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Bésame Mucho and Song for My Father: Latin-Jazz Songs for String Quintet
Bésame Mucho and Song for My Father: Latin-Jazz Songs for String Quintet
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Add the Afro-Cuban and Latin beats of “Bésame Mucho” and “Song for My Father” to your repertoire.
By Renata Bratt.
Published by String Letter Publishing
$18.99
Sheet Music
ABOUT THE MUSIC (Excerpted from the Performance Notes)
One of the most recorded songs ever, “Bésame Mucho” (“Kiss Me a Lot Right Now”) was written by a teenaged Mexican girl named Consuelo Velásquez in 1940. The lyrics of “Bésame Mucho” were changed into English by Sunny Skylar and the song has been recorded, as a vocal performance or instrumental, by hundreds of great performers, including the Beatles, Nat “King” Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Plácido Domingo, and Frank Sinatra.
Vibrato may be applied freely in this arrangement of “Bésame Mucho.” It is similar to a type of Afro-Cuban music called the charanga, which uses lots of strings. Throughout the arrangement, there are triplet quarter notes played against eighth notes. This rhythm of two-against-three is very African in origin and makes for an extremely syncopated sound.
Click here to listen to a sample of "Bésame Mucho."
“Song for My Father,” composed in 1964 by American jazz pianist Horace Silver, is an homage to Silver’s father, a native of the Cape Verde Islands.
The bass riff and accompaniment in the four-bar prelude to the tune “Song for My Father” is a form of the Afro-Cuban style called clave. The clave beat is found in the viola and cello parts—it is a two-bar repeating rhythm. The bass part keeps everyone together, but starts on the upbeat to the first beat of the bar.
Click here to listen to a sample of "Song for My Father."
ABOUT THE ARRANGER
RENATA BRATT is a founding member of the ASTA Alternative String Styles Advisory Committee. She teaches cello and beginning string orchestra in Santa Cruz, California. She holds a doctorate in music and is a former president of the Suzuki Music Association of California. She has taught classical styles, jazz improvisation, and fiddling at national string workshops for children and adults, including the Mark O’Connor Strings Conference, Alasdair Fraser’s camps, New Directions Cello Festival, the National Cello Institute, ASTA, MENC, and Suzuki institutes.
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