ArtistInfo

Hurtado Brothers Royal Marimba Band

Band,
World and Latin
A.k.a. La Marimba Royal De Los Hermanos Hurtado

Marimba band from Guatemala. Originally formed by Sebastián Hurtado (1827-1913) from Quetzaltenango, the inventor of the double-keyed or chromatic marimba, together with his sons, the orchestra toured the United States in 1908 and Europe in 1910. After the death of Sebastián and one of his sons, Celso Hurtado took over the ensemble and renamed it La Marimba Royal De Los Hermanos Hurtado; this was the ensemble that was invited to represent Guatemala at the 1915 International Panama-Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco. The band was an immediate hit, awarded the exhition's Gold Medal and a contract with Columbia that resulted in a series of recordings that year. Between 1916-1923, they also made numerous recordings for Victor. Their 1916 recording of "Pique Dame" on Victor sold 500,000 copies within a few weeks. After several additional tours of the United States, including a performance with the "Ziegfeld Follies" in 1919, the Hurtado Brothers (Joaquín, Celso, Jesús, and Óscar) settled permanently in New York in 1925. As interest in the band decreased in the late 1920s, Jesús left the ensemble, but it continued to perform at hotels in New York and Canada and record with Banner throughout the 1930s. In 1938, when the band was contracted to perform at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition on San Francisco's Treasure Island, Jesús rejoined his brothers, and they recorded and released albums with Columbia (1941) and Black & White (1946).