The sound of the female voice in the early recorded work (1933-1940) of Xavier Cugat. A tropical multimodality

This article approaches the construction of the tropical, based on the historical progression of women in the early recordings of Xavier Cugat, between 1933 and 1940. We begin with the theory of multimodal discourses (Kress y Van Leeuwen, 2001) and with feminist musicology (Citron 1994; McClary 1991; Ramos 2010 y 2013); and in terms of methodology, we identify styles and qualities of the voice from a standpoint of the musicology of musical production (Frith y Zagorski-Thomas 2012; Juan de Dios Cuartas 2016). This paper explores the emergence of singers such as Carmen Castillo, Yolanda Norris, Dorothy Miller, Celia Branz, Dinah Shore, Chacha Aguilar, Alice Corner, Charito, Loretta Clemens and Lina Romay, who determined an imaginary of female vocal sonority. As a conclusion we propose that the female vocal sound and physical appearance were fundamental in the tropical music recorded by Cugat, who undertook a long process of stylistic selection and refinement in order to achieve a sound suitable for the style of music and for the North American audience between the thirties and forties.