Nat King Cole's Mona Lisa score was written by a Cuban

Mona Lisa, become a world hit song-theme by Nat King Cole, was the first song in the history not belonging to a musical film, awarded with an Oscar in 1951.

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18 de junio de 2019 - By Mercedes Hernández

Mona Lisa, become a world hit song-theme by Nat King Cole, was the first song in the history not belonging to a musical film, awarded with an Oscar in 1951.

Hunger, despair, poverty and a black future leads us to big decisions; but those attitudes cannot be judged without  seeing them in context.

Some years ago I watched a documentary film on TV that shocked me: it told about the life of Mérido Gutiérrez Rippe, residing in New York in the fifties, whose economical needs forced him to sell one of his musical scores, or, perhaps, more than one. However, one in particular was an unprecedented fact. I have my own doubts and, as far as I have searched, I do not seem to find an answer: The song sold by the Cuban would have been so great or was it that it became famous by its arrangement and orchestration through Nat King Cole's voice?

In an interview, Mérido Gutiérrez told the story of the melody. He narrated that under a heavy snowfall, he took refuge in the Fifth Avenue Library. One employee invited him to get into the building. Inside, there were cubicles full of book stands and reading tables. In a perfect symmetry, some portraits by famous painters adorned the walls. So, there was a reproduction of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Back home, he took a guitar and, little by little the tune was born.

Its composer pointed out that he used a group of bars from a popular song by Cuban tres player Arsenio Rodríguez, also living in New York by that time; until that, finally, after having registered it on the Intellectual Property Registry, at the Jeferson Music CD Inc., and ignoring the value of this song, he sold the copyright along with another song by the reasonable price of 200 dollars.

Two years later the tune became famous on the excellent voice of Nat King Cole and by the wonderful orchestra arrangement it was submitted. The song theme served as soundtrack of several American films in the first years of the nineteen-fifties.

The Merido Gutierrez's musical catalogue also includes themes as Crystal glass and I love you, how about you, among others, recorded by prestigious interpreters like Pedro Vargas and the Mexican trio Los Panchos.

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