Consuelo velazquez
Consuelo Velázquez Torres (Ciudad Guzmán, Jalisco, August 21, 1916-Mexico City, January 22, 2005), also popularly known as Consuelito Velázquez, was a Mexican pianist and composer.
Early Years
Originally from Ciudad Guzmán, she was the youngest of the five daughters of the soldier and poet Issac Velázquez del Valle and his wife, María de Jesús Torres Ortiz. At the age of four she began to demonstrate a good ear and great aptitude for music, so at the age of six he began studying music and piano at the Serratos Academy in Guadalajara. After several years of study, she moved to Mexico D.F., where she continued her studies and obtained a degree as concert pianist and music teacher. Her graduation concert was held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in the capital and soon after she began as a composer of popular music. As a concert pianist, she was a soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra (Mexico) and the Philharmonic Orchestra of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Composer
As a composer her legacy has been more notorious. Her first compositions, Don't ask me never , Passionate and Let me love you , were romantic in nature. Later, songs like Bésame mucho, Amar y vivir, Verdad Amarga, Franqueza, Franqueza, Bitter Truth, i>Chiqui, Cachito, May you be happy, In love, Proud and pretty and Yo no fui (dance song initially popularized by Pedro Infante and, in recent years, by Pedro Fernández). The participation of Velázquez as an actress in the 1938 Argentine film Carnival Nights, directed by filmmaker Julio Saraceni, stands out as a curious fact. He also participated as a pianist in the Mexican films by director Julián Soler Se le paso la mano in 1952 and My parents get divorced in 1959. In addition, he appeared in the documentary about her life Consuelo Velázquez from 1992. Throughout her life, she composed music for various Mexican films.
Kiss me a lot
His best-known hit: Bésame mucho, a bolero composed when he was only 16 years old, was the melody that brought Velázquez the most satisfaction, and which became his letter of introduction. This song was created before Consuelo received her first love kiss. After being recorded by the Spanish-Mexican baritone Emilio Tuero, in 1944 its first English-language adaptation was made by the famous American pianist and singer Nat "King" Cole, when this interpreter had not yet thought of recording in Spanish. From then on, it was performed by hundreds of artists around the world, such as Pedro Infante, Javier Solís, The Beatles, La Internacional Sonora Santanera, Thalia, Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra, The Ventures, Sammy Davis Jr., Antonio Machín, Lucho Gatica, Plácido Domingo, Vera Lynn, Luis Mariano (who popularized it in France), Sara Montiel, José Carreras, Ray Conniff and his Orchestra, Andrea Bocelli, Frank Sinatra, Luis Miguel, Diana Krall, Filippa Giordano, Zoé, Susana Zabaleta, Monica Naranjo among others. Bésame mucho is also known as Kiss Me Much, Kiss Me a Lot, Kiss Me Again and Again, Embrasse-Moi and Stale Ma Boskavaj. Translated into more than twenty languages, the song became an icon in popular music. Her great success in the United States was the contextualization of the song towards the women who fired their husbands in World War II.
Private life and health
Years after the beginning of her career, the composer married the media owner and promoter of artists Mariano Rivera Conde (died 1977), from whose union her sons Mariano and Sergio Rivera Velázquez were born. In the period between 1979 and 1982 she was part of the Chamber of Deputies of the Congress of the Union, in what would be her only intervention in the politics of her country. She was the winner of the National Prize for Sciences and Arts in the area of Arts and Popular Traditions in 1989.
Affected by cardiovascular disease, Consuelo Velázquez died on January 22, 2005. Her body was transferred to the Palace of Fine Arts, the scene of her first performance, in the midst of an important demonstration of well-known artists and the people, in general. Her ashes were later buried in the Santo Tomás Moro church, where the author went every Sunday to hear mass. Her last artistic participation was as a pianist in the most recent album by Mexican singer Cecilia Toussaint entitled Para mí... Consuelo , which contains songs by Velázquez.
In 1977, the piano soloist also received the United Nations Peace Medal, along with her colleague, maestro Ramón Inclán Aguilar and journalist and singer Wilbert Alonzo Cabrera, Lola Beltrán and María Medina. This medal was given to them by the UN Secretary General due to her artistic participation and organization of a sumptuous Mexican festival on the occasion of the United Nations staff day.
Recently it has been known that the composer and interpreter, among her last wills, left seven unpublished songs, among them Donde siempre (destined for Cecilia Toussaint), My beautiful Mazatlán (which will be recorded by Banda El Recodo) and Por el camino, which the author bequeathed to the Mexican singer Luis Miguel.