Tino García

Constantino García, known professionally as Tino García, was born on 25 June 1910 at Lavalle 975 in Buenos Aires, the son of Spanish immigrants, during the year of the Centennial.^[1] He died on 22 April 2007.^[1] After completing primary school he entered a bookstore at age thirteen and learned the craft of fine bookbinding, which he practised for the rest of his life, including a long tenure at Editorial Kraft from 1930 to 1955.^[1] Singing remained secondary to this trade; García later remarked that it supplied extra money and pleasure but that his security rested on the reputation he had built as a binder.^[1]

His earliest documented appearance was probably with Alejandro Scarpino’s trio at the Cine Los Andes in Boedo in 1927.^[1] Two years later he sang at the Pabellón de las Rosas carnival with Juan Maglio’s group but was dismissed after a second performance, either for technical shortcomings or because cold drinks left him voiceless.^[1] In 1930 Carlos Marcucci heard him on Radio Prieto with a neighbourhood ensemble and incorporated him into his sextet, which performed on Radio Argentina and at the cabaret Dancing Ocean.^[1] In 1931, under the name Carlos García, he served as refrain singer (estribillista) with Augusto Berto’s orchestra.^[1] In 1933 he appeared with a trio on the Matinee de Juan Manuel and in neighbourhood cinemas; the following year he sang at bars on the Costanera Sur with José Marrone and pianist Mariano Mores, later moving to Bar El Nilo.^[1]

A friend took him to the Primera Academia Argentina de Intérpretes (PAADI) run by Luis Rubistein. There he was presented on Emilio Kartulovich’s station La Voz del Aire with the trio of Masobrio, Caldarella and Osvaldo Schelotto.^[1] Rodolfo Sciammarella suggested shortening his name; thereafter he was known as Tino García.^[1] In 1936 radio broadcaster and orchestra leader Héctor Bates hired him to replace Carlos Roldán; the engagement included performances with El Cachafaz and cancionista Mercedes Carné.^[1] He continued as a soloist with Vicente Salerno’s group until about 1940, then paused to concentrate on bookbinding.^[1]

He returned in 1945 as a soloist accompanied by the guitars of Humberto Canataro, Roberto Pedretti, Alesandri and Reinaldo Baudino, and in 1946 by pianists Francisco Trópoli or Andrés Fraga.^[1] That same year his brother Antonio (“Tito”), a dancer and bandoneonist who ran a dance academy at Avenida Corrientes 1671, introduced him to Ángel D’Agostino.^[1] With D’Agostino he worked on radio and in numerous clubs and dance halls; more importantly, it was the only orchestra with which he ever recorded.^[1] The first sides, cut on 10 June 1947 for RCA Victor, were “Alma de bohemio” and “Era en otro Buenos Aires.”^[1][2] Subsequent titles included “Carnavales de mi vida,” “Bailarín compadrito,” “Argañaraz,” “Café de Barracas,” “Abransen las pulperías” and later pieces such as “Mi viejo Buenos Aires” (1962).^[2][3]

In the carnivals of 1954 he returned to D’Agostino at Club Lanús beside Rubén Cané.^[1] He also appeared with Joaquín Do Reyes at Estudiantes de Villa Devoto in 1959 and again for Radio El Mundo in 1962.^[1] In 1963 D’Agostino formed the Cuarteto Evocativo for appearances on Channel 11 and final recordings; García participated.^[1] In 1964–65 he worked with Armando Lacava’s group.^[1] At age fifty-five he considered his artistic career finished and returned fully to bookbinding.^[1]

Throughout these years García declined several offers that would have taken him farther from his trade: invitations from Juan D’Arienzo, a Brazilian tour with Pedro Maffia, and the chance to sing with Juan Canaro in Japan.^[1] His recorded output with D’Agostino is modest—tango.info lists roughly fifty-six tracks, nearly all with that orchestra—but the sides occupy a distinctive place in the post-Vargas D’Agostino discography.^[3] García’s voice, less dramatic than Vargas’s, suited the orchestra’s lighter, more danceable approach in the late 1940s and 1950s. His long parallel career as a craftsman and his deliberate refusal of greater visibility make him an unusual figure among the singers of the period: a professional who remained, by choice, only intermittently a singer.^[1]

Born into a Spanish immigrant family in central Buenos Aires, García combined elementary schooling with an early apprenticeship in bookbinding that became his lifelong occupation.^[1] His first formal singing engagements in the late 1920s and early 1930s—with Scarpino, Maglio, Marcucci’s sextet and Berto’s orchestra under the name Carlos García—were typical of the neighbourhood and radio circuits that supplied singers to the growing tango industry.^[1] The suggestion from Sciammarella that he shorten his name, and Bates’s 1936 engagement, marked his emergence as Tino García, yet he still treated singing as an adjunct to his craft.^[1]

The 1946 introduction by his brother Tito led to the only recording relationship of García’s career.^[1] The 10 June 1947 RCA Victor session that produced “Alma de bohemio” and “Era en otro Buenos Aires” established the partnership.^[1][2] Over the following fifteen years the orchestra and singer returned to the studio intermittently, producing a body of work that includes both classic titles and later pieces such as “Mi viejo Buenos Aires.”^[2][3] Carnival engagements in 1954 at Club Lanús (with Rubén Cané) and the 1963 Cuarteto Evocativo appearances on television closed the chapter.^[1]

García’s insistence on maintaining his bookbinding practice at Editorial Kraft and elsewhere shaped every career decision.^[1] The offers from D’Arienzo, Maffia and Canaro were declined precisely because they would have required prolonged absence from the workshop that provided his economic base.^[1] In this respect he stands apart from the majority of singers of his generation, for whom a recording contract or a major orchestra post was the principal aspiration. His death in 2007 closed a life in which tango remained a cultivated pleasure rather than a profession.^[1]