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Pregón, a Spanish word meaningannouncement orstreet-seller's cry, has a particular meaning in bothCuban music andLatin American music in general. It can be translated asa song based on a street-seller's cry ora street-seller's song ("canto de los vendedores ambulantes").[1]
Oral proclamations made in the street were an important form of mass communication throughout Europe and the Americas until the late 19th century, when other forms of communication emerged to replace the town criers. In Spain and Latin-America, those who read these proclamations were known aspregoneros and their speech as apregón.[2]
Over time, the officialtown crier, who read public announcements sanctioned by governments, disappeared, but the street cries associated with itinerant vendors continued into the 20th century, and can still be heard in commercialmarketplaces and fairs. Street vendors and their cries were known inmedieval Europe. The numbers of street vendors working in urban areas increased markedly from the 17th century.[3] These criers or street vendors filled the streets of many European cities including Paris, Bologna, Naples and Cologne.[4] As the streets filled withhawkers,costermongers and other types of the itinerant vendor, competition between them intensified. In an effort to stand out, street vendors began to develop distinctive, melodic cries, which became a standard feature of street life.[5] Each trade developed its own unique type of street cry; a distinctive set of words or a unique tune.[6]
The use of street cries as a basis for song is particularly notable in South America and theCaribbean, where the crier is known as apregonero. In Spain, the pregón may include flamenco or gyspy-inspired rhythms while in Latin-American pregón is noted for its incorporation of African rhythms such as bolero,clave,habanera and rumba.[7] For example, the traditional pregón from Havana "Castillo mangüé" is often played as a yambú, a type of rumba.[8]
InCuba, ethnologist Miguel Barnet noted that cross-fertilization was common as hawkers also often based their pregones on rural tunes or popular genres such asson andguaracha. The Cuban music historianCristóbal Díaz Ayala has compiled a list of nearly five hundred examples of popular tunes based on hawker songs ‒ most from Cuba, but also from other Latin American countries such as Mexico, Chile,Colombia,Panama,Venezuela,Peru,Argentina, theDominican Republic, andPuerto Rico.[9]
One of the best-known examples of a pregón is the song entitledEl Manisero ("The Peanut Vendor" in English) which was written by Cuban musician and composerMoisés Simons and first recorded byRita Montaner in 1928. The 1930 version recorded byDon Azpiazú in New York City withAntonio Machín on vocals became a worldwide hit starting arhumba craze that swept throughout North America and much of Europe in the 1930s.[10]The Peanut Vendor had a second life as a hit piece whenStan Kenton recorded it as an instrumental in 1947. The song,Yes! We Have No Bananas first published in 1923, was inspired by the idiom of a Long Island fruitseller.[11]
Other well-known pregones and their writers include the following: