Tango 1935
Dag Stenvoll and Michael Lavocah · 2020-05-06 · 2:37:22
1935 sits just before tango's golden decade of dance orchestras, so the mood is romantic and song-led rather than danceable. Carlos Gardel's death in a June plane crash devastates Argentina (national mourning, three suicides, five days with no tango on the radio) and the vacuum it leaves opens the door for Juan D'Arienzo, who gets his first record deal weeks later and ends the year adding pianist Rodolfo Biagi. Francisco Canaro dominates output (84 of roughly 250 tango sides released that year) in a mature, smooth period with singer Roberto Maida, while older figures like Roberto Firpo and Julio De Caro fade in relevance even as their innovations (piano accompaniment, violin vibrato, complex arrangement) still shape the sound. The show also covers women vocalists (Ada Falcón, Mercedes Simone, Imperio Argentina, Azucena Maizani), who mostly worked as soloists rather than orchestra singers, and detours into European and Polish tango, noting Polish tango's largely Jewish musician community, later destroyed by the Nazi invasion. Radio El Mundo also launches this year, setting up tango's growing radio presence.
What this episode gave Tangopedia
Facts said in the episode, each now cited to the minute it is said.
D'Arienzo got his first record deal in mid-1935, cutting his first sides just weeks after Gardel's death, and was 'beginning the road to fame' by year's end.
Gardel died on 24 June 1935 in a plane crash in Colombia, an event that traumatised Argentina for a long time.
After Gardel's death there were three suicides and no tango played on the radio for five days; Canaro had to delay the opening of his new show by a day.
Gardel was famously afraid of flying and told D'Arienzo he feared dying in a plane crash; his mother initially refused to believe the news of his death because he wouldn't have flown.
Gardel's body took until February 1936 to reach Argentina (by boat via New York, then overland through South America), and his statue wasn't built until 1937.
Records played · 29
Transcript
Transcribed by machine from the audio, then punctuated; names may be misheard. Tap any line to hear it. The episode is in English, and so is its transcript.
Welcome to 1935. We're standing on the doorstep to the golden decade of tango, and we have 10 years of the best tango music for dancing ever made just in front of us. I'm Dag Stenvoll, talking to you from Buenos Bergen, the second biggest city of Norway, that tiny little country in the north of Europe. And with me, I have Michael Lavocah from Norwich, England. Michael, how is life on that tiny little island of yours? We're still getting posts delivered from abroad.
“We're standing on the doorstep to the golden decade of tango.”
That's amazing. You put it in quarantine, of course, before you open it.
Yeah, for new listeners, the concept of this Tango By Year series is that I play some tango music from this year, and then we'll have a conversation about it with Michael. And the twist we use to increase the informality, and unpredictability I should say, of this program is that Michael doesn't know what I'll be playing. And there's quite a lot to choose from. Someone wrote to us last week that we look a bit like friends chatting about tango music over a cafe table, and we both love that image, didn't we, Michael?
That's what we want. Yeah, exactly. So, uh, like in earlier programs, please use the chat window for questions and comments. Yeah, we'll be monitoring that. So we made a big leap this time backwards from 1951 to 35. What's special about this tango year in music history, Michael?
Well, it's a special year, not just in Buenos Aires, but let's come on to that. It's like you said, we've got the golden decade ahead of us, so it hasn't happened yet, and that means we're not in the dance era right now. And it's a year of a beginning and an end, or maybe we'd better say a birth and a death. Because from the point of view of Argentine history, the huge event is the death of Carlos Gardel in June in a plane crash in Colombia, which totally traumatizes the nation, and it takes them a really long time to get over that. But at the same time, if he's not occupying the stage, that creates a space. And after Gardel's death, there was a lot of discussion that went on for a couple of years, really. Who's going to be the next Carlos Gardel? And many singers' names were mentioned, but of course, no one can be the next Carlos Gardel.
Chapter · 3:02
The year tango lost its king, and found D'Arienzo
Argentina's biggest star dies in a plane crash. Weeks later, an unknown bandleader cuts his first record.
And what moves into that space is D'Arienzo, who's been plugging away. He finally gets a record deal in the middle of the year, actually. So, in fact, just a couple of weeks after Gardel dies, he cuts his first records. And then by the end of the year, he's really beginning the road to fame. But we'll save the rest of that story for a bit later on.
Yeah, we'll, of course, listen to some D'Arienzo. So it's one of those strikes, arbitrary strikes of history that Gardel dies in this plane crash, you think? Would tango have gone a different way if it hasn't happened?
“Without D'Arienzo, you and I wouldn't be here. And all of us, however many participants we are here, we wouldn't be here today.”
That's a huge question, isn't it? We just don't know. But without D'Arienzo, you and I wouldn't be here. And all of us, however many participants we are here, we wouldn't be here today. And without the death of Gardel, would the D'Arienzo phenomenon have happened in the same way? We just don't know. It's one of history's unanswered questions or unanswerable questions.
Yeah. Well, let's listen to some music together, and let's go straight to the core, as you say, of 35 and play some D'Arienzo. Because his first two recordings are from July, the waltz Desde el alma and the tango Hotel Victoria. They're both instrumentals, and he records a lot of instrumentals these earlier years. Well, most people are, well, not everyone, but most people are recording instrumentals at that time.
Isn't it interesting that the very first thing he records is not a tango but a waltz? Waltzes get people dancing. The bands know that if they're at a dance and it's not working, they'll normally try a waltz to get people up, because everyone knows how to dance a waltz. So I think that's something really significant about the repertoire.
Yeah, and this was the Desde el alma we listened to in our 1944 program. That was a recording by Tom Toody. There's a lot of great recordings of this waltz from different eras. Like a lot of really old songs, people were able to interpret it in very different ways. And also the tango I'm going to play, Hotel Victoria, it's an old classic and there are lots of recordings, including from D'Arienzo. He's got three or four, I think. Okay, let's listen to some music, and then we'll talk about them after, okay? That's Desde el alma and Hotel Victoria, Juan D'Arienzo.
D'Arienzo's very first recording, a waltz rather than a tango, played instrumentally as most bands did at the time.
Danced to it · 5 of 36
♪ Music · 2:30 · The lyrics, on the song's page
An old classic D'Arienzo would record three or four times; cut the same session as Desde el alma, a week after Gardel's death.
Michael, someone asked about the piano here. It's a significant thing, isn't it? Who's playing the piano?
Well, it's not Biagi. It's not Biagi. So in the waltz, a waltz has always got a much more regular structure than tango. You've got less possibility to suddenly stop or change the number of beats to the bar and to syncopate. So the role of the piano is smaller. It's reduced. So when we listen to the first track, the waltz, and the piano is just... You can't really tell so much about what the gifts of the pianist are. Although you could tell, if your ears practiced, that it wasn't Biagi.
But when the tango came, then it was really clear. Because what did the piano do? He was present all the time, but mostly just accompanying. In games we'd say accompanying, just going, and then what about the gaps? Because that's something about tango music in general, how a piano can link one phrase to the next phrase. But particularly it's something about Biagi style, because Biagi style, when he links a phrase, is to go, which creates this energy. But the style of the pianist we had there was, he played quite a slow little run. It's hard to find the right word without insulting him. But in comparison to Biagi, it's a bit pedestrian. It joins one phrase to the next phrase, but it doesn't add anything. And that's how we can tell.
Yeah. Well, we'll get back to D'Arienzo later in this program, because Biagi enters actually at the end of the year. So we'll listen to some of his recordings as well. But these two recordings are from July 2nd. And that's just a week after Gardel dies in a plane crash. Is that in any way important? Did it affect the music at the time that Gardel died? Were people depressed?
Well, they were depressed. There were three suicides. There was no tango played on the radio for five days. Canaro was forced to cancel the opening of his new show by one day. So it must have been huge.
Yeah, speaking of Canaro, as most got it during this poll, he was the most recording artist. You put his name on the top, you know, it gave it away. You should have put his name further down. But almost nobody voted for Lomuto, guys. And I mean, okay, it was always going to be Canaro, but Lomuto would have been a really good guess. So who were the big bands in 35?
D'Arienzo refers to this era as the era of los señores directores, the gentleman directors. So not street people, not great musicians, but the gentleman people like Fresedo and De Caro, who were born into rich families. And Fresedo was very wealthy, and Canaro didn't start out in a rich family, but he'd worked his way up into that rich environment. So very different set of people compared to, say, Troilo, Di Sarli, Pugliese, that's going to be dominating in just a few short years.
Yeah, and all those two record labels, remember, the record companies are a duopoly, two companies control everything. In previous years, Odeon, which is more the local company, has dominated because they had Gardel, Canaro and Firpo. And in 1930, that was like 90% of the records that were sold, tango records. And whose name was the other company?
The biggest name is Lomuto. Lomuto was very successful at this time and was selling the most records for the Victor Company.
Okay, let's talk about the guy who died, Carlos Gardel. You talked in the introduction about the importance of this accident. But what can you say about Gardel as a tango singer and, well, in general?
I think for us as non-Argentines, although there are a few Argentines with us, it's kind of impossible to understand the Gardel phenomenon. Gardel was not just the best tango singer ever, but he was like the perfect man. Worked his way up from poverty to a position where he was hugely successful, great artist, everybody loved him, he was always smiling, he'd made good money, became a myth. He became a myth not in his own lifetime, but very quickly after he died, because of course he died at the very peak of his fame. It helps to die young if you want to become a myth.
“He became a myth not in his own lifetime but very quickly after he died... it helps to die young if you want to become a myth.”
Yeah, well, that's what happens in this case, and the country was convulsed. And it's like when a person dies, they say the grieving cycle takes about two years. And when I was looking at the dates, because the stories about what happened are quite well known, but it suddenly struck me, it was exactly the same as when a close relative dies. Because it's a two-year process, the body doesn't even get home till February the following year, because it has to go by boat first of all, all the way back to New York and then slowly down through South America, and every stop there has to be this big fuss made about it. So it's not till February 36, and he dies on the 24th of June 35. It's not till February 36 that it gets back, and they don't build the statue till 37. So it takes them a very long time to get over it.
And all the stories about Gardel being afraid of flying were true. He didn't like flying. Famously, he told D'Arienzo that he was frightened he was going to die in a plane crash. And when his mother received the news, she said, no, it can't be true, he didn't like flying, he wouldn't have flown. So talk about the hand of fate.
Chapter · 17:32
Two years to grieve a king
Carlos Gardel died in June 1935. His body didn't come home until February 1936.
Yeah, goodness. Yeah, well, in this year he made not so many recordings, just, well, 14 recordings, it's not bad, and seven of them are tangos, and they're all made on 19th and 20th of March, which is kind of unusual. But that's because he's making films, so it's a completely different situation. You're not a gigging artist who's popping into the studio for a few days. He's in New York, the Paramount studios. He's made films in previous years, 32, 33, in Paris, and now he's going to conquer the United States, to conquer America. And he makes three films for Paramount, whose studios are in New York, in the district of Queens. And all these songs that he records are songs that are going to be used in these films. So that's the reason for those songs.
Yeah, we're going to listen to two of those, and you've heard them many times. Por una cabeza, which is a classic, not for tango dancers, of course, but for tango culture it's very known. And the second one is Volver. And this film music, I mean, how important was it in general for tango orchestras or singers to appear in films?
In general, I'm not sure. I think for a dance orchestra it was good but not crucial, but for a soloist like Gardel, yes, it brought huge exposure, and lots of new songs would be written for the films. Gardel worked a lot with a lyricist called Alfredo Le Pera. So Volver, Alfredo Le Pera is the lyricist. And he was a really great lyricist.
Troilo was once asked, well, who are your favorite lyricists? So of course, the top three, we can immediately predict who Troilo is going to choose. He's going to choose Homero Manzi, José María Contursi and Cátulo Castillo, because he worked with those guys to create a lot of repertoire. Fourth was Expósito. And then he said, well, actually, number five, Alfredo Le Pera. He was great. He wrote some great stuff. And he would have gone on to produce more great material if he hadn't died.
Was it him who composed Por una cabeza and Volver? Volver, yes. Por una cabeza, I think so, but I would have to just check. Yeah. Do you want to say anything? Do you want to tell people what Por una cabeza means? Oh, you can tell them.
Well, it's horse racing. Gardel loved horse racing. He had race horses at a stable. And it means by a head. So two horses are racing to the finish line, one is slightly ahead. If you watch the clip on YouTube, which is from the film, there's 20 seconds of talking beforehand, and then he says, and once again, I lost all my money. The horse went and with it, so did all my money. And then you get the dual meaning of losing out in life and in love also.
Well, do you have that expression in English? I was wondering, because there is one in Norwegian about being a horse head. Exactly, we do. We say by a head, one by a head, or even by a short head. But in Norwegian you actually say by a horse head. Okay, let's listen to these two songs, Por una cabeza and Volver by Carlos Gardel.
Recorded in the Paramount studios in Queens for one of Gardel's Hollywood films; about a horse race and, by extension, love.
♪ Music · 2:42 · The lyrics, on the song's page
A Gardel/Lepera film song whose lyrics about life being 'just a puff of wind' feel eerily tied to his death three months later.
Volver, what a fabulous lyric. Que os un soplo la vida. Life is just a puff of wind. Which, of course, you know, is so connected to his death. You can see so many connections to his death with these lyrics, but then you know that's, I guess that's just tango music.
One person commented, sort of slightly shamefully, I'm not sure that I like Gardel's voice. And no, let's talk about that, because I didn't for a long time, I really didn't. And having tango dancers around at home, and then we listen to different things together, and if I were to play an average group, or no, let's say a group of experienced dancers here in Europe, good dancers, musical dancers, sensitive dancers, and played them something sung by Gardel and something sung by Ignacio Corsini, they'd probably choose Corsini, but he gets to you eventually.
And well, this year he was backed by an orchestra, as we heard, but earlier I did a lot of recordings just accompanied by guitars. And I must say, I actually prefer those with Gardel. I really like these guitar recordings. And since he was not the only good singer at this time, I would like to play some songs by other singers backed by guitars. And you mentioned one of them, Ignacio Corsini. And the other one I want to play is Charlo. Two great singers. Do you want to say something about them?
I want to play Evocación, which is a vals by Charlo, and a song called Misterio by Corsini, both with guitars. Backing bike guitars? What shall we say about them? Corsini is another soloist, so he never sang for dancers, never sang with dance orchestras, not even on the records, and he has a very unusual voice. He was born in Sicily if memory serves, and he said, I was taught to sing by the birds.
Chapter · 28:21
The singer who said the birds taught him
He never sang for dancers. He never joined a dance orchestra. And he might be tango's most unusual voice.
“He was born in Sicily if memory serves, and he said I was taught to sing by the birds.”
Beautiful. I know, and you'll hear this very natural quality. Gardel's voice is a city voice, isn't it? It's not a countryside voice, not a voice of nature. But Corsini's voice is very much a voice that you feel belongs in nature. Charlo, a more classic estribillista, fits very well, recorded a lot with Canaro and Lomuto without ever being a member of their orchestras. And my favorite voice with Canaro, I have to say, Charlo. So there's three very different voices.
But Corsini, he only made two recordings this year, actually. But I was looking at the database and he has really interesting recordings from other years, like Calquer Cosa, El Adios, Charlemos, Dulce Amargura, Potinis Viejos, Cobardia. All these really known songs from other orchestras. So, yeah, people, if you want to listen more to Corsini after this, go and check him out. I love him. So let's listen to Charlo, Evocación, which is a vals canción, which is mostly sung with guitars, and also Misterio with Ignacio Corsini.
A vals canción backed by guitars, chosen to show a singer Lavocah calls his favourite voice with Canaro.
♪ Music · 3:07 ·
One of only two 1935 recordings by Corsini, backed by guitars; Lavocah says Corsini 'was taught to sing by the birds'.
Rachel asks if he actually sang Vampiresa, and I think he does, doesn't he? I don't remember that Vampiresa Cruella, I think he sings it, it's beautiful. I love Corsini. I love them both, but I think you've just made a lot of converts to Charlo's voice. When that first one came on, everyone just went wow, beautiful.
Cool. Okay. Yeah. In the beginning of the program, we asked you which orchestra you thought recorded the most in 35. And most of you knew it was Canaro. And he didn't just record most, he recorded by far the most. Canaro did 84 recordings in 35. That's pretty insane because the total number of recordings this year is about 250. He's involved in about a third of them, either with his own band or backing some soloists like Charlo or other like Ada Falcón. And yeah, we'll listen to one, two of his recordings, Ojos negros que fascinan with singer Roberto Maida and instrumental El buey solo. Michael, what can you say about Maida or Canaro or whatever you want?
Chapter · 36:16
The year Canaro recorded a third of all tango
One bandleader. 84 recordings. A third of everything tango released that year.
Well, Canaro's been around a long time. By 1935 when he made his first recording around 1915, so he's 20 years into his recording career and much further even into his musical career. So this is a mature Canaro that we're hearing now, not a young band. And for me this period, this three years that he's going to have now with Roberto Maida from 35 to 38, it's one of his very best periods, but it's also his last really good period, and it just collapses completely after 38. He's been around for such a long time, the new wave comes and he can't keep up with them in terms of creativity. That doesn't mean there aren't going to be good songs, but he's going to run out of creative juice. And Canaro always has a very square beat, the Argentines would say cuadrado, which literally means square. The beat is not decorated, it's completely fixed in tempo, it doesn't breathe. So to make a nice relaxing sound with Canaro, you need a voice that's like honey over the top, and that's what Maida gives him. It's a very, very successful combination. And about the instrumental, let's listen to it together and discuss what we think afterwards.
Just to clarify, because I'm looking at the chat windows, there are two different tangos and let's not get confused. We're not talking about Ojos negros. Ojos negros is this very old song that came from the Ukraine, am I, no, I'm getting mixed up. No, no, this is the one that's from the Ukraine, that's right, Ojos negros. The tango that's mostly recorded is the composition of Eduardo Rolas. Ojos negros que fascinan is what we're going to hear now, right? Yeah, and that's this old song from the Ukraine. And so normally they give the full title because otherwise we mix these two up, like I just did.
Well, you wrote in Tango Stories, your book, that Maida is to Canaro a bit what Hector Maure is to D'Arienzo a few years later, a singer leading the orchestra in a more refined direction than the band leader wanted. Yes, and a smoother direction. Yeah, very smooth. Yeah. So let's listen to Canaro with Ojos negros que fascinan, con Roberto Maida singing, and El buey solo, an instrumental, a playful one.
Played alongside the instrumental El buey solo to show Canaro's mature, smooth 1935-38 period with Maida.
Danced to it · 5 of 19
A playful instrumental; Lavocah notes the square, metronomic beat under Canaro's changing textures.
Love the playfulness of this song, and early Canaros, Thirties Canaros in general. It's always very playful, and lots of great feedback and love for that in the comment section. But nevertheless, what I can't help but, I try not to notice it, but what I notice is that without Maida's voice on the top, the beat just is like a metronome. So if you've got something to play with, and yes, he does change the texture, but not in the beat layer, in the upper layers, he keeps changing the texture. So we can play with that. This layer, very square.
Yeah, all right. As we talked about Canaro, he recorded with his own band only, and he also backed other, like, soloists, and one of them was Charlo, and the other, another one he backed was Ada Falcón. And I was thinking maybe we should play a few tangos by women singers. And Michael, why are there so few women vocalists in tango, and when they perform, why do they usually perform solo and not as part of an orchestra, as the estribillista or cantora de orquesta? Well, that's a lot of questions. Yeah, too much. You can answer what you want.
So first of all, in this time in all our countries, the social environment, the downtown social environment, was not a place that women were able to move freely on a Saturday night. When you see pictures of milongas from Buenos Aires, and there aren't many, on a Saturday night in a barrio, a barrio club, yes, it's all the couples, the boys and girls from the barrio. But downtown, it's not, the young men go out downtown to the downtown area, and they go to nightclubs, and they go to cabarets where there are hostesses, and it's a slightly dubious environment and not a place where single women generally go. Very much so, the very bohemian late night drug-fueled atmosphere is not a place for women, and that's true on stage as well.
So I guess that really affected the ability of the women to be in bands. I mean, there were women singers with the bands, but often in bands that weren't recording, you know, not the very greatest bands. And the soprano voice, I feel, doesn't fit with the texture of an orchestra, typical, very well. The ones that work better are the lower, deeper voices, the alto voices. And generally speaking, an average woman's voice has more power towards the soprano range and less towards the alto range. But a lot of the women's voices that we are going to remember are going to be the ones that were altos, like Azucena Maizani, who I guess might be the second one we're gonna hear, I don't know. Like Nelly Omar, she's an alto voice, and Ada Falcón herself is a mezzo soprano, so halfway between.
We're gonna start listening to two songs, Ada Falcón's La copla porteña, where she's backed by the Canaro orchestra, and then we're going to listen to Mercedes Simone, Parece mentira. This is her only 1935 recording, and I really like it. And we might play some more women singers after that, but let's listen to these two first.
Picked as part of a run of women singers; Falcón is described as a mezzo-soprano backed by Canaro's orchestra.
Danced to it · 5 of 9
♪ Music · 2:45 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Simone's only 1935 recording; Dag calls it one of the two songs that most surprised and delighted him preparing the show.
Oh, beautiful. I mean, it's not dance music, it's a canción, but it's really nice to listen to. She has quite a melancholic voice, let's say this in one, quite a dark voice. Her big hit was Cantando, which she also sang as like a guest artist with one of the dance orchestras. But that's a few years earlier, isn't it? 32, 33, something like that.
Okay. I want to play two more women singers. And one of them you mentioned, Azucena Maizani, and she has a song called Las campanas. And we know this recording from Caló, the year after, from 1936. Most of you will have heard it, like early Caló. So we'll play that one as a second song, but first I want to play another one by Imperio Argentina. That's a nice stage name, isn't it? Cool. It's a very cool name. It reminds me of David Lynch's film, Wild at Heart. This badass guy, he's called Bobby Peru. Imperio Argentina is a bit the same kind of thing. The Empire of Argentina.
Amazing. She was a film star, and she performed a few films, and she also performed with Gardel a couple of times and recorded a few tangos, and I'm gonna listen to one of them, recorded in 1935, Rocío, which is back by guitars. I really love this song. Probably you haven't heard it, most of you, but because it's not for dancing, but it's really beautiful the way she sings, I think. So first Imperio Argentina with Rocío, and then Azucena Maizani with Las campanas.
A film star's guitar-backed recording, explicitly not for dancing but, Dag says, beautifully sung.
♪ Music · 2:11 ·
The other surprise favourite; Lavocah and Dag flag that the better-known version is Miguel Caló's 1936 recording.
Yeah, not just in the accompaniment as well, but in the slightly nasal tone of her voice. That's, yeah, really fascinating. Yeah, and as Azucena Maizani, yeah. Well, I preparing for this program, I think these two songs were the two that surprised me and delighted me the most actually, because I didn't know them, and they're so beautiful to listen to. And this last one, thank you for the selection. Oh, thank you.
Well, this last Las campanas, and as I said, it was recorded by Miguel Caló the year after, and I wanted to go on to Miguel Caló. He also recorded a very few songs in 1935, and we listened to one of them, Los años pasan, with the singer Carlos Dante. I mean, most people just know Caló from the latest stuff, from 41 and after. What was Caló actually doing in the 30s? When did he start recording, because it's his first year, or no?
Caló started in 1932, and well, we'll listen to it together, but the Caló that we hear now is not the same Caló that we're going to be hearing in 1942. When you listen to Caló 42 and onwards, he's like, he finally hit on his winning formula, and the formula that he's going to discover is one where he keeps things relatively simple. The Caló that we hear now in these earlier years is a Caló who's really a disciple of Julio De Caro and is experimenting with complex things in the music, so it's musically probably more complex than what he's going to do later on, and he's already got very good musicians. He's always choosing people who are quite advanced as musicians for his band, so it's an interesting period, and I'm a bit sorry we don't have more. Yeah, me too.
And interesting you should mention De Caro, because I wanted to pair this song actually with a De Caro song. When I was listening to De Caro from this year, there was one song that really stood out, something very different, and something you'd never hear at the milonga, a song called Tangomanía, which is a band on their own song basically. And you know this song, Tangomanía? Yes, Tangomanía. It's just the band on your own section, isn't it?
Teresa Faust is with us tonight, so it's competition time. Tangomanía is a, they used to call them potpourris, you remember, potpourri, a musical selection of about half a dozen different Julio De Caro numbers. And the titles are not written on the record label, so I've managed to identify the first two listening to this track myself. So if anybody else can identify any more of the De Caro numbers that are going to be played, type them in the window as we go along. But don't just name your favourite De Caro number, you know, things you can actually hear in the music. And there's four bandagnons here. This thing of making solo recordings of your band-a-nyon players, your band-a-nyon section, it's been going on for a long time. De Caro was doing it already in the 20s. And it's a long one. It lasts for more than five minutes, so you have time to think.
Isn't it interesting that they could get five minutes on one side of a 78 in those years? They could? They could. This is from a single side of a record. You had to make the grooves narrower, micro grooves, so a lot more care was required in the recording process, it was more difficult, and no, I could go on about that, but I won't. We'll save that for the 1946 program. All right, let's be super nerd and listen to first Los años pasan with Caló, singer Carlos Dante, and then Tangomanía with De Caro and his quarteto de bandoneons.
An early, De Caro-influenced Caló, still years from the simpler 'winning formula' of his 1940s band.
A five-minute potpourri of half a dozen unlabeled De Caro numbers for four bandoneóns, meant for listening, not dancing.
Not something you play at the local milonga, is it, Michael? It's just mad. A lot of good suggestions. And people, yeah, I think between us we got, well, certainly a lot more than I'd managed the last time I listened to it. So we played two songs, you play two songs there which were connected, but actually it's quite a lot different, so let's just rewind, go back to Caló. Yeah, so like I said, still a follower of De Caro really in this time, hasn't quite found his own way, and that's what people hear. A few people said, oh, maybe it reminds us a bit of Laurenz. Well, not so much that, it's rather that at this time Laurenz and Caló are both branching off from Julio De Caro, so they've still got something in common. And Gabriel commented at one point that the violins reminded him of Demare, and I thought, oh yeah, they remind me of Demare as well, and I never thought that before.
Now let's have a little bit of history, so who were the musicians that were really driving the De Caro orchestra? Not Julio De Caro himself. Francisco De Caro on piano is really the center of the orchestra musically, and then the second most important guy in the late 20s and early 30s is Laurenz, Laurenz's first bandoneon in this orchestra. And then in 1934, there's some kind of conflict, personal conflict between De Caro and his musicians, and Laurenz leaves a few months into 1934. And that's when he goes on to start his own orchestra. And what happens to De Caro's orchestra? So obviously, this isn't a surprise to anybody. What we just listened to was not a typical recording for that orchestra. But had we listened to a tango, you'd have heard a big change. And okay, De Caro adapts, and he still does something that's interesting, but the quality is not the same as it was before. Why? Because Laurenz and the rest of that team have gone.
And we're in 1935 now. 1935 is the year that Laurenz composes De puro guapo, a great tango. He's going to make a great recording of it a few years later, but he doesn't get to record it in 1935, because he doesn't have a record contract, not for another couple of years. And even then he gets to record only very few songs. So the person who's recording De puro guapo in 1935, well, it's Canaro, of course, inevitably, and also Francisco Lomuto.
Now, the four bandoneons now, Laurenz has gone, so Marcucci is leading the section, or co-leading it with Gabrielle Clausy, and the arrangement you hear there was written by Marcucci, but really a tour de force, extraordinary, extraordinary, very rich in the best traditions of De Caro. Let's do something that's as interesting and rich musically as we possibly can.
It's good that these guys fell out with each other, like with Laurenz, but also, as we talked about with, well, we'll see later, with Biagi, and so it creates new constellations and events when these people cannot cooperate anymore. It's true, isn't it? And sometimes it's simply that somebody wants to move on artistically, and they can't do that by remaining in the band they're in. Yeah.
Okay, let's go on to more, should we say, mainstream tango again. Listen to a couple of songs, two songs, one by Francisco Lomuto and one by Edgardo Donato. The first one, Caminito, with Jorge Omar singing, and also cherry or seri brian, a woman's voice just a little bit. And I know this song, the Caminito song is very well known also from other recordings, and the second song is by Donato, La caída de la estantería. That's a crazy one. That's really crazy. Yeah, it's very energetic, and I was thinking, because this was recorded already in February, and it struck me, is Donato ahead of his time in a way, because it's already playing kind of the D'Arienzo style that we're talking about, that only changed until maybe the year after, fast and a lot of energy. Let's talk about that question afterwards, but before you play these, before you play it, let's just translate the title, because it explains the arrangement. La caída de la estantería, the fall of the ranch. The ranch falls down, and there are musical sound effects of a collapsing building in the track. But first it's La Muta, right? Yeah, first it's Caminito with La Muta. And let's not forget, La Muta was really popular in 1935.
A very well-known title; Lomuto is noted as hugely popular in 1935, second only to Canaro in record sales for Victor.
An energetic instrumental with mock sound effects of a collapsing shelf; Dag floats Donato as an early bridge to D'Arienzo's style.
That was really crazy. So Donato is kind of like a bridge between what happens before and D'Arienzo. So he changes record company between 32 and 33. I think it's right at the end of 32, and that's the moment where he makes the change. The first recording he makes when he switches to Victor is El Orocan, and he's already then playing with this really energetic and slightly crazy style, which he hadn't been before. But that doesn't make him like D'Arienzo. Nobody listening here had a feeling in their body like D'Arienzo was playing. Our brain tells us there's something related, which there is, but there's no D'Arienzo feeling in that music. So let's not overstate Donato's importance at the same time as let's not ignore his importance. Something in the middle.
About the sound effects. So I always assumed it was just chichara, which is the bow of the violin playing behind the bridge. But when I listened to that just now with all of you, I don't think it was. I think he was blowing on the microphone actually. There's in North American black and white movies, they show how the jazz bands did the sound of trains, and they would go up to the microphone. Now, this probably won't work because this microphone's too good, but I will try. No, the windshield just takes it. If you've got one without a windshield, you can blow in it and it makes a kind of noise. So when I listened to some of those sound effects, I think the singer may have been blowing on the microphone, but I'm not sure.
You should get a new microphone for the next program, and you do it on the auto in pronunciation. I need to get a bad one. I need to get a bad one to go with a good one. But no, there wasn't a guiro. There wasn't a percussion instrument. All right.
Yeah, let's move on to another orchestra, another orchestra, Roberto Firpo, pianist and composer, and like some of the other orchestras, he's been recording for a few years. And in your book on tango stories, Michael, you call him the forgotten hero. What do you mean by that? Because he's so hugely important, but like now in 1935 his star is really fading. I mean, Canaro kind of is, but Canaro manages to keep himself going for a bit longer. Firpo is beginning to feel his irrelevance. Firpo wrote El Amanacer for goodness sake, in something like 1912 or 1913, which was this super romantic, very creative, unusual tango, inaugurating this whole stream that Fresedo and De Sali are going to follow along with. When you look at compositions, it's not so much the number of compositions of Firpo, although there are a lot, it's the sentimental touch that he brings to tango that makes him really important.
And he recorded 2,800 numbers. So second to Canaro, but 2,800, that's more than the so-called big four put together. Okay, in earlier years when it was easier to do that. So did a great deal. Also in his piano accompaniment, the way he uses the left hand is the inspiration for what De Sali then goes on to do with his piano accompaniments. He was the first person really to bring the piano into the orchestra típica, to replace the guitar as the accompanying instrument, so kind of created a lot of the vocabulary for how a pianist was going to do that. So who's a pianist, but what strikes me when I listen to is the violins, because they have a very special sound to them, I think. Yeah, and a lot of people don't like them. The violins wail.
“If they can do it in 35 they should be able to do it today.”
So this is something to do with vibrato. The violins are not out of tune, people, they just are being played differently to what we're used to now. In the old days, pitch was lower. Yeah, but the tango communities had to become aware of that, because orchestra typical pitch 440 hertz. 440 hertz is the international standard of pitch today for the A above middle C, but a lot of symphony orchestras still don't obey, because they want to sound brighter, and they play at 442 or 443, particularly the German orchestras. Berlin Philharmonic plays at 442, and a number of the U.S. orchestras do, but before 1939 in Argentina they played at 435, which is quite a lot lower. You know, anyone can hear the difference, and there's a real consequence for string instruments, as anyone who's tuned a guitar will know, because as you tighten the string, the pitch is going up. Okay, you've now got a taut string. As the pitch goes down, you tune the string the other way, the string becomes slack. Now, if you're a violin player, that's got an important consequence, because you make vibrato with your other hand, and if the string is loose, you're going to get a much deeper vibrato than if the string is tight.
Chapter · 1:29:58
Why old tango violins 'wail'
Those old violins aren't out of tune. They're tuned differently -- and that changes everything.
And that's one of the reasons why the style or the fashion of vibrato today is different to how it was 50 years ago, and one of the reasons that the violin section today always sounds wrong. Sorry, yeah, I agree, the violins just don't sound right now, and it's one of the big reasons is the style of vibrato, because you can still do it, but it takes a lot more effort now. With vibrato there are two aspects to it. One is how deep the vibrato is, so how far up and down the string you're wobbling your finger, and the second is how rapidly you're doing it. And the Firpo vibrato is exceptionally deep, so if you want to make a wailing sound, it's perfect, but it does sound very unusual to our ears, because we're not used to it from other bands.
Let's listen to Firpo's vibratos. Well, I played two songs, one with the singer Carlos Varela, and the second one, the instrument of La carcajada. I love this. La carcajada is another crazy song. It's crazy, and I think it's talking about the violins, they're doing crazy stuff in this song. So La carcajada, it doesn't translate so well into English, but the correct word in English is guffaw. When you go, oh, that's really what the title means, and that's what the violins are doing. Exactly. Yeah. All right, let's listen to these songs by Firpo, Quejas and La carcajada.
Chosen to showcase Firpo's distinctive violin sound and deep, pre-1939 vibrato.
Danced to it
♪ Music · 2:13 ·
An unusual, wailing instrumental ('carcajada' means guffaw) that Lavocah ties to Firpo's particular violin style.
Danced to it
Isn't it great, people loved it, people loved it. What I was saying about the violins generated a lot of discussion, but let me just point out that whatever Firpo is doing in terms of what strings he's using and what tuning he's playing at, that's the same as all the other orchestras. So yes, it's probably still gut strings, in fact it's definitely still gut strings, but all the orchestras were playing with gut strings and it's 435 hertz, but all the orchestras are 435. So no, it's something particular about his own style. Gut strings, oh come on people, like the violin solo of Roberto Guisaro at the end of Corazon. It's a gut string, you know, it's not rocket science. The cello solo of Neron Ferrazano in Pedro Mafia's Inspiracion. You can hear that the richness of the tone is just stunning.
So why don't modern orchestras use this technique? Gut strings are not very stable, that's the real thing, like if the temperature in the room changes a degree or two you have to retune your instrument, so it's much more convenient to play on a modern string. Modern string is stable, you tune it and it holds the tuning. With a gut string you know you have to retune during the course of the evening, let alone when you bring your instrument in from outside. Well if they can do it in 35 they should be able to do it today.
Curiously enough I was watching a rehearsal with Florian who's with us tonight. We were talking about classical music and he made some recommendations to me and he said, oh there's, um, you can watch Nicholas Hanencore rehearsing an orchestra in Beethoven. So I took his recommendation and I watched this video. At a certain point the double basses have to play and he stops the orchestra and he turns to the double basses and he looks at one of them and he says, thank you for playing on gut strings.
That's good. Let's make an excursion to a territory I'm not sure many of you would have guessed. And I'm not sure you would have guessed it either, Michael. We're going to listen to some European tango from 1935, and I mean there are some very good European tangos from 1935. Oh, you know it because I don't know what you're going to play. Well, I'm in deep water here, to be honest. I know very little about European tango, but I came across a couple when I was preparing for this and I thought it would be interesting to play them and maybe talk a little bit about European tango and the difference between Argentine tango and European tango. Can you say something in general? I'm going to play one by a Polish guy called Adam Aston, Polish singer, actor and pianist, and then I'm going to play one by, well, he's Hungarian originally, Barnabás von Géczy or something. Thank you, you've just opened a huge topic. And secondly, by mentioning Polish tango in particular, you've opened a second huge topic. So listen to Polish together. I remember when you were in Bergen last time, it was great. It's very beautiful.
So European tango in general, as far as I can work out, European tango is kind of based on a snapshot of what tango was like at a point when they really had a deep contact with Argentine tango. So, yes, there were bands playing in Paris, for example, right up to the end of the 30s, but not the very best ones. Who were the top level bands who visited Paris? The first top level band to visit Paris was Canaro. And he did that in 1925 and he stayed for a year. Canaro recordings from 1925, it's the band of musicians he left at home with Monotho. And I forget the pianist co-running the band. He's not there. He spends a whole year in Paris and this creates an imprint on Europe.
Chapter · 1:41:38
The bandoneón's accent: why Europe never got the sound
The bandoneón is a German instrument. European tango still couldn't play it right.
Oh, tango is like this. So after that, there isn't really so much development in European tango. What does that mean? It means the square beat, first of all. Now, when Canaro leaves Paris, he leaves his brother, Raphael, running the orchestra there, and they just carry on doing more or less the same thing for a decade. And very often, the bandagnon is not a large part, um, largely because there are very few musicians there who can play the bandagnon well. There were almost no local players who could play the bandagnon even at all, so the bandagnon has a less important role there. There are no, um, virtuoso parts for bandagnon in European tango. Why is that? It's a German instrument, isn't it, originally? I know, it's so ironic, you know, and the band of neon is huge in Germany, but it's not the kind of band of neon that they send to Argentina, it's another kind which has a slightly different sound. Yeah, that's deeply ironic, that as a tango instrument the band of neon doesn't take root in Europe.
And then Polish tango is something else altogether. It's a vast world that I'm still discovering and I've spent a couple of years listening to it. It's a vast, vast world. Like you just mentioned Adam Aston, he recorded a thousand numbers as a performer, so that's like, you know, Gardel's size of greatness. The Polish tango is different again for two reasons. The first reason is that the musicians performing, 95% of them, are Jewish, so they bring a Jewish Eastern European sensibility to the music, which includes the influence of klezmer, although that's not so obvious in Polish music. And the other influence in Polish tango is this, the old Polish aristocracy and the, the Russian thing. So it's a unique mix, it's extremely sentimental, Polish tango. And of course that's all the more heightened by knowing that it's utterly extinguished in September 1939, because when the Nazis invade Poland, you know, all those Jewish musicians are either murdered or run for their lives or both. So it's a vibrant musical culture that is snuffed out.
Chapter · 1:43:35
Tango's lost continent: the Jewish musicians of Polish tango
A whole tango tradition, almost entirely Jewish, was wiped out in a single month.
Well, Adam Aston, he recorded a lot of nice numbers from 1935 to 39, then he was evacuated to live, actually in today's Ukraine, which is interesting because, Michael, we met a lot of presentations at the Remolina festival in Lviv. Yeah, it's funny. When I first went to the Ukraine I didn't realize how important it was musically. Like there's one or two tango violinists who are like, like Simon Berger comes from a village that's, you know, not that far from there. Yeah, and it's going to play by Anna Maslam, is called, is no Zostałem sam. Sorry, any Polish listening, if I pronounce that terrible, but my Polish is a bit rusty. And I was alone again, it's the English translation I could find. And the second one is Mexican, is just, her another by this on the bus from Giski. And the reason is, German name, is he lived in Berlin and worked there from 24 until he recorded this in 35. He was actually in Norway at some point. That was interesting. I mean, you don't usually find references to Norway in tango history, but he went to Trondheim after World War I to work as a violinist for a few years. So, yeah.
So let's listen to these two. And for me, yeah, the lack of a band on the own is, for me, I guess what makes it sound European. And also somehow the beat seems a bit more, less, it's less syncopated. There's not very much syncopation, it's a very steady beat, so it's a bit boring in the long run. But these two are nice songs and they're very different. These are no Zostałem sam by Adam Aston and Mexykańska serenada by Barnabás von Géczy.
A Polish tango pick to illustrate a separate European tradition; Aston reportedly recorded about 1,000 sides.
A Hungarian-born, Berlin-based bandleader's 1935 recording, played to contrast with the Polish track.
A lot of interesting comments. A lot of interesting comments. First of all, I mean, the first one, you know, after the end of the show, the first thing I'm going to go and do is listen to that again. I think there was a flute. Not all the time, just in the middle. I heard a flute, but it can be hard to tell on the old recordings because sometimes the recording technique, you lose timbre in the instruments and it's more easy to confuse them. But we can all do that, you know, after the show, we can all go in and listen to that one again. Um, yeah, this was some good stuff being made, wasn't there? Yeah, and very different.
All right, let's get back to Buenos Aires. We're getting, we're approaching the finish here and we have two bands left. We're going to finish with D'Arienzo, as I said in the beginning, but before that let's listen to Osvaldo Fresedo, which is also an old classic. And, um, he starts recording very early, and I remember you write in your this Arley book that at the end of the 20s he had like three or four bands going. What's he doing in 3035? Well, he's one of the gentleman directors, isn't he, that D'Arienzo is a bit rude about, and he's making beautiful music with Roberto Rey.
And something to notice about Roberto Rey, also a bit true with Maida, but more so now with Rey, is that Roberto Rey doesn't sound like a porteño. What does that mean? Yeah. What does that mean? Well, think about the way Echagüe sings. Pénsalo bien, the anger, the aggression, the street vocabulary, the nasal tones. Roberto Chanel when he sings Farol. Una rabal con casas que reflejan su dolor, su color. There's these blue notes and nasal tones. Roberto Rey has none of this. He sings absolutely correctly with a Hispanic upper class accent. So this relates to Fresedo's upper class origins and his love of foreign culture. He traveled to Europe. He traveled to North America. But it's not a very porteño tango. And you can hear that in the tone of the singer's voice. And in those years, these singers were sometimes not called estribugistas. They were called chansonniers, which is a French word to describe that. And Roberto Rey is the ultimate example of that style of singing.
Yeah, we'll listen to one song with him, No me pregunten por qué, which also recorded later by Di Sarli with Pomar in the 50s, I think. Yeah, see, this is the great shame, No me pregunten por qué. Someone look up who composed it while I'm talking, isn't it Di Sarli? Didn't Di Sarli write the music for that? Please someone just look it up. And he should have recorded it except he doesn't have a band at this time and we have to wait years and years later for him to get the opportunity, but at least Fresedo, who's a romantic orchestra, does record it.
The other one I'll play is with another singer that only recorded two numbers, I think, with Fresedo in 35, Roberto Diaz, it's called Retazo, and I really like this. And when Tango Tunes came with these additions I really fell in love with the two recordings by Diaz. This, the second track you're going to play, Retazo, it's mad but in a very Fresedo-like way, because Fresedo is not going to go mad in the way that Donato goes mad, but the harmonies in the tune are really unusual. The B section is quite spooky. And it's much slower than I think the other one. It's very old style, very slow. Well, Fresedo has quite a few slow tangos in that period, doesn't he, Dag?
And I remember dancing in Bergen and you'd not long had that album from Tango Tunes, and I hadn't bought it yet. And you played a tanda from that album and you played another one. You played Casate conmigo. Yeah, that's the other one. Marry me, that's what it means. And that is so sweet and super romantic. If you don't have that little Tango Tunes album from 1934, people, you've got two recommendations here from the two of us. Yeah. Some really sweet and rare music. Okay, let's get into the romantic mood and listen to Fresedo. So, No me pregunten por qué with Roberto Rey and Retazo with Roberto Diaz.
Chosen to show Fresedo's romantic style and Roberto Rey's non-porteño, upper-class singing accent.
A slow, old-style Fresedo number with unusually spooky harmonies in its B section.
“It's like the bread without yeast -- before Biagi, D'Arienzo is like bread without yeast, and then the yeast comes and the whole thing just catches light.”
Spooky is the right word, yeah. Very unexpected, you know, amongst this very romantic, slightly Hollywood feeling. Very unexpected. You know, Fresedo, he was an excellent musician, and when you listen to what he was doing in 1922-23, which is very early, it's super complicated. He was as complicated, as complex as Julio De Caro was in that time, and then he decided, no, I don't want to do that, I want to do something different.
Let's move, let's finish with Juan D'Arienzo, who in addition to Carlos Gardel's death, of course, in the middle of the year here, Lorenzo's involvement and his taking Biagi on board as pianist at the end of the year is super important for the development of tango. So on the last day of the year, on New Year's Eve, he records two numbers with Biagi. And you will all hear the difference compared to what we heard earlier. Another event of 1935 that we didn't have time to talk about is the opening of Radio El Mundo, a new radio station which is going to be hugely important for tango. And very quickly they orient themselves in the middle, not just low brown music but not a classical program either, something in the middle.
And there's a story that the artistic director, and this would probably have been around November, late November, December, bumps into D'Arienzo in the street, and he's heard the band playing in the cabaret, and he says, oh, do you want to come and play on the new radio station? And D'Arienzo says, no, I can't do it. His debut is not till 1937. He says, no, I can't do it because I've just got this new pianist and I'm integrating him into the band. So we've got these first 10 tracks with Lidia Fazoli, and we heard two examples of that before. Fazoli is a bit unreliable. Biagi has been on tour with Juan Canaro, another of Francisco Canaro's brothers, in Brazil, and he's come back from the tour and he likes to hang out at the Chanticleer and drink champagne now that he's back. So D'Arienzo's on stage, the pianist hasn't turned up, he knows Biagi, Biagi's beginning to get a bit of a reputation, so he looks at him and says, what do you want to play? And the rest is history.
Chapter · 2:04:19
The pianist who showed up to drink champagne and changed tango forever
The regular pianist didn't turn up. So D'Arienzo asked the guy drinking at the bar.
Amazing, yeah. We'll listen to a waltz, Orillas de plata, and the classic tango 9 de Julio, instrument, they're both instrumentals. But yeah, I guess we should listen to the piano. Try to listen to the piano in these songs because this is what's new. Well, I mean, he's not going to shine that much like in the waltz. He's not going to shine so much because the waltz is more regular and it's 1935, it's not 1937, so he doesn't take that much space. But you can hear that the band's got a lot more energy than it did in the first two recordings. So he's already having an impact. And yes, it's partly down to what he's doing on the piano, but partly down to the energy he's giving to the other musicians. And these two are recorded on December 31st, people. So Happy New Year.
Rodolfo Biagi's recording debut with D'Arienzo, cut on New Year's Eve; the waltz gives the piano less room to shine.
♪ Music · 3:00 ·
Biagi's other debut side, also cut December 31st; both host and guest hear new energy from his piano.
Fabulous. And you could hear what Biagi was doing, huh? In both hands, actually. You could hear a little bit on the left hand, but these jazzy, nervous touches. Fabulous.
But it's a new energy to the band on the own as well. I find, I mean, it's you cannot sit still when you hear this. It's so different from the band six months ago. So yeah, he's done something.
He's energized. It's like the catalyst, isn't it? Or it's like the bread without yeast before Biagi, D'Arienzo is like bread without yeast and then the yeast comes and will you the catalyst and the whole thing just catches light? Yeah, I think next week we'll have to go a bit further into the late 30s and listen to D'Arienzo when it's been really unfolding. When the bread has been baked, to use the metaphor.
But before we do that, I want to play, as usual, La cumparsita at the end, and this time it's Donato. So thank you everyone again for listening and please join the Tango by Year Facebook group where you find all the information on future events and also you can find links to the recordings of these previous events. And please invite anyone who you think will be interested into the group.
Also, we offer this program for free and in these difficult times for Tango communities and also the recordings on SoundCloud you can listen to for free. However, I have a full-time job with the government and I'm financially secure and many of us are, whereas others are more in a difficult position. And Michael, as a full-time Tangle worker, we would appreciate if you could support, if you like this program and if you can afford it, make a contribution so that Michael can keep working with his books. We don't want you to go back to engineering, Michael. There's nothing wrong about engineers. But there are millions of engineers and it's just one Michael Lavocah.
Well, thank you for that, Dag, and thank you as well to the people who've already supported me. I really appreciate it and it makes a difference. And I think we'll continue next week and I think we'll continue with 1937. 37, the year that D'Arienzo goes mega big. Exactly.
And there are a couple of new or interesting orchestra also on the scene. Laurenz. He finally gets to record something. Yeah. So let's do that next week. So thank you everyone. Have a good night. Let's finish off with La cumparsita. And we'll see, maybe there's an after party like last week. Good night.
The show's traditional closing number, this week in Donato's version.
♪ Music · 2:30 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Shall I play a couple more? Yes, go ahead, play some. Right. Let me just... Because there's so much good music, you can't play at all. There is. That's the problem. We missed like nine... My tribute to you, Dag. Thank you.
For the second European tango that you played, Dag, you played something by Barnabás von Géczy and one of the comments was sounds a bit like Robert Gaden. Well, does it or doesn't it? I'm not sure, but we can all decide for ourselves. Let's listen to something by Robert Gaden and the track that caught my eye from 1935 is called Del álbum de mis insueños, from the album of my dreams.
An after-party bonus pick of European tango, played after a listener compared von Géczy's track to this bandleader.
♪ Music · 2:19 ·
I'm sorry. We can't play everything. Not as sentimental as the Polish song. No, I guess not. The Polish have a very special feeling. Let's have a little bit of Canaro. First, the track that Laurenz couldn't record because he didn't have a recording contract, but very important song from the year, De puro guapo.
The Laurenz composition Laurenz himself couldn't record in 1935 for lack of a contract, so Canaro cut it instead.
Danced to it · 3 of 5
♪ Music · 2:28 ·
Where's my co-pilot, is he still there? He's still there, great. I'm still here. Yeah, right, but you're playing the music now. I'm playing the music now. Okay, so I'll tell you a few things I'm not going to play. I'm not going to play Cambalache, and Cambalache was a hit from 1935 again. If Discépolo had had a band, he would have recorded it in 35 because it was in the repertoire of Discépolo's orchestra later, probably with Rufino singing, but I'm not going to play that.
I think we need to listen to a little bit more D'Arienzo. I'll play two and then I'm going to stop. First, Sábado inglés, English Saturday, or Orillas de plata that we heard before was from the repertoire of and composed by Juan Maglio. Juan Maglio, true old guard, old style, and he died in 1934. But D'Arienzo took a lot of inspiration from Maglio. So as well as Orillas de plata, Sábado inglés, which is a track we don't know very well, it's really hard to get a good transfer and even the Tango Tunes transfer is not very good.
But there's a lot of interest in this tango and a bit like in 9 de Julio I pointed out the two violin lines. So the low line we've been played on the fourth string, that's Mattéo who's got a very particular tone and then the high line is another guy, Mancuso, and sometimes we get the two of them together and then you get something very, very sweet like this track, English Saturday.
From Juan Maglio's old-guard repertoire; Lavocah points out the two distinct violin lines (Matos and Mancuso).
♪ Music · 2:31 ·
Are you looking at the comments? Oh, great. Yeah, I remember. We've got one desperate Típica Victor fan here. Is it Sasha? S-A-S-A is the name. First of all, they asked for something by the Típica Victor. Now, of course, 35. Immediately, I checked the discography. There isn't anything in 35. There's one tango and even the edition published by CTA in Japan, it's just absolutely appalling sound. So we can't play that.
But they had another go, Carabelli. I mean, that's almost Típica Victor, isn't it? They're the same. And someone's immediately come back, no, there's no Carabelli in 35 hours. I'm sorry. Let's just call you Típica Victor fan. You're just going to have to wait for another year. In the meantime, I'm going to play Pabellón de las rosas, the Rose Pavilion of D'Arienzo, which is such a sweet waltz with great, great energy and still without Biagi. Biagi wasn't playing here and he's not playing in the next one either.
Super times. A very different year, isn't it? We played some very exciting years. So 41, a super exciting year. 44, very interesting and rich, perhaps not quite so exciting, but then 47 and 51, again, very exciting years. 35 is not an exciting year. It has a different charm because the dance thing hasn't really happened yet, we're just on the edge of that, so it creates a more calm and romantic and smooth mood and that's the energy we've all experienced listening to the music.
“35 is not an exciting year, it has a different charm, because the dance thing hasn't really happened yet.”
A sweet, energetic waltz, still from before Biagi joined the band.
Danced to it · 5 of 63
♪ Music · 2:30 ·
Thanks guys and we'll see you next week in 1937.
Tango By Year is Dag Stenvoll and Michael Lavocah's, published here with their permission. The audio plays from SoundCloud.