Suma Paz
“That was the reason why, in some way, Pampas singing was defined as masculine. There were few women who addressed this subject, because there were two ways to approach it: one was masculinizing, that is, singing what men sang and how men sang; and the other was to seek the spirit, it was to seek something like a mystique of the earth, because after all the pampa is feminine, it is earth, it is fecundity.” (Suma Paz)
Today I present the poet, singer and guitarist Suma Paz! It is the first edition of about 15 podcasts with interviews with the greatest of Argentine folklore such as Eduardo Falu, Domingo Cura, Leda Valladares, Gustavo “Cuchi” Leguizamon, Atahualpa Yupanqui and Mercedes Sosa.
On our site “tangodiario.com” you will find more information about these Masters of Argentine folklore, concert videos and transcripts of interviews.
We begin this series dedicated to folklore with the great lady of southern singing: Suma Paz was born on April 5, 1938 in Santa Fe, but grew up in the province of Buenos Aires. All the holidays she spent with his grandmother in the countryside, in the humid Pampas, on the border between the provinces of Santa Fe and Buenos Aires. This landscape with its immense sky, its plains and its colors marked her for her whole life.
Suma Paz started playing guitar at the age of 6. Later she studied philosophy and letters at the National University of the Littoral. After graduating, she appeared on several radio and television programs. She dedicated herself to the work of Atahualpa Yupanqui who considered himself to be her teacher.
But she also wrote and sang his own songs. On her tours of Europe, Japan and the United States, she released the Southern Song around the world. She received numerous awards, including in 1995 as one of the five best folk singers of the decade.
What Suma Paz told me at her home in Morón in February 1993 was full of poetry and wisdom. She told me what fascinated her so much about the work of Atahualpa Yupanqui. The two were close friends, and Yupanqui wrote to her again and again from his exile in Paris, telling her not to stop fighting for the survival of the Southern Song.
Suma Paz spoke about why Argentines are so nostalgic. And why the landscape of the Pampa inspires its poets and singers to write contemplative songs full of philosophy, in which the cry has no place. Listen for yourselves to what this great poet and singer Suma Paz, who died in April 2009 at the age of 71, told me.
Suma Paz, transcript of the interview
WIKIPEDIA
Suma Paz is the stage name of Eglantine Sulma Enrico, Argentine singer-songwriter and guitarist born on April 5, 1939 in Bombal, province of Santa Fe and died on April 8, 2009 in Buenos Aires.
The pseudonym Suma Paz comes from the name of a place in Colombia called “Páramo de Sumapaz”, located in the Cundinamarca Department, in Colombia. She found it a very poetic name and decided to adopt it as a stage name. Since then, no one else, not even her family, called her by her real name again: everyone called her “Suma”.
Suma Paz’s parents were chacareros of European origin, but she had a ranquel grandmother with whom she spent her childhood vacations and who penetrated deep into her way of being. Suma Paz said of her grandmother: “Her name was Natalia Salinas, she was from the settlement Fraile Muerto (today Bell Ville, Córdoba), I met her old, wrinkled and hunched over. She had been a tall woman, of robust build like those of her race. He got up at 5.30 in the morning and with one finger he directed the whole farm”.
From a very young age Suma Paz had a fondness for music, and already at 6 years of age she played the guitar. She spent her adolescence and youth in Pergamino, and used to say that for her Buenos Aires was “like an adoptive mother”.
Suma Paz obtained a degree in Philosophy and Letters from the National University of the Litoral, but when she was very young she decided to leave the profession for music and poetry. Its beginnings coincide with the resurgence of folklore, and from 1959 Suma Paz began to be heard in radio programs and also on television. An excellent guitarist, Suma Paz was endowed with a voice with a very particular timbre, and knew how to give Pampas music an uncommon expressiveness, especially if you take into account that it was a repertoire traditionally performed by men.
Suma Paz’s meeting with Atahualpa Yupanqui marked her life. From then on he devoted himself to spreading the work of the master. This task of such enormous responsibility, and her proverbial modesty, sometimes concealed her own work as a creator of melodies and lyrics of deep content.
His first LP was “La incomparable Suma Paz” (1960), which was followed by “Guitarra, dímelo tú” (1961); “Suma Paz (The Incomparable)” (1962); “Esencia del folclore” shared with Carlos Di Fulvio (1963); “The art of Suma Paz por el mundo” (1967) recorded on the occasion of the tour he made in Japan, where he offered 40 recitals; “The Best of Suma Paz” (1970); “Listening to Suma Paz” (1970); “A Woman with a Guitar Soul” (1970); “Llenar de coplas el campo” (1972); “The Deep Roots of Suma Paz (1980); ” For the One Who Looks Without Seeing” (1982); “Homenaje a Atahualpa Yupanqui” (1994); “Canto de nadie” (2000) and “Parte de mi alma” (2005).
In 1963 the I Festival Odol de la Canción was held, where Suma Paz performed the zamba “Mi pueblo chico” (by Luis Pérez Pruneda and María Adela Christensen), which won the first prize as a folk song.
In 1977 Suma Paz premiered the cantata “Ay, Patria mía“, based on the life of Manuel Belgrano, with texts by the historian Máximo Aguirre and music of his authorship, which was represented at the Municipal Theater of Morón with the participation of the Mixed Choir directed by maestro Fernández Cevallos and actor Oscar Casco in the stories.
For Radio Nacional and its 40 subsidiaries, she wrote and hosted for six years the program “Pampeanías”.
She published three books of poetry: “Pampamérica” (awarded by the Steimberg Foundation); “Al sur del canto” and “Ultima guitarra“.
In the book “El canto de la Llanura” (2009) Suma Paz tells the journalist Rene Vargas Vera the meaning of his songs. This journalist also published the biography “Suma Paz en la huella luminosa de Yupanqui“.
In 2006 she was distinguished by the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, as outstanding Personality of the Culture of the City. He received countless distinctions, among them are “The Great Interpreters” (Sadaic); Martín Fierro of the Institute of Tradition of Rosario; the “Alicia Moreau de Justo” award; the “Discepolín” of the Department of Culture of the Justicialist Party and the Kónex de Plata as one of the “Five best interpreters of folklore“.
Suma Paz said:
– For me, Yupanqui was a master in the deep sense of the word and the first thing he said to me was: “If you want to show off, you want to put on cute dresses and appear on the covers of magazines, sing something else.”
– That’s how he was! And he also told me other very specific things that served me a lot, such as: “Get behind their singing, never forward. Don’t show off, make it look like what you do, which is more important than you“.
– And another: “The shortcuts are cute, they are short and they will take it fast … too bad they’re going to take her the other way.”
– And something he also told me at the beginning: “You have chosen a rough path and
VIDEO’S SUMA PAZ
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