the film Party in Hollywood, but was not used. In 1934, Hart rewrote the lyrics, and under the title “The Bad in Every Man” performed by Shirley Ross in the film Manhattan Melodrama.
Antonio Lauro was born in Angostura, Venezuela. His father, Antonio Lauro Ventura, an Italian immigrant and hairdresser, could sing and play the guitar, which he taught his son, but died early, when Antonio was still a child. After his father’s death, the family moved to Caracas. There, Lauro took piano and violin lessons. A concert by Paraguayan guitarist Agustin Barrios, which took place in Caracas in 1932, so impressed the young Lauro, who had already mastered the folk guitar at that time, that it prompted him to abandon the violin and piano and switch completely to the guitar. Lauro was particularly attracted by the many Venezuelan waltzes (valses venezolanos) composed in the previous century by Ramón Delgado Palacios and other composers, on the basis of which he composed his Creole waltzes (4 Valses venezolanos).
Heitor Villa-Lobos is a Brazilian composer. One of the most famous Latin American composers. Villa-Lobos is famous for his synthesis of the stylistic features of Brazilian folk and European academic music. His father, Raúl Villa-Lobos, was a civil servant, an educated man of Spanish descent, a librarian, an amateur astronomer and a musician. After the death of his father (with whom the son studied Brazilian music), he earned his living by performing as an accompanist in silent films, as well as playing in street orchestras. The composer created over a thousand works in a variety of genres, including a large number of works for the classical guitar.
La paloma (The Dove) is a song written around 1860 by the Spanish (Basque) composer Sebastián Iradier. It is one of the most frequently performed songs in the world (sharing popularity with the Beatles’ “Yesterday”). The song is a well-known example of the Cuban habanera genre. Iradier wrote it during or after a trip to the Antilles. It is from the habanera that the song takes its characteristic rhythm. The song’s content is based on the myth that white doves bring home the last message of love from a sailor lost at sea.
Rico Stover is an American guitarist from Iowa who began his musical journey with the guitar by studying the folk songs of Costa Rica. Then one day he heard a classical guitarist whose playing deeply interested him. This guitarist, Juan de Dios Trejos, was actually a student of the great Paraguayan composer-guitarist Agustín Barrios Mangore. Señor Trejos inspired him to study and popularize the life and work of his teacher, which Rico did throughout his life.
Luis Floriano Bonfa is a Brazilian guitarist and composer. He is best known as the author of the song “Manana de carnaval” (Carnival Morning) from the film Black Orpheus, the soundtrack for which he wrote together with Antonio Carlos Jobim. Luis Bonfà was born in Rio de Janeiro to an Italian immigrant family. As a child, he learned to play the classical guitar. He began composing music in the 1940s, and since 1952 has performed as a solo artist. Bonfà wrote more than 500 songs during his life.
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