Tango 1932

0:30I'm Dag Stenvoll, talking to you from Bergen, Norway, and across this Zoom table I have Michael Lavocah from Norwich. And Michael, last week you said that after a lot of work with your second edition of troiler book you needed a whole week of sleep. You look really refreshed. Did you sleep?

0:58It's, um, you know, there's the energy you have for a day, but then there's the energy you have over a longer project, and when you get to the end it just, it didn't let me sleep. No, so it's nice to be coming back down the hill now. You look good though. Yeah, thank you. It's lovely to be here with you all.

1:16Yeah, in our 1929 program some weeks ago you talked about how many orchestras fell out of business because of several things, and, well, the economic crisis, the crash, Wall Street crash, depression, and also the introduction of talking movies. How's the situation now in 1932?

1:36Well, it's, um, it's a bit like how we are with the pandemic right now. Is it over? So everyone's hoping that it's over. 31 is the year that the Depression really hits Argentina badly, and you see that in the orchestras losing their contracts, record companies going bust in 31, and then in also in 1932. So everyone's kind of hoping it's over, but it isn't. So you, for instance, in the warm-up, were playing the song Buddy Can You Spare Me A Dime, which is of course a big hit from 1932, but it wasn't written in 1932. It's written in 1930. They'd been hoping it was over for two years and it wasn't. So for some bands, it's kind of over. We see that in the music of Fresedo. That's something we'll talk about. But for the broader public, for the people who aren't at the first level, it doesn't pick up for years. And this is the decade where Pugliese talks about unemployed musicians walking up and down corrientes, looking for work, and looking with eyes wide with envy when De Caro walks out after a gig in his top hat holding a cane, you know?

2:58Yeah, and 1932 it strikes me as a year for women singers. There are a lot of nice recordings and most of them are tango canción. We don't really hear them at milongas, but we can enjoy them tonight at Tango by Year, and I want to start with two of the most famous women singers, Mercedes Simone and Libertad Lamarck. And as you know, your listeners, we have the concept that I'm playing music that Michael doesn't know and he has to adapt to whatever I'm playing, but there is one exception actually, because today, just before this program, you tipped me about one song, a really important song by Mercedes Simone. I was amazed.

3:43So, you know, I prepare for the show as well, listeners, obviously. I have a little look around the year and I discovered something that I'd never come across before which I really wanted to share with everybody, and yeah, at the beginning of the show, not for the after party, which is Mercedes Simone sings a tango about the devastating effect of talking pictures arriving in the cinemas. Because that's what happened in carnival 1931. Carnival is before Easter, before Lent, so sort of March time, something like that. And in 1931 at that time during the dances when everyone's busy, the cinemas installed the sound equipment, and there was no jobs in the cinemas afterwards.

4:29So the cinemas, actually, they're going to tell a big part of tonight's story, because we see bands trying to get back into the cinemas. We see that with Fresedo and De Caro, but they have to do something different to what they'd done before to make that possible. And Mercedes Simone writes a tango called Por Culpa del Cine, which means the cinema is to blame. I've never come across it before and the lyric is really interesting, because the lyric talks about the concrete damages that are done to the scene by the introduction of talking pictures.

5:02So what talking pictures do, of course there are one or two talking pictures being made in Argentina and that's all very exciting, but where are the bulk of these pictures being made? They're being made in the United States and shipped in. So foreign music is being imported onto the scenes and Mercedes Simone tells us in this lyric that tango's not fashionable anymore. Foxtrot's fashionable, because that's what they see at the cinema. And also, English becomes fashionable. So people start saying yes and no, and you'll even hear her in the lyrics say goodbye. So that's really interesting, because I've never seen that or read that talked about in the literature.

5:46So there it is, you know, in the concrete evidence of the lyrics, fascinating. We're really lucky that something like that got recorded. I didn't know about it either. And French has been sometimes, you know, French in the lyrics, like when someone has a bit posh. Exactly, yeah. But English is unusual, so that's fun.

5:58So we'll listen to this one and after that I want to play a song by Libertad Lamarck called Inspiración, which, you know, I mean, we had a listen to it before as an instrumental, we listened to it in the 1929 program, and I have a feeling we may hear it again later on today. It could be, could be, could be. But without a lyric the second time, with the lyric the first time. Yeah, so she sings the full, uh, quite bleak lyrics and it includes the recitation in the middle, which is quite unusual for tango. And I don't think the word inspiration, uh, occurs, and I'm wondering about the title. Maybe it should be desesperation, despair instead, because it's really bleak.

6:39Well, that's interesting, you know, this lyric was written after the tango became successful. So Inspiración was written, we said in the other program, it had this really stupid title when it was first written. And then Firpo recorded it as Inspiración in something like 22, but it was a flop, completely forgotten, until Pedro Mafia revived it in the late 20s. And then once it became successful, as so often happened, people wrote a lyric, because if you can attach a lyric to a successful tango, then it means as a lyricist, you can earn some money. And, you know, Gardel and all the soloists are doing very well. So people like listening to singers. So it's a way to earn some money. They just kept the title. They just kept the title and wrote a lyric.

7:35So this is the case for this lyric. It comes only after Pedro Mafia's success, which was in 1929. Louis Rubinstein wrote a lyric and there are a few versions. There's also the sung version by Alberto Gómez this year, and then after that the lyric falls out of favor, and then when the song comes back in the 40s it's as an instrumental. So I don't know this lyric, the text. I haven't studied it, so I'm really curious about it. Yeah, let's listen to it. So Por Culpa del Cine with Mercedes Simone and Inspiración with Libertad Lamarck.

13:13Oh, that's sad stuff, isn't it? Yeah, it's... The cover of the sheet music of Inspiración shows a poetic young man sitting down somewhere writing poems, writing verses, and then the wind is coming and blowing them away. In the chat window, a couple of people thought they could hear a viola in that tango. That would be very unexpected, but not out of the question.

14:03Just last week I was researching the question of when the viola was first used in Troilo's orchestra. Now, tango orchestras generally didn't have a viola. The string instruments, the range overlaps quite a bit, so you've got double bass and violin and then there was the cello as well. The viola came very, very late. Troilo used it at the end of 1945, so it would be very unusual to have a viola here. If it's true, this would be a first, you know. Maybe we've just discovered something, everyone. The first viola in tango music. So, uh, let's see if we can find out.

14:40Yeah, so, uh, let's go to the house orchestra and, uh, listen to two of them, Orquesta Típica Brunswick and Orquesta Típica Victor. And Brunswick, they made, uh, some 50 recordings from 30 to 32, but only five in 32, and I think it's because they went first, didn't they? Yes, they withdrew entirely from the market in July and pretty much by May they've wound up. So listen to Mariposa de Ilusión. It's definitely Ibáñez singing. I like the Típica Brunswick. There's a really, um, well, there are some sad ones, um, but in the happy ones you get this really bouncy piano feeling. Special.

15:29Yeah, and, uh, Ibáñez is, uh, he sings for Biagi later in the 30s, and, um, and then I want to play Orquesta Típica Victor with Dulce Cariño. It's a waltz with Carlos Lafuente. So let's listen to these two.

21:17Those are two house orchestras, but both really good, I should say. The Típica Brunswick's a bit underrated. I listened to that. Wonderful for dancing. Very good sound balance. What a pity that they got the chop because of the Great Depression. I'd love to have had more of it. Maybe they're more characteristic than Orquesta Típica Victor, because you kind of recognize the sound from Brunswick, I think. I would say it's more in the center of tango than what the Típica Victor is doing. It's almost like there's too many good musicians in the Típica Victor. Maybe that's it, yeah.

21:54But Siriaco Ortiz plays the band on the own. Was it in Victor or Brunswick? In Victor, that was him. Yes. Sort of sweet and a little bit introverted. Yeah.

22:08Speaking of sweet and not so introverted maybe, we listened to Francisco Canaro and he, like all these years, he made a lot of recordings, about a hundred tango waltzes and one milonga. So that's a quarter of all the recordings we have from this year. Did you say Canaro recorded a hundred waltzes? No, 100 tangos and waltzes. 100 tangos and waltzes. And one milonga, yeah. Yeah, so a massive drop in his production on the previous year where he recorded 300, only 100. Yeah, exactly. Things are really bad economically, aren't they?

22:42There was an Argentine weekly magazine, sort of an arts magazine, sort of for the housewife, the middle-class housewife. It was called Caras y Caretas, Faces and Masks. And at this time there was an advert every week from the Odeon company advertising all the records, and they had to make a price reduction on their records. So previously most of the records were three pesos fifty, except Gardel who was 375, and they had to take 50 cents off the price of everything to try and keep the sales going. And also the typography becomes a lot simpler in the advertisements, because they can't afford to pay the advertising agencies. So with little things like that you see the Depression.

23:27Yeah, and it's okay, Canaro probably had enough for butter on his bread, I think. He wasn't under any worries personally. Yes. So let's listen to, uh, a song I know you've been using in your lectures, Michael. It's Te Quiero with Ada Falcón singing. And it's Canaro's song to her, isn't it?

23:52Yes. Now, this brings us to another aspect of what happens in 1932, which is Canaro starts getting involved with stage shows. These are musicals. Now, musical comedies were very, very common throughout the world. You know, it's hard for us to know today because they're much less common today. And if they do exist, they're quite posh affairs. But it was widespread. There was still the music hall tradition in the United Kingdom, which hadn't died out. And in the United States, they were making film versions of theatre review shows, which were called the big broadcast. And you can watch those on YouTube to get an idea of what was going on.

24:35So Ivo Pelay, I'm saying that wrong. Pelay, someone's going to... Gerardo, tell me how to pronounce that. He was a producer and a lyricist and he contacted Canaro and said, do you want to be involved in one of my stage shows? Write the music for it. So Canaro said yes and they wrote the stage show La Muchachada del Centro, which means the downtown gang, and that opened in June at the National Theatre, which you can... it's just past the obelisk on Don Carrientes. You can see the obelisk less than one block away. That's where it is. You've probably walked past it if you've been to Buenos Aires.

25:13And how big a hit was it? It ran for 900 performances. That's a lot. That's a lot.

25:23Now, the kind of songs you're going to write for this are going to be a little bit different to what you'd write just for a normal tango. So this is one of the things that started to give Canaro a different direction. And Te Quiero was one of the songs premiered in that show. And in the show Ernesto Famá sang it, and it was his first big hit with Canaro, and it was the song that pushed him to the highest level of fame.

25:49And it's, yeah, we're lucky to have Ada Falcón singing this version on the record, because I don't think she sang it in the show. And quite often a woman would sing a song in a show, and then, for example, Lomuto follows Canaro's lead. He starts doing these stage shows, and there's one Lomuto tango where a woman sings it in the show and her face is on the sheet music, but then when he records it, he records a dance number. So, you know, a man sings it. It's the other way around.

26:22And yes, te quiero. It's this love tragedy between Canaro and Ada Falcón. And such a, I mean, the lyric is like a dagger to the heart, really. Yeah, it's very interesting.

26:36I love you as no one's ever loved you and as no one ever will. I adore you as you have to love in life the one. I love you the way one would love a mother or a brother, the way you love just once in life and never again. And then in the chorus, today I love you more than yesterday but less than tomorrow. Now it sounds a bit cheesy, but it's not cheesy when Ada Falcón's singing it because it's about her real life.

27:10Yeah, let's listen to it. But I also want to play this other song. It's actually La Muchachada del Centro with Ernesto Famá singing. I like this song. It's very playful and it has this offbeat pattern that's nice for dancing.

27:23It is nice for dancing, but let's say as well, it's the first song. Well, not the very first, actually, but the hard beat is now here. So in the 1929 show, everyone, do you remember the tenderness of Canaro and Charlo in that time? Well, after the Great Depression, that's driven out. And La Muchachada del Centro, it's one of my favourite tangos. Very playful. And like you say, Dag, wonderful offbeat. But the softness is gone and it's a hard beat. Yeah. Okay, let's listen to this too.

34:23Yeah, it has a happy sound, but you're right, it's a much harder beat. The beats are hard. We enjoy it in a different way. And I just looked up the lyric, and it mentions the depression. I've never noticed before. Yes, I've just posted in the chat window. And the last two lines. Has quedado con la crisis desplumado. You've ended up with the depression out of cash, naked. I never noticed before.

35:00So it's like, there's a depression, but let's have a good time. Stuff it. Who cares? So you think in a year or two, there'll be a lot of contemporary Argentine tango with COVID-19. That's the theme in the lyrics. Well, there will. The question is, will we get to hear them? This is the problem. Are people going to record these interesting lyrics and present them to the public?

35:25Always. Was then, same now. The kind of self-censorship going on and the public taste.

35:33You mentioned Siriaco Ortiz earlier. And he played in this Los Provincianos in 1932. And I read in your book that Troilo was also at the point in this. I'm not sure if he's playing on these recordings, but does it mean that he was second bandoneon in this band or he'd have been fourth bandoneon?

35:53Fourth, and 1932, think about that. Troilo's fourth bandoneon in 1932. Troilo is 17 or 18 years old, you know, he's nobody. Well, he's a promising young player. He's a promising young player, yeah. Actually, what's the story, Di Sarli heard him in that period when he's got the sex debt, so 28 to 31, he listened to him and he said to him afterwards, you know, lad, I'd offer you a job in my band, but you play too many flourishes. Fulroletes. Yeah. Well, Troilo wouldn't have been the right person to go into this artist band. You can play the violin, maybe.

36:34Yeah, I want to play this waltz. They have four wonderful waltzes recorded in 32, and I posted one of those on the event yesterday, and we listened to Samaritana today with Alberto Gómez singing. Yeah, one thing just to say about this band, it's basically the typical Victor but with a different director. All the musicians, Siriaco Ortiz is a house band and young player for the Victor house. So he gathers together the same musicians but it's his style that's driving what to play. So it's got quite a different flavour, so that's really interesting. Same people in the room, but you change the director, he puts his stamp on it, and you get these really sweet waltzes.

37:20And Goppy is playing the violin, isn't he? I think. I don't know if he's playing... I think I read somewhere. Never mind. We'll have to check. It's possible.

37:31Yeah, but before I play this waltz, Samaritana, I want to play one also by the trio, Siriaco Ortiz, Lágrimas y Sonrisas. It's an instrumental we know very well from D'Arienzo and Biagi later. Yeah, this is so cute and tender, because Siriaco Ortiz, he has this introvert tendency, which really influences Troilo later on. And here with the trio, just back with two guitars, it's so tender, beautiful, beautiful music. It's nice. Let's listen to it.

42:02 · They playSamaritanaLos Provincianos (Siriaco Ortiz) · Alberto Gómez

One of four waltzes this band recorded in 1932, played by the same musicians as Típica Victor but reshaped by Siriaco Ortiz's own, sweeter direction.

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Hear the record

43:32It's a good swing in that one, isn't it? Lovely. And look at the chat window. People love it. Yeah. People love it.

43:52What's with the name Los Provincianos? Because Siriaco Ortiz is not from Buenos Aires. He's from Corroba and the countryside around Corroba. So he's from the provinces. There were many groups called Los Provincianos. Francisco Lauro ran a group called Los Mendocinos, the guys from Mendoza. So, yeah.

44:15Can you hear it on the music or is it just the name? I think maybe you can hear it in Siriaco Ortiz's bandoneon playing because he doesn't sound like one of those city guys, does he? But apart from that, no, I'd have said not, but there is a special flavour. Let's move on to Adolfo Carabelli. And he makes a lot of recordings this year, about 50 recordings.

44:41Yeah, now Adolfo Carabelli, he started out as a jazz musician and got a job within, I think it's within the Victor company. So when the OTV was formed, Victor hired Adolfo Carabelli as a sort of musical director. And they said to him, the executives, who know nothing about music, they got Carabelli in and said, right, you, we need a tango orchestra. Go and organize it. So that's how the Típica Victor started. And before that time, Carabelli was recording jazz.

45:13You can go on to the D.A.H.R. if you're a geek, you are going to love this American website called the DAHR, which stands for the discography of American historical recordings, and what they're doing, so the Victor, every time they released a record they wrote an entry in a ledger and they sent, and this ledger was sent to the United States, so the United States has got a record of every record released worldwide by the Victor Company. It doesn't have the recording dates often. It just has the date that they got the card in the post or however it was sent. So just go and Google D-A-H-R Victor and you'll find it immediately. And they are slowly going through. Now, it's a big job because it's everything that was recorded. And right now they have reached 1937.

46:13And you know, as tango people we want them to get into the 40s really fast because one of the things that's written on these, like a card index, remember when you go into the library when you were a kid and there was a card index, one of the things written on the card in the card index is which take number was released, which is information we sometimes don't have. So there is some good information on there. Anyway, on this website you can see all the recordings of Carabelli, and it's a jazz band. The guy had nothing to do with tango at all until he got this job from Victor. And then after that, he saw tangos becoming popular and thought, yeah, I can play tango. And he just kind of cross trains himself and comes up with a tango orchestra. And again, it's all the same guys that we've heard playing first tonight in the Típica Victor, and secondly, just now in Los Provincianos of Siriaco Ortiz. Same people, but now led by Carabelli.

47:09So Carabelli, he is the director of Típica Victor this year? No, he's handed that job off. He just directs it at the very beginning. But as soon as possible he gets guys to do that job for him. And he doesn't direct. He just hired the musicians and got the project off the ground.

47:27What's his instrument? Piano. So he's the pianist in this band? Well, he doesn't play on the Típica Victor recordings. And I'm not sure whether or not he's playing in his own band. He might not be. It's a busy recording, busy directing. He's a busy man, yeah.

47:41So we'll listen to Felicia, it's an instrumental we know from a lot of other versions. And Volvé, which is a vocal with Mercedes Simone again singing. Are you ready for this? We're ready. Yeah, let's go.

52:57The musicianship is really high level, isn't it? Yeah, it is. As soon as Vodaro came on, that violin, that very fast vibrato, unmistakable. I want a T-shirt. Let's start a Vodaro fan club.

53:23I want a T-shirt. Yeah, let's make one. I'm going to print that. I'm going to do that. Yeah, do that.

53:28I want one. Two. I want two. Good.

53:33We're not going to leave Mercedes Simone quite yet because she also did some solo recordings this year. Isn't it nice, though, to hear her with a dance orchestra? It's so rare. Yeah, yeah.

53:42It's because she's not a soprano. That's a mezzo voice, isn't it? It's an intermediate voice, and so it fits better with the typical. But even so, so rare. I really appreciated the timbre there. Yeah.

53:53But this year she also recorded Milonga Sentimental. And this is, I guess, it's considered an invention of Milonga for dancing, isn't it, Michael? Okay, Milonga Sentimental.

54:04You know, I'd forgotten we were going to have that tonight. People, I actually forgot. I'm not lying. I forgot. So, Milonga Sentimental. The Canaro version is from 1933, of course. Yeah, this is before. This is before.

54:16Now, Milonga Sentimental was commissioned from Sebastián Piana and Homero Manzi by, I think it was Rosita Quiroga. She said to them, oh, I need a milonga for my repertoire. Would you write me a milonga? So they said yes. And then Manzi said to Piana, I don't know anything about milongas. What are we going to do? And Piana said, no, just write something. It'll be fine.

54:41So he wrote a lyric. Piana wrote the music. They put it together, gave it to her. And she looked at it and went, I don't really like it. So she turned it down. And she commissioned this milonga and then turned it down.

54:55And then I think I've mentioned before how in the record shops, so remember this is in the day before mass media, before TV, before internet, before CD, before all that, sheet music was a big means of music distribution. And all the big record shops would have a piano and someone sitting there playing the music. So Mercedes Simone went into the America music shop, Casa America, you'll sometimes see that stamped on the front of sheet music, and Milonga Sentimental was being played. No, I'm telling it slightly wrong. She was in the building because they had a little radio station there. There were dozens of radio stations and she was in the building upstairs and her manager walked in and he heard that and he went, oh, that's nice, I'll show it to her, and he took the music upstairs and then she came down and she said, I quite like this. I'm just going on tour. I'm busy, you know, I've got to prepare for the tour, but give me the sheet music and if I like it, I'll play it on the tour.

55:56And that's what she did. She went off to Uruguay, I think it was, with the sheet music, decided she liked it, performed it, hit. And of course, if it's a hit, Canaro has to get in on the act. That's how it works. So that's the beginning of the city milonga, as we like to call it now.

56:13Don't forget, people, before this, this division between city milonga and countryside milonga does not exist. So this phrase, milonga campera, is a modern phrase that doesn't exist at the time because the only kind of milonga that exists before 1932 is the countryside milonga. Milonga is milonga campera. There is no such thing as city milonga.

56:37But there are milongas already recorded, people. Yeah, Gardel records a milonga in 30 or 31, for example, and there are actually three recordings of this milonga in 32. It's one, as Ines pointed out, Carabelli with Lafuente singing, it's a much slower one. And Canaro also recorded it, but with Ada Falcón, as in tango canción version, so it's not really for dancing. And I prefer this one with Mercedes Simone, it's the fastest one, so it has more energy. It feels more like a milonga. Let's listen to it.

59:40Oh, sweet, isn't it? They love it. They love it. Very sweet. Very sweet. It's sensible. It's very danceable, actually.

59:53I mean, difficult to make a tanda with it. Yeah, she's got one other milonga with orchestra backing. Is it Negrito? All right. I think it is. When's that from? I think it is. I think that's from 33. Yeah.

1:00:07I'm going to try to make a tanda out of this after this series. Your mission, should you choose to accept it. Yeah.

1:00:15Let's move on to the guy on the beach photo for the event. Francisco Lomuto. That was a fun photo, wasn't it? I mean, what's the thing with the beach tango at the beach? The point I want to make there is that the beach is free.

1:00:30So this photograph is taken at Mar del Plata, which is the seaside resort down the coast from Buenos Aires, and most people are still suffering quite badly from the Depression. But it doesn't cost any money to go to the beach, does it? It's a democratic public space and that's what's so interesting about that photograph, because Lomuto isn't there to go to the beach. He's there obviously to play a gig in one of the fancy hotels and get paid lots of money, but at the same time someone, or maybe it was his idea, we don't know, maybe someone asks him, would you come down to the beach and play for everyone? And he does. I think that's lovely.

1:01:09That would have been great to be at the beach while Lomuto was playing tango. And it's a good orchestra, a strong orchestra. Yeah. He has some good songs. I want to play two. And he has a good vocalist too. He has Charlo singing for him this year.

1:01:23So we'll listen to San Telmo with Charlo, which is, yeah, the listeners, you know, San Telmo, the city, the barrio of Buenos Aires. It's a poor city part, isn't it? So it also may be related to the Depression that he thinks about San Telmo. Well, an authentic part, a really authentic part for tango, a real tango barrio. But yeah, it's still the city centre. You know, a lot of the barrio norte today hasn't been built yet. So it's proper centre still at this time.

1:01:53Just to remind everyone that Charlo's not a member of the Lomuto Orchestra. He's a freelance guy with the Odeon label. So singing on the records of Lomuto and of Canaro, but not a band member, not present at their dances. And the singer in the second song, Fernando Díaz, he's a member of, he sings for Lomuto through the 30s, doesn't he? Yes, he's a proper band member himself. And then he's joined shortly after this by Jorge Omar. And those are the two singers that stay with Lomuto right through the 30s.

1:02:28Yeah. And this second song is called Me muero por tus besos. I'm dying for your kisses. Oh, yeah, that's good. Who doesn't? Yeah, let's listen to this too by Lomuto.

1:04:02 · They playSan TelmoFrancisco Lomuto · Charlo

A song about the real, still-central barrio of San Telmo, sung by a singer who freelanced for the Odeon label rather than belonging to Lomuto's band.

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1:08:45Many people commenting on the beautiful violin there in both songs. Yeah, it's got a personality to it. The tone is not at the very highest level. It's not like listening to Vodaro or listening to Roberto Guisado with Carlos Di Sarli at this time or listening to Piscotto with Canaro. But it's a good violin. It's got an earthy sound, which very much suits the style of the band. I like it.

1:09:21Someone wrote that he also had a, Lomuto also had a jazz orchestra at this time. Is that because they had to make money because it was too hard to survive as a tango orchestra? Well, in the early days, you know, Canaro ran the jazz band for a long time in parallel with his tango band, with the same musicians mostly, and then a drum kit. There was a drum in the photograph, wasn't there, people? With Lomuto written on the front of it. But once they could make money, only Frank got rid of it. This is, if not the last year, one of the last years that Lomuto is still running a jazz band and Canaro's already stopped running his jazz band.

1:10:05All right, let's move on. And I'm looking forward to the second half of this program because there's so much nice stuff coming up. And the first one is something that I think many of you haven't heard before. It's a singer called Celia Gámez. She was from Buenos Aires, but she lived in Spain and she recorded in Spain from 1927 until this year. And it's definitely a tango canción. It's not for dancing.

1:10:30And the sound quality is not the best for the song I'm going to sing. Toca, Guitarra Mía. It's with the orchestra Los Bolivios. It's the backing. And this is recorded in Europe, in Barcelona. Guitarra mía, Celia Gámez.

1:13:23Something charming with her voice. I really like it. It kind of gets to me. It's different, isn't it? And quite another flavour.

1:13:56I guess part of that flavour is a more European treatment of the beat, which is pretty square. But still, very special. I found that the violin is really quite plaintive in the background. Yeah, very nice. Thanks for playing. And it's not so heavy on this regular beat as some of the European tango. No. It's too much of this. But this is, I don't know, it feels more half Argentine. Yeah, and her voice more to the front, of course. Yeah, I guess that's why.

1:14:22Okay, let's move on to some more well-known territory, Roberto Firpo. And you remember from the 1929 program, I was amazed by the fantastic recordings by Firpo from that. You were not the only one. I had feedback after the show. Somebody sent me a message saying, what was that? Yeah, it was great. 1932, a bit less so, actually, in my view. And I remember you said last week that Firpo, he got bankrupt or something in 31 because he went bankrupt, yeah. So maybe that's affected his music also. Yeah, maybe. So he wanted to quit tango and then he didn't succeed and he had to go back. He was forced to go back to work for a few years. Yeah, exactly. So is that what you hear?

1:15:10There is one tango, I don't know if it's one of the ones you're going to play, but he records a tango in 1932 called Miserere, which if anyone's got a Christian background of any kind you'll recognize that word from the, you know, woe is me, woe is me. Um, yeah, no, I'm gonna play just one song. Is it called Poema del viejo Balcón? Oh, that's nice. Yeah, I like it. It's an instrumental. I especially like the piano that comes through in the middle of the song. Sorry, kind of special. Let's listen to it. Poema del viejo Balcón with Roberto Firpo.

1:16:14 · They playPoema del viejo BalcónRoberto Firpo

The one 1932 Firpo track chosen, prized for the jazzy piano touches underneath a still-strong walking beat, and for its clear influence on Di Sarli.

Hear the record

♪ Music · 2:30 · What the transcriber heard

1:18:44What do you mean you're only playing one Firpo tango? It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. It's about everything. And you can hear the influence on Di Sarli, can't you? The really jazzy touches from Firpo's piano playing. Firpo's conducting from the piano. He's still playing strong walking beat. What's different to Di Sarli is the violin, those wailing violins and nice bandoneón solo at the end. But again, what was really interesting was not the variation. It was these really jazzy touches in the piano underneath. He's controlling his orchestra from the back. That's the thing with the piano. It's not just an instrument that does some decorations. It's the spine. It's the backbone of the orchestra. You hear that so clearly there. Love it.

1:19:31And Paul, our sound engineer, has an excellent question. When's the book coming out, Michael? The Firpo book? Yeah. We would have loved that. It's a book that needs to be written because there are 2,800 recordings from Firpo people. And those of you who go, I hate Firpo. What you mean is you don't like those quartet recordings, which were the first CDs to be released. So let's suppose that's 500 recordings. It's not. It's less. Let's suppose it's 300. There's still 2,500 recordings of the stuff you just heard there.

1:20:05I'm not ready to write that book yet. That's the thing. I don't know it well enough yet to write the material. So actually, the honest answer is the longer this pandemic goes on, the quicker it will be, because I'm so productive at the moment. I've got nothing to do except sit at home, listen to music and write. So during the time of this pandemic, we've finished the Turkish translation of the first book. I've finished the second edition of the Troilo book. You can bet I'm making notes about this project and there'll probably be a book about that as well. Plus, you know, now that Troilo's finished, I'm going to start work on Canaro again. So I'm super productive, especially as I love your books, Michael. I'm not going to ask God for a prolongment of the pandemic. No, me neither. I'm going a bit mad here in my room. I need to get out more. Yeah, probably good for the Firpo book too if you got out more.

1:21:01Okay, let's move on to another old timer. He's been recording for a lot of years, Juan Maglio, and but he just makes four recordings in 1932. Do you know what happens? I don't know what happens, but I suspect it's his health because he dies in 1934. Yeah. I think he still sounds fantastic. He does. I want to play two of those four songs. Tristeza Gaucha with Carlos Viván singing and the instrumental waltz, Pobre Flor, which is very interesting because we know it from the Anglis from the mid-40s. Juan Maglio has a lot of really good waltzes, a number of them later covered by D'Arienzo. We have to say covered. Like Orígenes del Plata. Isn't that a Maglio composition? That's Maglio before it's D'Arienzo, and there are others. So he's a pioneer, and like a lot of the bands at this time you get these really long introductions to the waltzes, which are very sweet, and as the DJ you've got the chance of chopping them off or not, depending on where you are in the tanda and how it feels. We'll leave them here for this program. Yes, that's nice. I'm really glad that we've got the opportunity to play the waltzes with the introductions in these programs. So, Juan Maglio with Tristeza Gaucha and Death to Tango and Pobre Flor, a waltz.

1:27:54Wow. That's what traditional music sounded like in 1932. You know, they're not doing anything especially adventurous, but yeah, great stuff. So thanks, Teresa, I think, for typing in the chat. We know Jose Tonelli in the piano and the band of N'Onzie, it's probably still Scurticati and Clausey. Now, we heard them in the 1929 programme doing that fantastic variation at the end of En un Rincon del Café and we think they're still here. Clausey eventually leaves the country, but it's probably still them.

1:28:41Next out, it's a beautiful voice we've listened to in several programmes before. It's Ignacio Corsini. He sings also this year and he has a beautiful interpretation of Secreto, which is Enrique Santos Discépolo's composition. And I read this has a very special story, this song, that Discépolo had a friend who, a married middle-aged man, fell in love with another woman and started this affair. And this ordinary life was turned upside down. And at some point, Discépolo found his friend with a gun, intent of taking his life. But Discépolo wrestled a gun from him and wrote this song. I don't know if this is true, but this is the story I read about this song. I can look it up. Yeah. Because thanks to a friend, I got hold of Sergio Pujol's biography of Discépolo, which is an exceptionally detailed, well-researched work of about 400 pages. So whilst you're playing the song, I'm going to see if I can look it up and see what he says. It's a good story anyway. I believe it. This was Argentina, man. You know, all kinds of crazy stuff happened. We live very regulated lives now compared to what those lives.

1:30:00Like, I just read a story for the second edition of the Troilo book. It's not in there because there isn't room for all the stories. The young Troilo with Sapochnik and Fiorentino, they go gambling in this really dodgy place on the wrong side of the river, you know, the side of the water. And it's the kind of place where you have to convert 20 pesos into chips in order to be allowed inside. And then at the end of the night, the gangsters who run the place give them a lift back across the river because it's not safe to walk anymore. And the reason that they do it is because they're regulars at the Marabu nightclub where he plays and they know him. So life was not the kind, you know, it wasn't like today. So the story of the guy with the shotgun, it sounds perfectly believable for Argentina in 1932. Absolutely in character. Let's listen to it again. It's Corsini, backed by guitars, I think.

1:32:45It's a great song, isn't it? It's a great song. Dag, we can't see you at the moment. Oh, sorry. Just to let you know. Sorry, yeah. Corsini's voice is always perfect. Always perfect. I love it.

1:33:12Let's move on to another guy that people have been enthusiastic about before, Osvaldo Fresedo. And he has an interesting, I'm going to play two tangos, Les Pianta, which is an instrumental, and Í, í, í, which is a vocal with Luis Díaz. And you know these two songs? And the first one is recorded in January and it has this kind of train sound to it. So what you're hearing here is somebody who wants to say that the depression is over and happy days are here again. Happy Days Are Here Again is a hit, a depression era hit. It was written in 1930 when somebody was hoping that the depression was already over. But it wasn't.

1:33:58And in 1931, at the end of 1931, for Fresedo, his music becomes really deliciously thick and slow, because for Fresedo normally we think of his music as sort of quite light, you know, not very substantial. But in 31 the depression gets to him and you can hear it in the music. And then in 1932 you can hear again clearly he decides, no, that's it now, no more depression. And there isn't for him because he's a very wealthy man anyway. Happy days are here again. Um, and he's involved in a show and I was looking for the reference today. Sometimes I find some information and I forget to write down where I got it from and then I can't find it again, which is really annoying for me. But I read that in the show that he was involved in he opened the show with the jazz number Happy Days Are Here Again, and the second and later he played El Espiante. So this is Fresedo trying to sound upbeat and happy.

1:34:59And something else to say about Fresedo. So you all know that talking pictures have come in and all the bands have been kicked out of the cinemas. So Fresedo and De Caro hatch a plan, and it's Fresedo's plan, first of all. It's like, how can we get back into the cinemas? What if we do something a bit different? So Fresedo puts together a 27 piece orchestra and gets to play at a new theatre cinema called the Astor, which opens in June that year, and this is the first tango music with external arrangers ever. He's got two external arrangers, not band members, who write arrangements for this expanded band, which of course has got some extra instruments in it, like piccolos and trombones. What's piccolos? Piccolo is the tiny little flute that's about this length, which you can see in the 1933 talking picture for Seda. You can see the piccolos playing in the back row of the band. And by then he's got the harp as well.

1:36:12So arranged music, and he calls it, it's called symphonic music. Now it's never acknowledged, but of course Canaro was the first person to call his band a symphony band and to introduce the Siri Sinfonica. But of course Canaro never gets the credit for that because he's considered a pop band, but Fresedo gets the credit for it. And then later in the same cinema Julio De Caro is there also with symphonic music, not with external arrangers just yet, because he's got brilliant arrangers in his own band. He's got his brother Francisco De Caro. So this is what the sophisticated bands of the day, who are Fresedo and De Caro, they increase the number of musicians for special performances, write arrangements with fancy sophisticated arrangements and call it symphonic tango, and that's how they get back in. But that's not what we're going to hear now.

1:37:08We're going to hear El Espiante, which is Happy Days Are Here Again, and then Í, í, í is really a beautiful tango to listen to because it still has some of this 1931 sad flavour to it, which is so rare in Fresedo and I love very much. I like it, it's very sad, and these are a nice contrast. We wouldn't put them in the same tanda. No, no, no, no, no, no. So let's listen to them. El Espiante and Í, í, í with Osvaldo Fresedo.

1:37:41 · They playEl EspianteOsvaldo Fresedo · 1932-01

An instrumental built on the melody of Happy Days Are Here Again, from a cinema stage show where Fresedo deliberately played upbeat to signal the Depression was over for him.

Hear the record

♪ Music · 0:02 · What the transcriber heard

1:43:28Oh, so sweet, isn't it? I feel so soothed and calm. I don't want to hear anything else now. Can we stop now? I want to take the feeling that I got from that and walk out of the room with it. Delicious. So beautiful. Tender. Tender.

1:43:51There was a comment in the chat window from Charles. He said, when did the fashion for imitating mandolins begin and end? Now, there's a question that's making a few assumptions, isn't it? But it got me thinking. So we know that the mandolin was an instrument played by the Italian immigrants. There were mandolin bands in Italy. In fact, in Trieste last summer, I went to this tiny little art venue and there was a mandolin orchestra. So these things still exist in Italy today. So the mandolin's an influence in the early tango, but they're not trying to imitate a mandolin there. That's just tango pizzicato, which we were discussing on another evening is played differently to classical pitticato, used three fingers in tango, whereas a classical musician uses only one, and that's how you get this more rapid sound. But maybe, Charles, you've got a point that the mandolin was influencing the style of pitticato just generally in tango in the very early days. I don't think we've got any recordings of mandolin in tango from Argentina. There may be a couple from Paris from the first decade, like 1909, 1910, something like that. So we don't really know.

1:45:06Speaking of Italian immigrants, one of the orchestras I came across, or one of the orchestra leaders, the names I came across preparing for this program, I didn't know recorded this early, it's Lucio Demare. And we know him from his 1940 recordings mostly, but he had his, he traveled around Europe, I think, around 1930, and recorded with the singers.

1:45:36Yes, now, oh, it's quite, I'll try and keep the story short. So Canaro went off to Paris, didn't he, in '25 to seek his fortune, to become famous, and he triumphed there. I think he was more than nine months in Paris, and then he thought, right, next stop America. So he decided to go to America, but he didn't want to stop playing in Paris. Now, when he went from Buenos Aires to Paris, he left a band playing under his name in Buenos Aires, and he's away nine months. So people, when you look at the Canara discography, it doesn't stop for a year and a half, it carries on. So the band with Minotto is back in Buenos Aires recording, but Canara is not there, so now he's gone to Paris. So he leaves one of his brothers in charge of the band there, and they go to America. So he needs some more musicians, and especially you need bandoneon players. They were always in short supply in Europe because you couldn't get any locally. But he needs a pianist as well, because he's going to take his pianist with him. So he cables Buenos Aires, and Lucio Demare comes out to be the substitute pianist.

1:47:00And then they go to America, and they hate it there, because they don't like the Americans, they don't like the culture, the people won't dance, they just feel very uncomfortable. And Canaro gets on the boat, he goes back to Paris with one of his brothers, so Lucho de Mara is suddenly out of a job, because everyone comes back. So Canaro says to him, I've got an idea, why don't you start a trio with these two singers? So that's how the trio starts, and they're very, very successful in Spain, make lots of recordings.

1:47:29Yeah. And this recording from '32, it's not a trio, it's just a duo. He sings with Agustín Irusta, or he plays for Agustín Irusta. And it's a song we listened to before, it's Mentira. We heard it last week. I played it, the Castillo solo version. And you also played, I think, the Preliese version at the after party. So it's a known song. But this version is really simple, stripped to the bone. It's just the piano and the singer. And I think it's amazing. And I heard this, just a preview of this song, on a database I use, which is Tango DJAT. And I couldn't find it anywhere. And I didn't want to ask you, Michael, maybe you have it, but I didn't want to ask because I wanted it to be a surprise. So I asked Bernhard Geberger, who runs this database, if he could send it to me. And he did. So thanks for that.

1:48:23Oh, that's really kind of Bernhard. So the sound quality is not the best, but listen to the piano playing on this one. It's Demare in 1932.

1:50:58Isn't that something, that piano? So amazing. I've never heard that before. First time I heard it also last weekend. It's so, everything is bare and exposed. Very naked, yes. In that performance. Yeah, and the lyric just goes straight to the heart when he sings to the girl, you know, why have you done this to me? I can't bear it.

1:51:24And, oh, so a couple of bits of background. Agustín Irusta had sung a lot with Canaro in the very early days. Now, before microphones came in, you had to sing really loud. So there was a technique. In English, there's a phrase to belt a song out, belting it out. But belting was actually a technique, a specific way of using the throat to create maximum volume. But you didn't make a very good sound. And dancers, we know that the singers used megaphones before the advent of electrical amplification for dancers. They used microphones. Or if they didn't have one, they'd roll up a newspaper and sing through the newspaper. Now, when microphones came in, the singers had to change their styles. But they didn't know that. So the first recordings with Agustín Irusta, with Canaro, they sound terrible because he's still singing the old way. And I've never heard him sing like that. Absolutely wonderful.

1:52:28De Mare's playing, I recognise immediately. There's an album from 1966 or '68 of solo piano recordings, Lucho de Mare, you'll find it quite simply, it's on Spotify now, and it's this intimate style of piano playing. And what that reminded me of, the style of piano accompaniment. Rachel said the piano is playing straight accompaniment, leaving melody to the singer. Well, that's true, but it's a bit more sophisticated than that. What it really reminded me is the recordings, cabaret recordings. Help me out, people. Who's the Russian guy who sings Magnolia, Tango Magnolia? The guy who always dresses... Is it Wartinsky? Wartinsky. It sounds just like Wartinsky's recordings. Just the same stuff. So this is the Parisian cabaret, or not Parisian, maybe more like the Weimar cabaret sound that's influencing there. Very interesting, these connections. Thank you for playing that. It was really beautiful. Special song. And not something you'll hear at Milongos, I'm pretty sure.

1:53:47Let's go back to a woman singer, Mercedes Carné. She's singing a song called Rebelde this year. And you probably know this, Michael, but let's leave it to the listeners, see if they can recognize the backing orchestra, because it's not, she sings as a soloist, but the backing orchestra is interesting. Those who already know, don't type it. We want to leave it. And yeah, it is possible to guess, but only because this song is being made available in good quality. So if you already know without listening, don't spoil the fun for the rest. So Mercedes Carné, Rebelde, and you have to guess the backing orchestra.

1:56:40A lot of good suggestions. We covered all the bases, didn't we? But, you know, I mean, there was a lot of ground covered there. But the most common suggestion is the correct one. It's Di Sarli. It is. It's Di Sarli. Yes, some people are waving their hands in the air. Not so easy to hear, to be honest, because he's backing. This is not Di Sarli's orchestra with the addition of a singer. Di Sarli's lost his record contract with Victor. They won't record him anymore, but they say to him, we're going to record this woman. There's an opportunity for you to be the, actually it's on another label, it's on Brunswick, isn't it? There's an opportunity for you to be the backing orchestra. So he's having to tone down what he does and make it less expressive. But the left hand of the piano was the real giveaway, and the rastre.

1:57:55Yep. And the reason, someone asked why he's not in the stylist discography, it's because he's just a backing band. His name's not on the label. Yeah, as you said, it's Carné and backing orchestra, imagine the Di Sarli's studios, this anonymous guy just playing the piano for some singer we don't know anymore. So yeah, we kind of, we listen to the sextet recordings now and we hear how similar they are in style to the orchestra, like the two versions of Rosamel, the same arrangement. So we just kind of assumed that that was super popular, but it wasn't, it was a minor sextet, sadly, sad to say, in those years.

1:58:30In some of our programs we have this tangos of the world theme, and this week is going to be Europe and France. And the first one is just going to be a recording from France, it's Juan de Dios Filiberto, who lived in France and recorded there. And there's a song called Botines Viejos, which is an extremely sad instrumental. It's kind of a funeral song. I'm thinking about Chopin's Requiem when I hear this song. Very, very sad. The second one is much more joyful. It's by tango orchestra Auguste Jean Presenti, the Colosseum de Paris. And the song is called Chérie, and the singer is Rosette Guy. So that's a much more joyful one. Let's listen to these two and see what you think. They're very, very different.

1:59:51 · They playBotines ViejosJuan de Dios Filiberto

An extremely sad instrumental from a composer who, despite sounding European to Stenvoll, lived his whole life in La Boca.

Hear the record

♪ Music · 3:01 · What the transcriber heard

2:02:52And it's not from Paris. I can't believe it. I just feel this is so Paris sound, Michael. Well, let's just clear it up. So this is not an orchestra typical. Juan de Dios Filiberto lived and died in the Barrio of La Boca. You know, I don't even think he ever went downtown. He had a music conservatoire there. He was a personal friend of this painter. What's his name? Kinchela Martin, who painted the scenes of the Barrio of La Boca. And he called his band, I have to remember, Porteña, his Orchester Porteña. So you can hear there's a different instrumentation with a lot of woodwinds. There was lots of doubling, so two different instruments playing the same line at the same time. Great composer, also composed Caminito and a number of important songs, but not a typica and not trying to be a typica. He just did his own thing his whole life.

2:04:21Yeah, so he sounds very different. So that's why I thought he was European. Yes, it's not a typica. All right. But now let's listen to a French one. I'm pretty sure about this one because the woman sings in French, so he should be on the right side. Okay, it's Chérie with the Orquesta Auguste de Jean, Pesanti de Colosseum de Paris. Pesanti. Yes.

2:07:21Lovely voice. Very nice. The music itself, that's very European and not so interesting actually.

2:07:47Yeah, it's like after Canaro arrived, he created a stamp, an impression, like this is how tango sounds. And that was in 1925, 1926. And it didn't really develop after that. It's a pity. What if De Caro had gone to Paris and he'd been influencing the UK?

2:08:06Well, he did go to Paris and he was successful, but he was just playing for a small number of rich people. There's a fabulous... Can I tell a story?

2:08:16Yes. I know, it's my job.

2:08:18So on his tour, and it could be, well, it could actually be early 32. It's in 31. He goes to Paris, to France in 31. And with the band, they go to the Côte d'Azur. And they play a private gig for the Rothschild family. Rothschild would give these private parties for all his rich friends.

2:08:46So Rothschild, if you haven't heard the phrase, the word is a banking family. It's one of the richest families in the world to this day. And he would give private parties at his villa for his rich friends. And there was a curtain and the band played behind a curtain. And De Caro said, no, I'm not playing behind a curtain. So he was the only band to play visible to Rothschild's guests ever.

2:09:12Amazing. Amazing. So, yeah, not so influential then, playing just for this echelon.

2:09:23Let's get back to you, Buenos Aires, and Edgardo Donato. And this is a heyday of him. He records El Huracán this year, and it's amazing because it's really ahead of its time, isn't it? It has speed and energy, and it must have been really a bomb at the time compared to all these other, like, slow rhythm. Yeah, he's changed label. So he was with Brunswick, which, uh, he makes his last recording with them in May and then they fold in July. So he's quite lucky actually to get a contract with another company and he's signed by Victor. And I think this is November, right, end of November that he records this first record. And there's a clear advance in the music. I mean, we've had the hard beats of Canaro, but this high pace and level of energy, something quite new.

2:10:15People often say, oh, this is Darienzo. And I'm just saying this now to preempt what somebody's definitely going to say in the comments if I don't. And you can still say it anyway, so feel free. People say, oh, this is Darienzo before Darienzo. No, it's not. It doesn't have the heavy beat of Darienzo. It doesn't have the weight. But it is exciting up-tempo dance music, so it's kind of like a bridge to Darienzo, maybe.

2:10:35Yeah, it has a lot of speed and I remember something you wrote, I think in Tango Stories, your first book, about Donato at some point walking along the stage and smashing the light bulbs with his violin bow in time to the music. Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. And I can imagine it to this song because it's like this kind of energy to it. Yeah, yeah. But let's listen first to one of the older ones from Brunswick label, it's called Pobre Yo with Teófilo Ibáñez. It's much, much slower, heavier beats. And then the second one, El Huracán. So we can hear the transformation in these few months. Great. Yeah, let's listen to those two.

2:11:33 · They playPobre YoEdgardo Donato · Teófilo Ibáñez

An older, much slower and heavier Brunswick-era recording, played to contrast with the new energy of El Huracan.

Hear the record

♪ Music · 3:34 · What the transcriber heard

2:16:58Big contrast between those two recordings. It's great, isn't it? Fantastic. He's really found his own energy now because what we heard in the first recording is him carrying on what he'd done when he was a Rizzo. Rizzo's now split because he's fallen in love with the singer. But then he didn't change. He carried on doing the same thing. But this break seems to have given him the freedom to find his own style, and it's lovely.

2:17:43And just to pick up on the chat window, the reason that Teófilo Ibáñez sings with so many orchestras is because he's the house singer on the Brunswick label, and tango for dancing is mostly an instrumental affair. So most bands don't have their own singer. So when you want to have a vocal number, the record label says you will use this singer. So Canaro's with them at the time. When he wants a singer, it's Ibáñez. Fresedo wants a singer, it's Ibáñez, and so on and so on.

2:18:17We're approaching the end, I think. And I want to end with, I don't think you'll guess this, Michael, but let's end with another woman singer and it's Imperio Argentina time. Remember this is the singer we listened to in 1935, we listened to that superb copla, that she said that was wonderful, and she has such a, her voice just really gets me and she's not very well known for tango. But she has a couple of tangos and, uh, two tangos this year and the waltz, and we'll listen to Hácelo por la vieja, which is a song also recorded by Pugliese, I think around 1950 or something. So you recognize the tune maybe. And the waltz Desconocida, and both of these are with guitars. And maybe, maybe if I feel like I'll play a third one, it's Danza Malina, we also know from other orchestras, Imperio Argentina.

2:27:14Oh, is it just me, Michael? That fabulous voice. You've created hundreds of fans for that voice. I love it. Never heard of it before we started this series. Really classy, as people are saying.

2:27:34Yes, it's a cross between the Spanish influence of the day and the Argentine influence. Maybe that's why, because it's so original, it has this kind of changes in the intensity and the tone that it's very special and she lived in both countries as well. Someone says it reminds of Eddie Piaf, maybe.

2:27:51Okay, we come to the end and we'll play a composite as always, well, like as most times when there is one and this year there are four recordings. There is a canción version with Alberto Gómez singing and this is accompanied by the Victor Hausband OTV. So I think I'll listen to this one because the other ones are not very interesting. But before we play that, should we say thank you to everyone for coming with us to 1932 and enjoying this post-depression year. I don't feel depressed, do you, Michael?

2:28:42No, I feel good. Yeah. I feel good. It's taken us out of the bad times. Let's hope that it will take us out of these bad times as well.

2:28:52So thanks to everyone. Thanks to you, Michael, as always, for sharing your... I was so surprised by the way you could just talk about any orchestra, any song, any year without even knowing what I'm going to play. It's just amazing.

2:29:05I'm learning all the time, and this project is very stimulating for me because it's like building new connections in the brain. And we are happy that we can share, that you want to share those connections with us. And thank you also to our sponsors, Tango Abrazo, Tango Norfolk, Tango Abrazo, Tango Norfolk and the Marabu Nightclub.

2:29:30And we'll have a break next week actually. I'm going on a holiday up north to my parents, so we won't have a program next week, but I'll see you in two weeks. And I didn't really think about the year yet. So we'll get back to that. But we're expecting a 1950s year. Maybe, maybe. Or maybe earlier year, I don't know.

2:29:54Yeah. So I'll post some things on the Facebook group that week. I don't know. Maybe I'll do some revision of what we've done so far, but I'll post some things for people next time because we're all going to miss it. And then just to say that, yeah, when we come, don't forget the Troilo special is coming up on the 8th of July.

2:30:13Yeah, that's in three weeks. That's three weeks. It's going to be exciting. Still some time off, but it'll be a big night. Michael's new book has just come out then, and we'll play some of the new Troilo songs, if we can put it that way.

2:30:28Okay. Okay, so let's listen to La Cumparsita with Alberto Gómez singing. It's a canzone version. So goodnight to those of you who don't want to hang around and see if there's an after party. I don't know what you're planning, Michael, but let's see.

2:33:34So what's going to be, Michael? Oh, we've hardly heard any Canaro. We could just do a Canaro after-party, actually. Let's have a Cortina. There's loads of great jazz music in 1932, of course. So much Louis Armstrong, who maybe is not typical actually what's going on, but I'm not going to play Louis Armstrong because you can hear that anytime.

2:34:08I'm going to play a recording by an English band. I want to give a prize. How can I give a prize now? I'd like to give a prize to the first person who, when the song plays, I don't want to know the name of the song. I want to know the main riff. This is a song with a riff, a motif. What was it stolen for? Somebody stole the riff from this great jazz number from 1932 and used it in a film which most of you have seen at least once.

2:37:27So, Tommy Vornonen, sounds Finnish, got the idea immediately. It's The Empire Strikes Back, isn't it? John Williams stole it for The Empire Strikes Back. Can you believe it? I think the original version is still pretty good. Okay, let's have some tango.

2:38:08Let's have a little bit more Fresedo. No, not Fresedo. Let's have a little bit more Roberto Firpo. This one is Marejada, which we all know from the orchestra of Carlos Di Sarli, of course. Marejada means the ocean swell, not the actual, but the swell, and you can see that on the cover of the sheet music, and I'll just check, but I'm pretty sure it's a Firpo composition. Yes, it is. So Firpo, huge influence on Di Sarli. Have a listen and tell me what you think.

2:38:52 · They playMarejadaRoberto Firpo

A Firpo composition, played in the afterparty, that became hugely influential on Carlos Di Sarli's own later version.

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♪ Music · 3:00 · What the transcriber heard

2:41:52Different sound, that Firpo sound. I think we're still not familiar with it. It still sounds a bit new and strange, but simple beat, easy to dance to. Now, 1932 is also the year that a young guy called Miguel Caló makes his first records. Now we are accustomed to think of Caló as sort of like Troilo-lite. You know, good musicians but keep it simple for the dancers and play the same material that Troilo does. Now in 1932 it's not like that. Miguel Caló is very firmly a follower of Julio de. So his music is much more complicated in 1932 than it is in 1942.

2:42:53And that's not the only example of something like that happening. His best recordings, to be honest, from this early period are probably the 34 ones. There's a couple from 34, but there are a couple from 32. And it would be a shame to let the evening pass without listening to them. So we're just going to listen to one, and in fact it's his very first recording from ever, from 1932. It's a waltz called Amarguras.

2:43:43 · They playAmargurasMiguel Caló · 1932

Caló's first-ever recording, still firmly following Julio De Caro's complex style rather than the simplified sound he became known for in the 1940s.

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♪ Music · 2:27 · What the transcriber heard

2:46:10Not bad, huh? Beautiful. And I mentioned the name of the pianist because he's the arranger of the band and he's really influential in creating the style of the band. Of course, Osmo Moderna comes along and adds these very light touches that people like to call diaphanous, which is the perfect word for the Moderna sound, thin as a dragonfly's wing. But Moderna's building on the sand that's already been established by Nijonsson, and he comes back later to Kaloa after Moderna leaves him. Yeah, that's nice.

2:46:57Now we're going to play some Canaro waltzes, but I'm going to play some Canaro tangos before then because the Canaro waltzes are so good at this time that after that there's not really anywhere else to go. Or is that true? No, that's not true. No, we're going to have, yeah, first a couple of tangos, one or two, just to give you a bit more of an idea. Then we're going to have a Canaro Waltz Fiesta. And then we're going to finish with a Canaro tango from the Sirí Sinfónica.

2:47:34So, Dag, you played this really interesting track, Lucho D'Amato accompanying Agustín Irusta. Let's listen to Agustín Irusta the same year, with Canaro's band, singing the tango Esclavas Blancas, White Slaves, which most of us here would have heard in the version from D'Arienzo in 1940 with, is it Reynald singing? I can't remember, it's not important. Esclavas Blancas, White Slaves, not talking about the white slave trade, but talking about how we're slaves to the rhythm in the milonga.

2:48:31 · They playEsclavas BlancasFrancisco Canaro · Agustín Irusta

A tango about being slaves to the milonga's rhythm, later also recorded by D'Arienzo in 1940.

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♪ Music · 4:43 · What the transcriber heard

2:53:28I loved Andreas's comment. No matter how long I live, I'm still going to hear good new Canaros that I don't know. Wonderful tango. Canaro always keeps it simple, so Canaro is very good at the dialogue, but just like a human conversation there's only two people in the conversation, like it goes bandoneon violin, bandoneon violin, bandoneon violin, and the other orchestras often they don't do that, you know, like they send it around the whole orchestra, which can be quite exciting, but Canaro just keeps it like two people having a chat to each other, so it's really conversational what he does. So I mean there's more like that, but we're not going to play it. Instead let's listen to one of the last numbers of the Sirí Sinfónica without further ado.

2:54:42Thank you. Didn't play, you played Inspiración of Gómez, didn't you? So I'm free to play this instrumental version. Libertad Lamarck I played.

2:58:19I think you'll agree that's a violin that one can recognise instantly. Really classy violin. It's Piscotto, nicknamed Octavio Scaglione, regular violin player. Those of you who, as I used to, thought you recognised the bandoneon player Minotto there, you're wrong. He's not playing. He's not playing, because he's off with his own band, although he rejoins Canaro for the recording of La Muchachada del Centro because his own band has gone bust in the crash. But the reason we think we recognise him is because when he left Canaro, which was in 29, he'd established the bandoneon style of the orchestra, so the players there are trying to sound like him. And that's why we get fooled.

2:59:41So now it's time for Canaro Waltzes. And then that'll be it. I'm going to play four Canaro Waltzes from 1932. And it's by no means going to exhaust the good ones. Let's start with something that, Dag, you're always emphasising very wisely, how we have the chance to play stuff tonight that we can't play easily at the milonga. So I'd like to play for everyone another hit from the stage show La Muchachada del Centro, which is a waltz called The Garden of Love, El Jardín del Amor.

3:00:26Now this is five minutes long and it's a duet with Agustín Irusta and Ada Falcón, and it's not done in regular timing. There are stops where it breathes and so on, so something impossible to play at the milonga, so I'm really happy that we can enjoy it now.

3:00:58 · They playEl Jardín del AmorFrancisco Canaro · Agustín Irusta and Ada Falcón

A five-minute duet from La Muchachada del Centro, played out of free tempo with pauses, impossible to use at a milonga.

♪ Music · 4:45 · What the transcriber heard

3:05:43Yeah, so there are two versions of this song and I got confused with the singers. Ada Falcón sings it as a soloist, backed by Canaro's orchestra, and there, of course, it was two male voices, Irusta and Fugazot. Next up, Para ti, madre.

3:12:23Great stuff! It's timeless, timeless. I'm going to play one more. Last Waltz. I know there's more good music from 1932, but we can't play it all. So, last waltz, and then it's time for Greek. The last waltz is...