“Carioca” (1933) – RKO Studio Orchestra * Written by Vincent Youmans, Edward Eliscu, and Gus Kahn * 78: “Raftero” (Nat Finston and Studio Paramount Orchestra) / “Carioca” * Label: Victor
“Carioca” is an early manifestation of the soundtrack trade, taking music directly from a film—in this case the 1933 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers vehicle Flying to Rio—and selling it on disc. Curiously, it includes none of the vocals that accompanied its opulent movie sequence, in which Fred and Ginger did their very first dance on film together, and in which the other dancers introduced an odd move involving the touching of foreheads. Although many versions of “Carioca” turned up in the movie’s wake, this source version, in spite of being credited in blasé fashion to the RKO Studio Orchestra, is the peppiest one. The title is a Brazilian term for the people of Rio De Janeiro and has no connection with the Japanese term karaoke. The song on side A, credited to Nat Finston and the Paramount Orchestra, is “Raftero,” named for George Raft—normally typecast as a gangster—who dances to it in the 1934 film Bolero.