Eliseo Grenet Sánchez, Cuban pianist, composer and arranger, was born in Havana on June 12, 1893. He was an important composer of music for musical revues and films, as well as well-known Cuban dance music pieces.
He studied music with Mercedes Valenzuela and Leandro Simón Guergué. At just twelve years old, he began escorting silent film screenings at the La Caricatura cinema; and in 1909, he led the orchestra at the Politeama Theater in Havana, where he would later premiere several of his zarzuelas. At such a young age, he was already composing music for plays presented there. He later joined Regino López’s company at the Teatro Cubano.
Eliseo Grenet founded his Jazz Band in 1925, with which he performed at the Montmatre cabaret and the Jockey Club. Two years later, at the Regina Theater, Rita Montaner premiered her tango-congo “Ay, Mamá Inés,” which has remained extremely popular to this day. The song was part of the zarzuela “Niña Rita o La Habana” in 1830, with music written by Grenet and Ernesto Lecuona.
Shortly after this premiere, this important Cuban musician founded the Cubanacán variety troupe. With this troupe, he visited countries in Central and South America, returning to Cuba in 1930. Eliseo Grenet set several poems by Nicolás Guillén from the Motivos de son series to music, including Negro bembón and Sóngoro cosongo.
As a result of censorship by the Machado dictatorship, for his composition Lamento cubano (Cuban Lament) (with text by Teófilo Radillo): Oh! Beautiful Cuba, / exquisite, / why do you suffer today / so much sorrow? / Oh! My homeland, / who would have thought / that your blue sky would cloud tears!, Grenet left Cuba in 1932. When the tyrant Machado fell, he returned to his country.
Later, he directed the operetta La virgen morena (The Dark Virgin) during his trip to Barcelona, ​​and also presented it in Paris, where he performed piano at Julio Cueva’s nightclub, La Cueva. There, along with his percussionist brother, and performing La comparsa de los congos (The Congo Comparsa), he realized the potential of carnival rhythms. It has been said that he introduced the conga to the United States, although this overlaps temporally with the work of Lecuona Cuban Boys and the conga rhythm.
In New York, in 1936, he founded his nightclub, El Yumurí, on Broadway and 52nd Street in Manhattan. The Pedro Flores quartet performed there, with Cuban singer Panchito Riset. In 1938, Grenet launched his revue, “La Conga.”
Eliseo Grenet traveled with his company to Mexico and Argentina, scoring several films in these countries. His film scoring work had begun ten years earlier with Susanna Has a Secret (Spain, 1933) and The Princess of Tam Tam (France, 1935). He wrote music for a Cuban film, The Song of Return, in 1940.
Years later he returned to Havana, and in 1948 he won First Prize in the Cuban Song Contest with his composition El Sitierito.
Eliseo Grenet wrote, arranged, and conducted music for musical revues and recorded for Columbia Records and Brunswick Records. His style strongly influenced Afro-Cuban music during the period between the two World Wars.
His film compositions include: Princess Tam-Tam, starring Josephine Baker; Star Scandal; Conga Bar; Colonial Prints; Suburb Milonga; Cuban Nights; and Susanna Has a Secret. His music for zarzuelas and other musical theatre works include: The Taking of Veracruz (premiered in 1914 at the Alhambra Theatre in Havana); Bohemia; Like the Swallows; The Beggar; The Landowner’s Saint; The Cuban Submarine; The Tobacco Maker; La Camagüeyana (premiered in Barcelona in 1935); The Dark Virgin; My Damned Pilgrim; and Little Rita, or Havana in 1830, co-authored with Ernesto Lecuona.
His popular songs were numerous, among which we can mention: The Pearls of Your Mouth; The Little Sitierito; Slave Lament; Green Tobacco; Congolese Comparsa; Papa Montero; My Life is to Sing; Cuban Lament; Black Bembón; You Don’t Know English; Sóngoro Cosongo and his greatest classic Ay! Mamá Inés.
Eliseo Grenet died in his hometown on December 4, 1950. At his funeral, the Havana Municipal Band, led by maestro Gonzalo Roig, performed his well-known work “Lamento cubano.”