Tango 1938
Dag Stenvoll y Michael Lavocah con Carlos Puente (in the chat, collector who compiled the Euro Record CDs) · 2021-02-10 · 3:15:28
Dag Stenvoll and Michael Lavocah call 1938 explosive: one of the first great years for dance music, with D'Arienzo at his peak and the war in Europe approaching. Biagi is let go by D'Arienzo in June and has his own orchestra recording by mid-August on rival label Odeon, while D'Arienzo carries on with Juan Polito at the piano. Troilo and Lucio Demare make their first recordings, but the label system (RCA Victor and Odeon the only two left after the Depression) gives new bands one disc and then silence for three years. Around July the public turns from instrumentals towards vocal tangos with an estribillo, the shift visible in the Canaro and Fresedo discographies. Jazz is not dead: Harry Roy's British band tours Buenos Aires and scandalizes tango lovers with a rumba La cumparsita. The show leans on the danceable, with detours into soloists (Corsini, Magaldi, Mercedes Simone) and the advanced, non-selling end (Laurenz, Troilo, Demare).
Lo que este episodio dio a Tangopedia
Datos dichos en el episodio, cada uno citado al minuto en que se dice.
Biagi split from D'Arienzo in 1938, a break Lavocah thinks Biagi expected, and immediately started his own orchestra.
1938 brings the first recordings of Demare and Troilo, who begins to integrate the cerebral ideas of De Caro's school into the dancing mainstream.
The Harry Roy jazz orchestra, then the best paid jazz band in the world, travelled to Buenos Aires in April 1938 on the Alcántara and was contracted by Radio Belgrano, which spent two thirds of its annual budget on the fee; their rumba La cumparsita scandalized tango lovers.
D'Arienzo recorded 14 numbers with Biagi at the piano through June 1938, then 14 more with Juan Polito in the second half of the year.
The public taste shifts from instrumentals to vocal tangos around July 1938 (visible in the Canaro and Fresedo discographies), still with a short estribillo sung by the orchestra's singer.
Discos que suenan · 37
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Para mí eres divina (Bei mir bist du schön)Enrique Rodríguez · 1938Warm-up before the show: the Spanish version of the global jazz hit Bei mir bist du schön, played to show a European song popular in Argentina and Rodríguez as an 'orquesta característica'.
♪ Música · 1:00 ·
Enrique Rodríguez, Para mí eres divina. For me, you are divine. Also known as, Bei mir bist du schön. Yeah, that's the German version. Bei mir bist du schön was a global hit covering 1937, 1938. There's a very nice version from Zahra Leander in German. Although, don't forget, she's Swedish, actually. Or am I confusing her with somebody else?
Anyway, there's many, many beautiful versions, lovely Polish version as well. So now this is a European song that wound up popular also in Argentina, which is turning out to be something important about the year as well.
Yeah, we talked about before that Rodríguez is one of the orchestras who play tango but also a lot of other stuff. So yes, they call those Orchester Characteristica, yeah. All right.
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to 1938. And what a year. I mean... It's a tremendously exciting year, isn't it?
Very exciting. Yeah, I think that's the word. Exciting. Explosive. Yeah. So much good dance music. I know. It's going to be a little bit of torture tonight, I'm afraid. Yeah. But let's look at it.
D'Arienzo is going better than ever. There's a split with Biagi, which probably Biagi was expecting. But Biagi just starts a new orchestra. D'Arienzo carries on without him. So it just doubles our dancing pleasure, as far as we're concerned, because we've got two different flavours of that to enjoy. And at the same time, we've got the first recordings of Demare and, more interestingly, Troilo, which is beginning to integrate the perhaps more cerebral intellectual ideas of the De Caro development, evolution, into the dancing mainstream. So if we look at it just from a tango perspective, that's the scene. Lots and lots of new young bands making exciting but quite varied music.
But we shouldn't think that the conquest of jazz is over because it isn't. Because we just heard Bei mir bist du schön, which was a jazz hit of that year. And Dag and I, we nearly chose a different event photo. So the event photo that you see on Facebook is of Rodolfo Biagi. We haven't had him yet, and it's his year. But that's nice to have. But we nearly chose another one of the British jazz band, the Harry Roy Jazz Orchestra, on board ship the Alcantara, en route to Buenos Aires in April 1938.
Capítulo · 3:35
The jazz band that scandalized tango
In 1938 the best-paid jazz band in the world turned La cumparsita into a rumba.
Now, at the time, this was the best paid jazz band in the world. Wow. And when they arrived in Buenos Aires, they obviously had many contracts. They were contracted by Radio Belgrano, where the radio station allocated two-thirds of their entire annual budget for their fee. So jazz isn't dead. And they released a rumba version of La cumparsita in Buenos Aires, which scandalized the tango lovers. Wow.
So we haven't yet seen the last huzzah of jazz, still, you know, in second place, but still pushing hard. Fantastic. Yeah, and uh in addition to the bands you mentioned there are lots of others, and I think it's going to be a long night, but I think it's going to be a long night as well.
Yeah, but let's start with D'Arienzo, because uh I think you can divide D'Arienzo into two. This year there is the first half of the year, uh through June, he records uh 14 numbers with Biagi at the piano. And then, as you say, Biagi is uh thrown out and he gets the pianist Polito and he records another 14 numbers in the second half of the year. So I suggest we divide these two chapters, and we start with the Biagi chapter and we get back to the Polito. They are different, both obviously 1938 D'Arienzo, but there is a different quality to these two chapters. But let's not talk about that. Let's listen to it and see what we can hear.
Let's start with the first recording with the new singer, Alberto Echagüe. Well, it's not quite new. As you said, in Tango 1937, Michael, he joined the band already in September last year, but he didn't get to record. Not at all.
First of all, because it's a new voice, but more importantly, because the vocal tango has not yet imposed itself. That's something that Troilo will progressively do. We can tell when that happens by looking at the discographies of the two bands that are recording the most in that year, which are Canaro and Fresedo. And we can see it's around July that the public taste shifts towards vocal tangos, still with estribillo, not with cantor de la orquesta singing verse and chorus or even two verses, no, just an estribillo. That happens around July. So Echagüe joins and it's a street voice, wonderful porteño voice. He joins in 1937, it's almost a year as far as we know before he's able to make his first recording.
And yeah, and what's interesting uh is that uh we think about the 30s with D'Arienzo, we think about Biagi and we think about Echagüe, but there is only two tangos where they perform together. Indeed, yeah. You know, um, bless the porteños, yeah, they're very fond of um dando cátedra, phrasing Spanish, you know, telling you what's best we know about tango. And many a time I've heard porteños say D'Arienzo must be with Biagi and must be with Echagüe, but there's only four tracks, as you say, and only two of them are tangos, so you can't even make a tango.
Well, let's start with the first one, the first recording of Echagüe, which is Biagi's own composition, En deferencia. It's from, I think it's from January 3rd or 4th, very early January 4th, 1938, and this is a wonderful recording. And what I remember about this recording is just the very first note. So when Dan presses the go button, everyone have your ears primed and ready, because the band and yons open, well, the band opens tutti, everyone together, but with this wail of a sound. And then when the estribillo comes, actually he sings a verse and a chorus, doesn't he? Thinking about it, when Echagüe makes his entrance, the band falls right back and they just comp, they just go.
What does that mean? Why is that interesting? It means Echagüe's voice is completely exposed. So very exciting recording, and we can get to appreciate the special qualities of his voice, it's his chance to show what he can do to the public. He sees it and he does it well.
And let's play one more song, a second song that's a waltz, an instrumental waltz called El aeroplano, the airplane. I think that's from March. Beautiful waltz. April, sorry. That's a beautiful waltz. This is an old Creole waltz that's been kicking around. And when you look at the early repertoire of the D'Arienzo Orchestra, early meaning 35, 36, 50% of the recordings are Creole waltzes pretty much. Because it just puts people on the dance floor. They love these songs. It's what they dance at the weekends at their parties. So hold on to your chairs, people. Indiferencia with Echagüe singing, a tango, and then El aeroplano, a waltz. Juan D'Arienzo, 1938.
Echagüe's first recording with D'Arienzo, a Biagi composition; the band falls back to just comping when he enters so his voice is exposed.
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♪ Música · 2:43 · La letra, en la página del tango
An old Creole waltz; about half of D'Arienzo's early recordings were Creole waltzes because they put people on the dance floor. Start time approximate.
Oh, the swing in that waltz. Who can sit still? Who can sit still? Anyone who was sitting still? You need to move. I'm suddenly remembering a classical conductor. Is it Benjamin Zander? He's also a pianist. That's his instrument before he became a conductor, and he gives a lecture about how to feel a whole phrase. So that's one of the things about the lecture. And he talks about pianists and he says, are you a two-buttock player or a one-buttock player? By which he means a two-buttock player, somebody who sits like this all the time as he plays the piano and only the arms move. But the one-buttock player moves all the way onto one and then all the way onto the other.
Does that go for bandoneon arms as well? I think it does, yeah. Yeah, you were commenting on the violin, and I remember you writing your answer book about the two violin, the two first violin players that D'Arienzo had in the 30s.
Yes, two first violins, two jobs. One to play the low notes, very characteristic of the orchestra, which we haven't really heard yet. And that's Alfredo Mazzeo. And the way he gets his special tone is by playing with a viola bow, which is heavier, so it bites into the strings more. You shouldn't do it, but it works. It's not very agile, so he cannot play very fast, but it doesn't matter. He's got another guy who we heard playing the normal high work in that last waltz, Domingo Mancuso. I don't remember if we'll hear this darker violin in the two songs I'm going to play. We'll see. We'll see.
Because I wanted to play the last record that Biagi recorded with D'Arienzo. So on the June 22nd, 1938. First, let's have a glass of champagne. So it's champagne. How do you pronounce it in Spanish? You can even put sometimes you also see it written C-H-A-M-P-A-N with an accent on the A. Yeah, because this is written in the French way. Yeah, in the English way. Anyway, that's an old tango that we know. I mean, as dancer, I associated more with this hardly. I think you recorded it three times. So, but it's very nice, that answer version as well. A lot of, yeah, listen to Biagian.
Is this one of Biagi's last recordings? Have I got that right? Yeah, yeah. I think it's on the other side of Pénsalo bien, which is the only one we play with Echagüe singing about, singing to a woman, think hard before you leave me. Yes. I just checked that these are the last recordings with Biagi on piano, the last disc. The two last. And Michael, in the D'Arienzo book, you write about this Pénsalo bien as two minutes and 20 seconds of simple perfection. I stand by that.
Yeah, it's a fantastic, it's a fantastic song. And he only sings a very small part of the lyrics, but I post a whole lyrics in the chat window. And it's interesting, I think, when you read the whole lyrics, because what he sings, it's the Echagüe style, it's the aggressive, you know, Pénsalo bien is kind of, well, you regret it if you leave me. But in the other, in the verses, that's the chorus, I think. And in the verses, it's much more nuanced and he begs her to stay. And it's much more humble. Oh, nice. So we can talk about it. Yeah, we can talk about it after maybe. So let's hear those two. Champagne tango. And Pénsalo bien, by D'Arienzo.
One of the last two sides with Biagi at the piano, on the other side of Pénsalo bien. Start time approximate.
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♪ Música · 3:00 · La letra, en la página del tango
The only Echagüe-sung tango the two play of the last Biagi disc; Lavocah calls it two minutes twenty of simple perfection. Start time approximate.
You know what surprised me listening to that is how moved I was, because we associate D'Arienzo with being excited and this is a tango that we've known for a long, long time. It was used in the film The Tango Lesson, which was, what, 1997? Although not in as good quality sound-wise as what we just heard then. One of our friends, Sian, even posted in the chat window, this was the tango that got me into dancing. So I remember it for a long time. And at the beginning, yes, it was an exciting number, but now I'm just touched. Of course, I still want to dance, but I'm really touched by the simplicity. Yeah.
Yeah, the band is perfect, isn't it? Just simple perfection. Everyone knows what they're doing, what their role is. Nothing is overdone. All the elements are in play. It's perfect balance. Great wine. And it's nice that the lyrics that are not sung, I'll read a little bit from the first verse. Not a few explications. No me gustan las escenas. Decis que vas a me dejarme. So in English, it's, I don't ask you for explanations. I don't like scenes. Are you saying you're going to leave me? It's quite sore, it's quite sensitive, I think. Yeah, yeah.
And in the last verse, I appreciate the happiest moments of my life, I know that you brought light to my loneliness, and then he goes on to beg her on his knees not to leave him. This is not a very different message to what we get just from that single, isn't it? Yes, how interesting. Yeah, maybe it didn't fit, uh, I mean, it wasn't usual to sing the verse at this point. But it wasn't, but imagine, I don't think there is such a virgin, but imagine, for example, Ada Falcón singing it with Canaro.
Singing the entire lyric. Wonderful. That would have been something. Yes. We'll just have to dream about that one, folks.
All right. Let's go on to the pianist who was kicked out slash left in, in July, June, I think, and already in August, I think, he has his own band going. 15th of August, he's recording. So it's very swift that he gets the band together and very swift that he gets the recording contract. You can interpret that in several ways. You could interpret it as everyone expected it to happen and there were plans laid.
Capítulo · 24:10
Fired in June, recording in August
D'Arienzo's pianist was out in June. By mid-August he had his own band on a rival label.
But I tend not to think of it that way because he signed up by the rival record label. D'Arienzo is on RCA Victor, super successful. So Odeon immediately sees their chance to get a music under their label that's competing. Yeah. And we're glad that they did. We certainly are. There is some good stuff.
Let's listen to One Tango from his first recording session, Golgotha, which is his own composition and with lyrics by Francisco Gorindo. Yeah. A lot to listen to here. I mean, first of all, it sounds a lot different to D'Arienzo, yeah? He could have just tried to do something quite similar, which is what Juan Polito did when he split with D'Arienzo in 1940. But he doesn't do that. He creates his own sound in which the piano doesn't dominate.
But Golgotha, I mean, that's about Calvary, you know, the place where Jesus is crucified. This is an extremely intense lyric, not really an obvious choice for a first recording and different really emotionally in character than to Biagi's later work because we associate him with the upbeat, with joy, with happiness, with tracks like Puro Clase. So Golgotha is a rather different message. Yeah.
And what you said about his changing his style in a way that I think you said it in an earlier program that he takes the surprise element from the piano playing with D'Arienzo and he applies it to his whole orchestra. So you get these surprise elements, not just in the piano, but in the whole setup of the music. That's the orchestra in one word, isn't it? Surprise. Yeah.
“That's the orchestra in one word, isn't it? Surprise.”
And the second song we'll hear, I think, shows that even better than Golgotha. It's El trece. It's an instrumento. And yeah, to me, it is really characteristic, the Aji sound. Yes, this is much more the Biagino. This is again an old composition. Yeah, so let's enjoy this too. Biagi's first recording ever, Golgotha, and then El trece, recorded a few months later in November.
Biagi's first recording with his own band (his own tune, words by Francisco Gorindo): an intense lyric about Calvary, far from his later happy sound.
♪ Música · 2:10 ·
An instrumental from a few months later that shows the 'surprise' of the Biagi orchestra better than Golgotha. Start time approximate.
It's a bit of the machine gun band announcer like D'Arienzo in the end. It is, and also very short, as it was on one of the D'Arienzo tracks that you played earlier. Yeah, so there are some similarities. And the energy, of course, it's like propels you on the dance floor. Yeah, it's pushing. Yeah.
Let's hear one more Biagi recording, a waltz. And he doesn't have so many waltzes, Biagi, but they're all beautiful, I think, and very danceable. And we played one in the Love Special on December 30th. Amore e Vals, I think it's called. Amore e Vals. Amore e Vals, yeah. So now let's see Lejos de ti, Far Away from You. It's also with Teófilo Ibáñez singing, the guy who was singing on the first one, Bogota. Yeah, and this he takes at quite a fast pace, as I recall, and it's quite irresistible.
One of Biagi's few waltzes, taken at a fast pace; short and irresistible.
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What a swing. Irresistible. Very short also. Very short and short. To the point, I'll say. Wolves.
Let's go on to something a bit more romantic and listen to a Fresedo track. You said it was one of the two orchestras that recorded most this year together with Canaro, did you, in the introduction? Yeah, I think so, but I didn't check that before the show, so I hope I'm right. It's certainly the two orchestras where you can track the change from mostly instrumental to mostly vocal through the course of the year. Yeah, and in the Love Special again we played a waltz from this year called Amor, and this was from the new Tango Time Travel edition, TTT edition, that came just before Christmas. That's beautiful because there are very few Fresedo waltzes and the pace is relatively slow, so it's not so easy to appreciate them in a low fidelity. Yeah, and also that was this very special introduction on the harp that I've never heard before. So that's, yes, which was cut off on other transfers. So if you want to hear that, go to the recording from the Love Special and listen to that on SoundCloud. But now let's hear instead another beautiful, this is a tango from this year, Ojos muertos.
Oh, this is one of the most intense recordings made by Fresedo. So if I say Fresedo, we're accustomed to think, oh yeah, light, frothy, romantic number. And then maybe you start to encounter the Fresedo of the late 20s and you realise, oh, there's a more substantial, more meaty side to Fresedo. But it doesn't change our opinion about 30s, 40s, 50s Fresedo. But Ojos muertos, this is serious stuff. I love the way it fades in with the violins arriving faintly from a distance and then it descends. Quite dark. It's quite dark. It's sad and it's beautiful. So let's hear it, Ojos muertos, and this is with Roberto Rey singing.
One of Fresedo's most intense recordings, fading in with the violins from a distance; biblical lyrics (Judas, Cain).
♪ Música · 2:37 ·
Very biblical lyrics here, things about Judas and Kain. It's like a Golgotha with Biagi. It's just a biblical year, Michael, 1938. One of the nice opportunities that we have on these nights is to pay a little bit more attention to the lyrics than we normally do. And what, well, vahuda sin la ora, Judas comes back in the hour, Judith returns in the hour of the Cane who stabs, goodness gracious me. Yeah, and where will this vision go, Lord, with those dead eyes and dry hearts? Dead eyes and dry heart, it's strong, it's strong imagery here, very strong, not simply gratuitous either, imagery that speaks to us. Yeah, isn't it interesting how much bite Fresedo can have even with this light romantic sound? We'd like the romantic Fresedo as well, but I like this as well. I wonder what other repertoire he had that we don't know about.
You commented on the piano touches, and you said before, I remember, in talking about your programs, that Fresedo, the piano has a different function in the Fresedo band. Yes, there's two things that's going on there. First of all, you heard that when the pianist, the pianist is Lalo Scalise, and he goes da-da-da-da-da-da-da, but you can hear, or maybe you can just replay that in your minds, listeners, it was played in octaves. It wasn't just a single note, it was the note and its octave going up together. Now octave piano is something that's going to be really important in the style of the D'Arienzo Orchestra, particularly in the 50s, if you think about the way the piano solo is played in El Pontazo, for example. That's one that people tend to remember. Again, octave piano.
And in the video we have of the D'Arienzo Orchestra playing in Uruguay in the 1960s on television, you see the pianist's hands spread really wide like this, and he plays the octave, Juan Polito, with the thumb and the little finger like this. So they're always the same distance apart, and you can get that octave sound. And Lalo Scalise, Fresedo's pianist here, claims that he was the first person to do this. I don't know if that's true. Good story anyway. But it's the first one we have on disc anyway. Yeah, all right.
Just coming back to the point you made, yes, the piano is not the backbone of the accompaniment of the orchestra. It has a more decorative role. Yeah, that's quite different to other tango orchestras. It's more like the organization of Fresedo's typical has something in common with European, especially British light jazz orchestras, just because Fresedo travelled so much. He was in the states for a long time. He was in the states three times and he's influenced by jazz orchestras and their way of organizing the band. So the guitar, the guitar is an essential component of a European jazz band in the 1930s. He's got a guitar still in his band, for example.
So let's go to a singer we know from later, Ángel Vargas. This is three years before he started recording with Agostino, the tracks we know most well from the Milongas. He recorded two numbers this year, and this was with the Orquesta Típica Victor, so the house orchestra of the Victor Company. And it's tango Adiós Buenos Aires, and I also want to play the waltz, Sin rumbo fijo, fijo, I guess it's pronounced. What does it mean? Rumbo is a destination or direction. There's actually a very, I'm sure there's no connection at all, but there's a very famous milonga, a club. So not just the name of a milonga, but the name of the physical building, the club in Buenos Aires, called Sin Rumbo. It's one of the ones more on the north side of town with the big black and white floor tiles. But I'm sure there's no connection at all with that. Yeah.
Now these are the ones, if I'm not mistaken, with a very interesting singer. Yeah, this is Vargas. Yeah, Vargas, Vargas singing, yeah. It's a very characteristic voice, so it's good to hear him sing. Well, it is, but also it works, doesn't it? Because we're so used to the sound of Vargas with the D'Agostino Orchestra, and then when they separate and Eduardo Piano leads Vargas' backing orchestra, it's the same sound, same style, but just updated a tiny little bit. Here, we hear Vargas with a different sound of backing orchestra, and it still works. And his first is tango, Adiós Buenos Aires. It's a nostalgic lyrics about leaving Buenos Aires. And yeah, so you can imagine nostalgia in this song. I'll post the lyrics.
Before we go on, I just want to pick up on something in the chat window. So amongst our guests this evening, we have Carlos Puente, who's a great collector in Buenos Aires, who was responsible for all the Euro Record CDs. Anyone who's got Euro Record CDs, Carlos Puente compiled them and provided most of the discs from his own private collection. And he corrects me. He's telling me that in 1938, it's not yet Los Coliseos on piano on the Fresedo Orchestra tracks. It's still Rizzotti. Thank you, Carlos. And I'm so happy to have such an important person in the tango world joining us in this show. Wow, wonderful. Gracias a vos, Carlos.
Someone else even more about you. I'm afraid so. So we're in for a hard night, Michael. Bring it on, that's what I say, because I just want to say something on this topic. When you go to Argentina, there are the people who are famous and that you meet at all the important events. And then in some other place, you discover somebody who knows way more, but then it's just some guy who goes out dancing on Friday night, for example. So there's a huge variation in knowledge in Buenos Aires, how much people know. Many people love it and they like to talk about it, but do they really know? That's not so common. And Carlos is somebody who really knows.
And it's quite common in general with the old milongueros, the people who know, that they don't know what they know because they just know lots of stuff, but they don't realise from a historical perspective or for an outsider, which is what we all are really, what's important to us to know about the music. We have a perspective on music, which if you live inside the music, you don't necessarily. So it's always helpful when you find someone who understands, know what's really important about the music to understand it from the outside. It's not so common in Argentina. Great, good to have you with us, Carlos. So let's hear Orquesta Típica Victor and Ángel Vargas singing first Adiós Buenos Aires and then Sin rumbo fijo.
One of Vargas's two 1938 recordings, three years before he started with D'Agostino; a nostalgic lyric about leaving Buenos Aires.
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♪ Música · 3:45 · La letra, en la página del tango
The other Vargas side with the Victor house orchestra. Start time approximate.
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Yeah, just dance music so far. It's hard to find music from 1938 that's not heard at milongas, or at least danceable.
“1938 was the year where really we knew there was going to be a war and we're slowly descending towards that.”
Well, let's just remember what year 1938 was. 1938 was the year where really we knew there was going to be a war, and we're slowly descending towards that. So that creates an intensity beyond description, beyond my imagination. That's not something I've ever lived and I hope never to live in my lifetime. But that intensity is reflected in the music. There's no froth when that's going on.
Yeah. Right. Let's go to one of the old timers, Roberto Firpo. And he doesn't have so many recordings this year with his whole orchestra. He has this, is it quartet or quintet? That's not one of my favorites. So I'll leave that out of the playlist.
But let's hear his own composition, El amanecer, the dawn. We know this as dancers also from the Sali versions, but it's his composition. I like this version. It's very delicate and you can really hear the birds in this one. Okay, so El amanecer.
This is like whiskey. So the first time someone gives you whiskey, you spit it out and you go, this is horrible, I hate it. And then you leave it a couple of years and then you come back and you try a nice blended whiskey. That's something tolerable, acceptable. I don't know, like a Bell's or something. Or Irish. That's very mild. Yeah, or an Irish whiskey like Jack's. It's not really whiskey. You drink that for a few years and it's okay.
And then after a while, someone brings you, I don't know, say like a Balvenie 12, a 12-year-old Balvenie. So a Balvini is a whiskey that you give to people who don't like whiskey, but 12 years old, and it tastes of vanilla and honey and almonds. And they go, oh, this is really nice. I didn't know I liked whiskey. And then after that, you move them on to something a bit more. And I'd like to suggest that this is the voyage we take with listening to different recordings of El amanecer. This is totally improvised. I've never thought like this before.
So normally if we think of El amanecer as tango dancers, we think of Di Sali, and now we think it's incredibly daring listening to the 1938 Firpo recording, but the 28 one is better. Um, sorry, I know lots of people don't think that, you know. There was a chat on Facebook today going, 38 Firpo, it's amazing. It is good, but the 28 is better, and there's a version of Firpo from, I think, 1914. I'd have to check that. Now I'm not suggesting that's nice dance music, but in terms of conception, so pure and interesting. So yes, I want to listen to this 1938 Firpo, El amanecer, The Dawn, but it's just a step before you get onto the even stronger ones. So it's 12 year single cask quality, but you want to get onto the 20. I want to get onto the 20 and I'll tell you what the difference is, or should I wait until afterwards? Let's wait until after, let's hear it first. So it's Firpo and El amanecer, the dawn.
Firpo's own composition, with bird sounds; Dag compares versions to whiskey ageing, and Lavocah prefers Firpo's 1928 version.
♪ Música · 2:24 ·
Some strong opinions on the different versions here. You can continue that discussion in the Firpo nerd group after the show. Yeah. It's very charming, of course. It is. And we have the sound of spring and dawn and the birds. And what's making the bird sounds in this one, you know? Well, I'm just trusting my ears. It doesn't sound like a violin. In many versions, it's a violin. These players were able to do most spectacular things with a violin.
There is a video on YouTube. I'll try and seek it out and find the link and post it to the group page. Of the orchestra of Vizhazboas. I think it's Vizhazboas. It's one of the Uruguayan orchestras anyway, a video of them performing El amanecer. Now, if you know these Uruguayan orchestras, they're quite simplistic and musically often they fail to satisfy. But the violinist is doing all these bird sounds on the violin and you can see him doing it. So you're in no doubt whatsoever. But here, this didn't sound like a violin. It sounded like one of these special water-filled whistles. Yeah, there are several opinions. I don't know that for sure, but that's what it sounded like to me. Probably, yes.
All right, that was Firpo. And the next orchestra I want to play is another, well, Francisco Canaro, you mentioned in the introduction, is also one of the big orchestras this year and an old-timer like Firpo. Lots of recordings. But, of course, he's much more commercially oriented than Firpo, so he knows how to keep his music popular. And he still has Maida with that beautiful, mellifluous, velvety honey soaked voice, which we also enjoy. So for tango dancers of today, it's done an excellent year for Canaro. So this, like, this is more like a sweet liquor of some sort instead of whiskey, malt whiskey. It's more like an amaretto. Exactly, yeah.
So I wanted to play, because we talked about before that Canaro had brothers too, and this one brother who had his own orchestra, Rafael Canaro, and he never stayed in Paris, didn't he? Yeah, right. So I've never played him before in Tango By Year as far as I can remember, so I want to play one song by him before we get on to his brother Francisco. That's an excellent suggestion. Yeah, and there's this really well-known tango called Quiero verte una vez más, and this is
You write about this, I think, in your Troilo book, Michael. It's the first episode of the saga of long songs, love songs written by José María Contorzi to Grisel. And it wasn't recorded by Troilo because he was in this non-contract era. And the first recording we have of this is from Canaro from 1939. And Biagi and Demuto recorded in 1940. So why am I talking about this? Because we're in 1938. Well, the composition was by Mario Canaro, a third of the Canaro brothers. And he probably also had a lyric, a different lyric, because there's a 38 recording with Rafa Canaro with a different lyric than the one we know from later, from Contorsi. So let's listen to this one.
Is the lyric in Spanish or in French? It's in Spanish. Interesting. It's funny because it starts like, and then you start singing, you think, what? Is this the one where the lyric begins Viejo gaucho? That's it. Yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. This is a super lyric. It's quite dirty and, yeah, I like it. Yeah, a country lyric but quite dirty. This is really unusual, folks. It is fantastic. Viejo gaucho, gaucho with Rafael Canaro, and it's Luis Scalon singing, recorded in Paris, as Michael said.
Recorded in Paris by Francisco's brother; the composition is by Mario Canaro, with a different, countrified lyric than the Contursi words we know.
♪ Música · 2:41 ·
Yeah, I mean, China's Jojo, and he took my girl. It's got something, hasn't it? I mean, the rhythmic treatment is a bit boring. It just goes, and that's it. But still, there's a special flavor. And it's surprising with a different lyric than the one we know from other versions. So what happened? And they just got popular and Contursi talked Mario Canaro into giving up the lyric and letting him make a new one. I don't know. I'll have to research it and see if I can find out.
It was quite common, wasn't it, that songs changed lyric or lyric was added at the later stage. It was not so common. Enrique Cadicamo was a specialist. He would take an old tango that was not popular and write a new lyric for it. So yeah, it's a known phenomenon. Yeah, okay, let's go on to Rafael's brother Francisco, the one we know best, and he has tons of recordings, like almost all years and the 30s and 20s. But let's concentrate on the waltzes and milongas and hear one of each. The walls, El triunfo de tus ojos, the triumph for your eyes, this is with Roberto Maida singing.
This is Maida's last year with Canaro, isn't it? He quit. Sadly, yes. Maida had signed a five-year contract with Canaro, but he quit a little bit early once Canaro took on a second vocalist. A case of professional jealousy. He didn't really like it. And Canaro after Maida is not really the same, is he? I mean, Fama comes back, but it's a different sound. It doesn't work for me. No, I think for the lovers of the intimate introvert music, the good Canaro ends with Maida. When I say the good Canaro from an introvert perspective, I'm talking about Ada Falcón, Charlo and Maida. These three vocalists create a sensitive feeling because the Canaro beat itself is not, at least not by this time, it's not particularly sensitive, but that's ameliorated by the very sensitive delivery of Roberto Maida. And the singers that come after are not sensitive, so you end up with a very extrovert presentation, which is fine in itself but lacks depth.
Yeah, but the waltzes and the milongas, they work also after 38, I should say. But let's hear these two from 38. It's El triunfo de tus ojos, that's the waltz, and I also want to play the milonga Reliquias porteñas, instrumental, wonderful milonga, very danceable. I'm afraid so. So let's hear them.
Maida's last year with Canaro. Start time approximate.
♪ Música · 2:50 ·
A very danceable instrumental milonga. Start time approximate.
You're killing us, Dan. 1938 is a year of milongas. I have a lot of milongas on my playlist. It's a great year. I guess we should just not make any apologies. No. 1938 is a year for dancing and we want to dance. And we just have to sit and feel that tension this evening. Imagine the dance floor.
Imagine what it were like, making it a bit more intimate to embrace another person at the beginning of a tango, at the beginning of a dance, what that will mean. You know, we won't ever approach that in a casual way, just grab someone and go. At least I hope not. I think it will feel different. Give it two weeks and we'll be back to the normal. You're probably right.
Sorry to break the romantic idea, but I think that's probably not two weeks, maybe, but a couple of months. Anyway, we're looking forward to that moment. Most of us who can't dance. Some of us, some of the listeners can dance already. I mean, there's differences around Europe and around the world. There are.
Anyway, let's move on to, since we're in the brother theme, from the Canaro brothers to the Caló brothers. Because Miguel Caló is not a band we associate with the 30s, but he has a few recordings in the late 30s, and one of them is... He has recordings already in 1932, you know. He's been trying for a long time. So now he's still not succeeding, but I think he has just a couple, maybe just one record this year, I can't remember. But I want to play a tango called Dulce amargura, Sweet Bitterness, which is also known from a Fresedo version. It's nice. But this one is interesting because his brother, Roberto Caló, sings.
Yes, that's kind of strange because later on Roberto Caló becomes a bandleader in his own right. Right. But what I want to say about this recording is it sounds like Caló. So what do I mean by that? I mean, if I say Caló, the first port of call for everybody is Caló with Berón in 42, that romantic sound, lyrical sound, is what we think of as Caló being. And we can hear it in these 1938 recordings. There's also a very beautiful foxtrot of Caló, Luzes del Puerto, Harbor Lights. It's an American song, big hit in the year 1938.
But if we listen to Caló from 32 and 34, it's a different orchestra, a more sophisticated orchestra, an orchestra influenced by Julio De Caro. Like for Sero, Caló has turned his back on that path. So he said, no, I'm not going to make super sophisticated music. I'm going to make slightly simpler music, but with good instrumentalists. And there are very few recordings at this time, as you've just pointed out, Dag, and that's kind of a pity because the Caló sound is forming.
And there's a very interesting comment from Horacio Ferrer who says, when does arrangement begin in tango music? He asks a rhetorical question. That's a good question, isn't it? And then he suggests an answer. He says in 1937, when Argentino Galván first wrote a special violin part for a tango of Miguel Caló. And there are no recordings of Miguel Caló from 1937, so no one can listen to that and hear what he means. So we are listening all the same to something historical in this 1938 Caló recording.
And maybe, as you say, you can recognize the Caló song, but it's also different. It's much more energetic than the Caló from the 40s. It's much more drive to the beat, I think, in keeping with the times. Yeah, of course, it's the time stamp. So let's hear it, Dulce amargura, with his brother Roberto Caló singing.
Brother, they had a club also in Buenos Aires, didn't they? They did. It was called the Singapore. Oh. Great. Sweet Bitterness with the Caló brothers.
With his brother Roberto singing; Lavocah says it already sounds like Caló, with more drive than the 1940s version.
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♪ Música · 2:34 ·
That's interesting with the late ending because it's not Moderna playing here the piano. No, it's still Miguel Nijansson. Yeah, but this is the belated ending that Moderna does, but with a more fluid number of tones. Well, it's not the same as Moderna's ending, but it's the delayed ending. So a strong one and then a soft three, but without an arpeggio. Yeah.
And there were comments also in the chat about the guitar. Did you hear the guitar? The guitar is very clear. So there's still a little bit of influence from Anglophone music, European, American, British music, where the guitar is used as an accompanying instrument to give a little bit of the marcato. But the guitar is going to be jettisoned before Caló makes it big in 1941. Right.
Let's move on to the third orchestra under the heading of Brothers, Julio De Caro. Because, Michael, you talked about earlier that Julio was the front figure of the band, but his brother Francisco was just as important at the piano. And there were other brothers as well. In the band? No, not in the... well, by this time not. There were José De Caro and a fourth brother whose name I forget who formed a different orchestra that during the 40s was touring in Chile, for example. It was a sort of like second or third tier orchestra.
Imagine a family with four tango orchestras, four brothers running orchestras. Well, Canaro had that, didn't he, in the late 20s? Francisco Canaro ran the main orchestra. Rafael was given charge of the one in Paris. Mario and Umberto, at one point in the late 1920s, the Canaro franchise, let's say, had four bands going. But most of them under Francisco's name, not under the names of the brothers. The Kaiser. The Kaiser.
Imagine the Christmas party and the family where everyone got together and they started talking. Who's going to lead the jam? I think the Christmas would be like one of our nightmare Christmases when all the family tensions become apparent. Yeah, maybe. All right.
Yesterday, I think, or today, maybe Teresa posted one of Julio De Caro's tangos, 1937. I was considering playing that, but since I have a long playlist and Teresa already posted it, you can look for that under her Facebook profile. And instead, I'll play one milonga, a very known one and a fantastic dance number, Sacale chispas, with Luis Díaz singing.
You know, I never know what to think about this. It means striking sparks, like when you strike a match and you get a spark. Here, maybe we're meant to think of the dancer's feet striking sparks on the floor. So I enjoy this very much and it's a creative and interesting number. But at the same time, I feel it's not truly Dekarian. I feel that De Caro has become a little bit disoriented by the D'Arienzo phenomenon. So he's trying to adapt himself to the times. He's making music that's a little bit simpler than what he normally does, a little bit faster, even though it's a milonga.
“I feel that De Caro has become a little bit disoriented by the D'Arienzo phenomenon.”
Are there any milongas earlier in the De Caro repertoire? I don't think so. It's not really his thing, milonga. Or let me put it another way. I feel it's not a full expression of what De Caro is. Nevertheless, I enjoy it tremendously. Yeah. Let's not be purists. I mean, he's entitled to change his style a little bit for the times, isn't he? Yeah. Yeah.
I think I wrote in the comment on this, it's not obscure. It's not the usual obscure, non-danceable De Caro stuff. Sorry, Teresa. If I offended anyone, I didn't mean to. Anyway, it's very danceable. I think it has a very good energy. And it's Luis Díaz singing. He's one of the old vocalists, I think. He's been kicking around with the Orquesta Típica Victor, for example, since the early 30s, if not earlier. Let's hear it, Julio De Caro, a milonga.
A danceable milonga, not truly De Caro in Lavocah's view: he is disoriented by the D'Arienzo phenomenon.
♪ Música · 2:39 ·
It's the milonga that really makes me want to dance, even if it's not so De Caro, as you say. Well, let's say it's a cross between De Caro's sensibility and the spirit of the times. Nicely put. Yeah.
Okay, so far we've only listened to music that's very danceable, so let's go a little detour with something that we wouldn't hear at milongas and that we have the privilege to listen to in Tango by Year. I want to play one song by the bandoneon player Ciriaco Ortiz, and he has a trio this year. Yeah, there's this one beautiful tango he recorded called Tiempos viejos. It's a Canaro composition from the late 20s, and Canaro and Gardel recorded it back in the 20s, but I think this one is the best, I listened to them all. Yeah, we talked about Ortiz before. He was one of the influences on Troilo, and he has this conversando style, it's an intimate style, very intimate and beautiful. Let's hear it.
Ortiz's trio in the intimate conversando style that influenced Troilo's introvert playing; a Canaro composition from the late 1920s.
♪ Música · 2:36 · La letra, en la página del tango
Wonderful. I mean, this introvert playing, I'm in a nostalgic mood, I can listen to this for hours. I agree, and I can dance to it for hours with the right person. Let's just compare it to the music, all the music that we've heard so far this evening, and then what would we say? I'd have to say it's not really in the spirit of the times, and yet this influence is going to make itself manifest in an orchestra which I guess you're going to save to the end of the program. I've no idea because, as you know, listeners, Dag doesn't tell me what he's going to play or in what order. But this influence is going to make it manifest in perhaps the most important music of this year, the music of Aníbal Troilo. Which is the next orchestra I want to play. This was a warm-up. There we go.
Yeah, as I said, I mean, as you write in your Troilo book, Ortiz was a major influence on Troilo, and especially his introvert, later playing. And yeah, two songs this year, one record. And we listened to one of the songs in the Troilo special. A single disc. Yeah, a single disc. Wow, I can imagine. Two instrumentals.
Capítulo · 1:33:09
Only two record companies
In 1938 you could record in Buenos Aires for exactly two companies.
So, listeners, in these days, there were only two record companies left. In the late 20s, other record companies had tried to diversify the market, but then the Great Depression came and it eliminated them all. So Brunswick, Colombia, two international companies, and Electra, a local company, they were all wiped out by the Great Depression. And this left a duopoly, Odeon, sometimes called Discos National Odeon, and Victor, RCA Victor, a subsidiary of an American company. So if you weren't signed up to one of these two, you couldn't record. That was it.
Yeah, we have these two recordings, and I mean, we have this principle that we're not going to replay tracks that we've played before, but the Troilo special was in July and I think this is only two recordings with Troilo. We need to listen to both of them. It's Tinta verde and Comme il faut. But can you tell us why, because Fiorentino was already with the band this year, wasn't he? So why wasn't at least one of these tracks with Fiorentino singing? It could have made a difference, convinced the public that it was fantastic, and Troilo would have got to record many, many more.
So there's two questions there. We're in May 1938, if I recall correctly, 22nd of May or something like that, when Troilo records these two tracks, this single disc. And when we look at the recordings of Canaro and Fresedo, we can see that it was much later in the year that the vocal tango began to gain ground. So my suspicion is that Troilo, well, there's two possible reasons. One is that the record company said, no, no, no, no, no, we don't want any vocals, the public won't buy that. Or that Troilo himself thought it's very risky to record a vocal number with Fiorentino. The safest thing to do is to record only instrumentals.
And it's very interesting that three years later, in 1941, when Troilo records his first disc on RCA Victor, they have a voice test and Victor criticised the singing of Fiorentino. I mean, I know for everybody, for every single listener today, that seems like the most extraordinary thing to do, that the record company says, this guy Fiorentino doesn't sing very well. But the concrete criticisms that they make are all valid, actually. They criticize his pronunciation of certain vowels and certain consonants. And when you listen to the records, you can see that they're correct. But Troilo says in 41, either we come with Fiorentino or we don't come.
That's three years later. Yes, he stands by his singer and even turns down the possibility of commercial success. That's something extraordinary. And we can see that he's right. But in 38, three years before, when tango is mostly instrumental, that's not the situation that he's in. So the safe thing for him to do. I guess it's a combination, a little bit of pressure from the record company, but also pressure from the times. It doesn't feel right at this point to try to record a vocal tango. Yeah.
Well, so let's listen to these two instrumentals, which are both great numbers. Tinta verde, Green Ink, and Comme il faut. Comme il faut means doing things the way that you should. Yeah. So I don't know, like saying when we set out the table for dinner, we use a white little tablecloth and separate knives for starter and dessert. Comme il faut. And it was recorded by D'Arienzo the year before, or 36, I think, and which is also a really nice recording. But when you listen to this, when you switch between these two, you can hear the incredible dynamic in the Troilo version. It's a new level.
You are absolutely correct, Dag, and I have done this myself. Played first the D'Arienzo 1936 Comme il faut and then the Troilo 38 Comme il faut. But it's a little bit unfair to do this because tango music is developing so rapidly that from 36 to 38 it's another world, and that's what we're going to hear now. Yeah, let's hear it. Aníbal Troilo, his two first recordings with his own band, Tinta verde and Comme il faut. Enjoy.
Troilo's first disc, with the Comme il faut on the other side; an instrumental.
♪ Música · 1:23 ·
Played back to back to hear the dynamic range Troilo adds compared with D'Arienzo's 1936 version. Start time approximate.
Lo bailan · 5 de 24
And then, yeah, it's biblical. It's fantastic. It's biblical. It's so exciting because it's puro tango, as we might say, puro tango, but yet integrating into dance music all the new ideas, not so new, but new to the dancing public or falling to color off. This tango was an example of the 3-3-2, wasn't it? Ba-ba-da-ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And also with exquisite violin solos. Ah, fantastic. Thruller himself, very modest.
So a transformation of the Dakarian project into dance music. Tremendously exciting. Can you imagine? So they recorded two numbers. OK, listeners. Here comes the tough part.
So Thruller had been getting a little bit of publicity with this new band that had opened in 1937 at the Marabou Nightclub. Beautiful connection with one of our sponsors. The Marabou Nightclub sponsors this programme. How about that? So they'd opened there in 1937. They'd generated some interest with the public. There were newspaper reports about them. So in 1938, Odeon gave them a contract and produced this disc.
Capítulo · 1:45:10
The disc that 'didn't sell'
Troilo's first record was called a failure. Then nothing for three years.
Now, Horacio Godoy, who I think most of you know, an interesting teacher dancer, the guy who organizes La Verruta, he met a milonguero who bought this disc, this 78 RPM disc, which had Comme il faut on one side and Tinta verde on the other. And this milonguero told him the story of buying this disc. He went to the record shop and asked the vendor, what have you got that's new? And the guy said, well, there's this new band called Pichuco. You could try them and he said okay yeah, I'll try that, I'm interested in adventurous guy. Yeah, I'll try that with the others and he bought that with his others, took it home and he went, wow, it's amazing. So in those days, as you know, more or less by the 40s, late 30s, 40s, the bands recorded at one disc a month, 12 a year. So one month later he went back to the shop and he said, I'd like the next disc by Pichuco, please. That was really amazing, the disc that you gave me. I'd like the next one, please.
And the guy said, oh, no, no, no, no. No, that disc didn't sell. It was a failure. Forget it. There won't be anything more from this band. Such a disaster. And they were playing in the nightclubs in Buenos Aires. And they were playing in the nightclubs for the next three years without being recorded. So there's three years of them. What you just heard, there's three years of that not recorded.
“It's like saying the first three years of the Beatles wasn't recorded or the first three years of Eric Clapton wasn't recorded.”
It's like saying the first three years of the Beatles wasn't recorded or the first three years of Eric Clapton wasn't recorded. It's that bad. Or Pugliese or the Sardley. Well, with Pugliese, it's not quite so bad because it took him much longer to find his style. But this is, I'm sorry to tell you with a smile on my face on such a lovely evening, it's a terrible, terrible loss. There's three years. I mean, three years worth is more than 100 tracks of stuff as interesting as what you just heard. And we've no idea what it sounded like.
Well, let's put that behind us because it's not... Yes, please. Moving swiftly onwards. Yeah. But because there were only like these two official recordings this year or studio recordings. But there is actually a live recording by Troilo from this year with Fiorentino singing. And I came across this in the database I used playing for this program.
Capítulo · 1:47:40
Troilo sings on a bad acetate
The only 1938 recording of Troilo with Fiorentino is from a radio acetate.
Yeah, so Troilo's began to be broadcast on Radio El Mundo and Radio El Mundo recorded all their live broadcasts onto acetate discs which are cheap vinyl discs. Vinyl is a soft plastic. It was used by the radio stations not just for archive reasons but if you wanted to put a program out but not live. You know, suppose you had a program at 2 o'clock in the morning, the guy could record it in the afternoon and then he could go to sleep and then at two in the morning, three in the morning, they could put it out. So they had all these acetates and the track you're going to play us, Dag, is from one of these. You know the song, maybe. I'm afraid I do. Well, I'm not afraid. I know. Vieja amiga. Vieja amiga of Pedro Laurenz, which he wrote in 1937. And it was a huge, huge hit. When you see the sheet music, it's successively printed advertising the growing numbers of sales, which go up to 25,000 copies of the sheet music sold. But Troilo himself, it's leading edge music and he's not selling many records. But yes, yeah, also performs it.
So Dag's going to play this to us and we're going to enjoy it, of course. But just think, oh, wow, this is giving us a broader perspective on what the Troilo band sounded like in 38, 39, 40, the kind of material they were performing and the style of interpretation they gave it. So, yes, we can enjoy this, but it's also an insight onto a much bigger musical world that was not recorded. And before you all get super excited, the sound quality of this radio recording is really, really bad. But listen out for the structure of the music and when Fiorentino comes in, the way he sings. It's extremely plastic, isn't it? Plastic, that's the word. It's friseo. Yes, yeah. Very interesting. More plastic even than with the early recordings in the 40s, the studio recordings. So interesting stuff for Tango by Year listeners. Listen to this. Vieja amiga, live recording, en vivo, Troilo with Fiorentino from 1938.
A live radio recording from Radio El Mundo (poor sound): shows Fiorentino's very plastic phrasing and the wider repertoire the band played.
♪ Música · 2:57 · La letra, en la página del tango
Imagine this in studio recording. So Carlos Puente has just informed us that the voice introducing the orchestra at the beginning was Fiorentino himself. I didn't know that. Was it? Oh, I had no idea. Wow. So, yeah, we can just imagine what it would like to be present live, of course, that would be the best. But just to have a recording from this would have been fantastic.
Yeah, you and I, Dag, we couldn't have afforded to go to the Maribu in 1938, but on a Saturday night when they played for dancers in some club de barrio, we maybe could have gone there. Yeah. So, as you said, this was Pedro Laurenz's composition. So let's move on to Pedro Laurenz because he's also one, I mean, he started recording last year, I said, in 37. And this year he also had just two recordings. So the record companies are really cheap with the amount of output. They are.
And Pedro Laurenz is not at all concerned with making lots of money. So he does not alter his output in order to sell more records. But for us, we love him. We appreciate the advanced development of the music. And it's in this line of evolution that comes from the caro through the Vodaro Pulisi sextet through the Vodaro sextet. Now to Pedro Laurenz, it's the most advanced music being made in this time, without a doubt. And it's just one disc. It came out on the 12th of May, 1938. And on the one side, it's the same composition as we just heard. Vieja amiga with Pedro Laurenz and with Juan Carlos Casas singing. And on the other side, it's the Milonga, Milonga compadre, also with Casas singing.
I'm afraid you're going to kill us with excitement. Yes, this is back to the dance universe. So let's hear this fantastic two Laurenz recordings from 38. Vieja amiga and Milonga compadre.
Laurenz's own 1937 composition, a hit as sheet music, here on his single 1938 disc.
Lo bailan · 5 de 19
♪ Música · 4:00 · La letra, en la página del tango
The other side of the disc: very advanced but still danceable.
Lo bailan · 5 de 14
These Laurenz milongas, they are super advanced, but still so danceable. Well, let's turn our attention back to the tango, Talwib, because milonga and waltz have more strict rhythmic borders, a strict rhythmic outline that you have to follow, but in tango that's less true and he creates a feast of richness for us. And what was interesting for me listening with everyone here tonight was paying special attention to the bandoneon playing of Laurenz, which has things in common with Troilo, but also differences. Did people notice that it's a very expressive bandoneon, but it doesn't have an introvert side? Very expressive. So there was a lot of vibrato, the change of volume that's achieved actually by physically shaking the instruments. Laurenz was doing that.
You can hear how Laurenz was one of the influences on the bandoneon playing of Troilo, and yet at the same time it's a very extrovert playing. But a detailed, interesting extrovert playing, sometimes extrovert playing, if we think of a lot of Canaro for example, lacks detail, but not this, this is detailed but extrovert. Troilo takes that but he also incorporates the introvert side that he gets from Surrey Cortis. Must have been so exciting, and yet for the public this is specialist music that only a small number of people want to listen to in 1938. If we get a time machine, we need to take back not just one or two but, you know, at least a couple of hundred of us. Yeah, and then we can gate crash the cafe where Laurenz is playing and convert him into a superstar. But going back just you and me, Michael, sounds even better because then we could be like really in this small club with just 20 or 50 other people listening to this stuff live. Can you imagine? I almost can't. Let's stop thinking about that.
Let's move on and to something less danceable, but just as enjoyable, I think. Because on this Monday, I posted a wonderful song by a singer we visited before, Mercedes Simone, in the Tango Bayer group. Abandono, this was one side of a disc that was recorded on 28th of March 1938, and there were lots of enthusiastic comments about this post, and our frequent guest Haike, who seems to be like a great Mercedes Simone fan, asked if I would play the other side of this disc tonight. And I was actually planning to before you asked, Haike, so that was funny. I had to check the date if it was the same disc, but it was. And the second side of this disc is the tango Caricias. It's an old song recorded back in the 20s by Gardel and Canaro, but as dancers, we know it maybe better from later versions by Lomuto and D'Agostino and Biagi. And it's a great song.
I don't have any specific comments on this recording, but I do have a comment on soloists. We're now entering an era where the era of the soloists has passed. We're now in the era of the Orquesta Típica, and it's not so easy for a soloist to make recordings. We listen to them and we think, oh, this is great, why aren't they more? But the mood of the times was towards the Orquesta Típica with its singer who's converting himself into the cantor de orquesta. And in the public mood, the era of the soloist, the soloist singer has passed. It was more about the energetic D'Arienzo kind of style dancing. Exactly.
“The soloist singer has passed. It was more about the energetic D'Arienzo kind of style dancing.”
And this is very different, but what I like about this recording also, in addition to her wonderful voice, is that you get the full lyrics of this song and she sings it so wonderfully. So this is a tango for listening, for dreaming and for just getting high on the music. And I find the opening of this also very surprising because you cannot really hear it's Caricias before she starts singing. So yeah, let's hear it. It's Mercedes Simone singing Caricias and she's backed by her trio Típico.
The other side of the disc that has Abandono; sung in full, which at the time did not fit the dance-band idea. Played by request of Haike.
♪ Música · 2:58 ·
Begging you for those caresses of yesterday, isn't that a beautiful line? Interpretation pierces the heart, and it's strange to think now, with the benefit of almost a hundred years of hindsight, how the idea of singing the whole lyric at that time was completely separated from the idea of singing for dancers. The prevailing thought was these two can't coexist together. If you want to present more than a little bit of the lyric, you have to do it this way. And it did create a stillness in my body and an attention which I enjoyed very much, but the quality of Mercedes Simone's voice, which is so expressive and nuanced, who amongst us cannot imagine that with an Orchester Typica for dancing, no one, she could have sung for dancing? But it was outside the concept of tango in those years, sadly.
But let's move on to another newcomer this year, or not really a newcomer, because Lucio Demare did some recordings back in the late 20s and early 30s with a trio, the Trio Argentino. But this is the first year where he has his own orchestra and records in that name. Yeah, now these recordings, these first ones, are what, in June or July, something like that? You don't have it in front of you. I didn't really notice. It's something like that.
The only reason that I bring this topic up is because prior to these recordings, did you know that Lucho Demare was co-leading a band with Elvino Vardaro? I had no idea. So there was an orchestra. And why would we know? Because this orchestra was not successful and didn't record. There was the Demare Vardaro orchestra, people! Stop talking about this non-orchestra. I don't want to hear it anymore.
Capítulo · 2:11:02
The orchestra that existed for six months
Demare and Vardaro once led an orchestra together. Nobody recorded it.
You could have gone out in Buenos Aires in the first six months, I don't know which club, maybe not one of the most important ones, and listened to the Demare Vardaro orchestra, but it wasn't successful. So Vardaro went off to explore projects of his own, and Demare developed his own orchestra. But the singer, and I guess that maybe one of the Demare tracks you've picked out has got Juan Carlos Miranda as the vocalist. Yes. He was already the singer with the Demare Vardaro orchestra in the earlier part of the year. And sometimes I say, can you imagine that? Sometimes we can imagine, but this one's quite difficult to imagine for me.
The extremely romantic sound of Lucho Demare, which for me is very much associated with the strong violin sound of Rold Kaplund and then the violin sound of Elvino Vardaro. That would have created a wholly new sound world, which I find hard to imagine. And he only records two discs this year, and then there's a three-year break until 1941, which is a bit in the same situation as Troilo, right? And when you look at the Drekel Company, it's transparently clear what's happening. They pass from Odeon to Victor. Odeon is taking the risk of signing up the new bands and Victor is not. But what kind of risk are they taking? They're not promising to release lots of records. They sign a three-year exclusive record deal with no commitments, and they put out a record or two, and if they're not immediate smash hits, they don't put out any more records and the artist is tied for the next three years.
And this is the fate that befalls Troilo, Demare and Tanturi. There's this huge gap in their repertoire. After three years the contracts expire and they switch to Victor, who've been more cautious at the beginning because of getting their fingers burned in the great recession in 1931, and under Victor they have their great flowering. So it's hard to know what attitude to take. I suppose we ought to be grateful to Odeon that they released these tiny number of discs of these new artists when Victor wouldn't, even though they did not then really believe in them and promote them as we would hope they would have done. Yeah, but they came back later, that's why we're listening to them also in these early recordings, because they became greater later. So that's good. I guess these records kept them in the hope of coming back and making good stuff. And I did. It's better than not having them. Exactly.
So let's listen to a tango called Telón with Juan Carlos Miranda singing. And I also want to play a milonga. That's really interesting. I think it's an instrumental called La esquina, The Corner. Yeah, now, both are interesting, but La esquina is, to me, an absolutely fascinating track. It is. Because in my mind, I've got categories of milonga, and La esquina does not fit in any of the boxes that I've got for milonga. It's clearly a milonga. It's not like, oh, that's not a milonga, it's something else. No, it's a milonga, but it sounds different to every other milonga I've ever heard.
I find it impossible to play as a DJ because I can't make it fit with other milongas that I have. I didn't play it either, never, but it's very danceable. So it's kind of strange that we can play. It is, although it's quite fast as a milonga, but it doesn't sound very fast. There is, I don't know if it's on YouTube, but you may or may not know, there was a cable TV channel in Argentina in the end of the 20th century called Solo Tango. And on this, there is a black and white video of a couple of teenagers, a girl who's about 14 in the video and the boy is about 17, dancing to La esquina of Lucio Demare. And the girl grows up to be Geraldine Rojas and the boy grows up to be Sebastian Misé. Okay, and they dance really, really well together. I don't know if it's on YouTube. I hope it is.
Fascinating to watch how they interpret this music, which sounds light but it's actually quite speedy. So let's hear it. First the tango Telón with Miranda singing, and then the instrumental milonga La esquina, The Corner. Lucio Demare, 1938.
From Demare's first year as leader; the lush romantic sound is already there.
♪ Música · 2:44 ·
An instrumental milonga unlike any other; hard for a DJ to place. Start time approximate.
It's very special, isn't it? Yeah, the two tracks you played, they're quite a long way apart, aren't they? When we listen to the tango of Demare, we really recognize this lush, romantic Demare that we know from later on. But when we listen to that milonga, it's quite a lot different. It has a unique character. I can't recall anything else which gives me the same feeling. I love it. Yeah, different.
And Demare, I mean, even later, milongas with Demare is not something you hear a lot. He doesn't do many, does he? And when he does, there's Carnavelito, that's one that comes to mind. And Carnavelito is an Argentine folk rhythm. So that's not actually a normal milonga at all. So that's also a bit different. Like some of the more sophisticated orchestras, doesn't really lean towards the milonga.
Right, let's move on. And the next orchestra on the list, I have a parenthesis around it because I wasn't sure about playing it, but we haven't heard it before, so let's hear it. It's a bandoneon player called José Tinelli. And he played mostly for others, right? All the orchestras. But in this year, he recorded a couple of songs, I think for cinema mostly. Can you say something? You know this guy? I'm aware of him. I know the recordings, but I can't really contribute anything.
He has an interesting milonga. Since there aren't that many milongas, let's hear one that I didn't hear before this week. So it's José Tinelli and the Milonga nueva, and the guy singing is called Luis Bottini. Let's see what you think about this. The sound quality is not the best, but let's hear it. Milonga nueva, José Tinelli.
A new milonga to both hosts, by a bandoneonist who mostly played for others; poor sound.
♪ Música · 1:43 ·
Isn't that interesting? Something different. It is. And as people have pointed out in the chat window, it fits a little bit to La esquina, something to do with the spirit of the age. I guess so, yeah. Could mix those two. Anyway, new milonga for me. So, hope you enjoyed it.
Let's move on to a more known orchestra called Edgardo Donato. And we need some happy sound, I think, at this point. And the reason Donato sounds a bit happy, we write about in your book Tango Stories, Michael, he has one accordion in his orchestra. So it's a bit of this, well, at least the way they use it in the orchestra, it sounds a bit more happy. And Teresa describes this as the innocent sister of the bandoneon, the instruments. That was a nice description, I think.
Capítulo · 2:25:42
Why Donato sounds happy
One instrument made Donato's orchestra sound happy.
“Piazzolla himself said that the accordion made happy music and the bandoneón sad music.”
It is a nice description, and she's not the only person to draw that distinction. Piazzola himself said that the accordion made happy music and the bandoneon sad music. So it does definitely impart a different quality. If we think of the accordion, we think of various European styles, particularly Parisian musette music, which is not for crying until your band rouge. Yeah.
So Donato, 38, there's a lot of different stuff, but I want to play a waltz and a milonga. A waltz called Con tus besos, with your kisses, and the milonga, the fabulous milonga I should say, Sacale punta. The first one is with Horacio Lagos singing and the second one is Horacio Lagos and a singer called Randona. Yeah, Randona is the nom de plume of one of the band's violinists, Antonio Piovanni or something like that. But he sings in a falsetto voice and then he acquires this name, Randona.
Yes, Donato is a really interesting band, isn't it? It's a band that bridges the golden decade of the 40s and the period that came before. A lot of people, well, not a lot of people, one or two people have said, oh, isn't this a forerunner of D'Arienzo. It kind of is in the sense that it's upbeat, but it isn't in the sense that it doesn't have the serious attitude and weight of D'Arienzo. So yes, it is a bridge, but it's not D'Arienzo. It's very enjoyable and lovely, creates a happy feeling and records quite a lot in these years. It does.
And 38, it's the year before Lita Morales joins the orchestra, the most, I'd say, played woman singer for dance milongas. And she's Horacio Lagos' wife or girlfriend, isn't she? But she joins the year after. Horacio Lagos brings her in because they are romantically involved and they get married. There are several female singers working as the second singer in Orchestras Typica, but not the main Orchestras Typica. So just listening from the recordings we don't get to hear these, but there were others. The orchestra of Juan Carlos Corbian in 36, 37 had Susie Leiva singing, there are other examples, but not in the orchestras that were working super intensively until four in the morning, seven nights a week.
And I think we played a waltz in Tango 1937 with Lita Morales singing for Orquesta Típica Victor. And also in the, before we started tonight, I played a ranchera, because a Lumutorochera with Lita Morales singing. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that recording. Anyway, this is Edgardo Donato and the waltz, Con tus besos, and after that, Sacale punta, milonga.
A Donato vals; the accordion in the band gives a lighter sound. Start time approximate.
Lo bailan · 5 de 126
♪ Música · 2:50 · La letra, en la página del tango
A milonga sung by Lagos and Randona, the falsetto stage name of a band violinist. Start time approximate.
Lo bailan · 5 de 147
Wow, Carlos wrote in the chat window that the pianist is Donato's brother, another brother band, Osvaldo. It was entirely a family affair. There was a third brother, Ascanio, playing the cello. And actually, Ascanio is the author of the tango TBC and not Osvaldo, not Edgardo. Yeah. All right. So at least three brothers involved. Fantastic. All the brother bands.
Yeah. And in this year, 1938, Donato also recorded the tango El adiós. This is a track we often hear at Milongas. And there's a Pugliese version also from the 60s. But I'm not going to play that now. So because there's another version from this year that you haven't heard at Milongas. So this is the occasion for playing that.
Oh, is this going to be Ignacio Corsini now? It is, yes. So the thing to say about El adiós in general as a theme, the goodbye, you cannot make a happy interpretation of a song called the goodbye. And the Donato interpretation is not happy. So our overall perception of the Donato Orchestra is, oh yes, a happy, light, upbeat orchestra. But within that, there's a small number of songs which do not have a happy feeling. And one of those is El adiós. Sin sabor, another one. So sometimes he can be a little bit out of character and this creates extra flavour, just as we commented earlier, Frosero in Ojos muertos. He made a slightly different flavour with Ojos muertos and that creates more interest and it's a bit the same with Donato. But I totally understand how you might like to play us Ignacio Corsini's version of El adiós, because Corsini's voice is spectacular and made with this introvert, intimate, introspective tango.
It is, and also you get the advantage of hearing the whole lyrics because he sings from the start. So I'll post the lyrics in the chat window and yeah, let's enjoy this Ignacio Corsini, one of our, um, yeah, one of the solos we've been coming back to in Tango By Ear and listen to with great pleasure from the late 20s until, yeah, way into the 40s, I think. So let's hear it. El adiós with Ignacio Corsini. And he's back with guitars.
Corsini with guitars, singing the full lyric; Donato recorded the song too in 1938 but not happily.
♪ Música · 3:09 · La letra, en la página del tango
I got tears in my eyes. And what do you say, chicken skin? Goosebumps. Goosebumps. That's what you say. Fantastic. Yeah, I also am really touched and I'm further touched to see so many positive comments in the chat window. It creates a different atmosphere, doesn't it? It creates stillness and attention, Corsini. Magnificent, pure, sincere voice. Yes.
And if you think this was a highlight of the night, you're wrong, because the next song is even better. Because I was listening to the recording from Tango 1937, Michael, before this. And in the after party, you played a soloist called Agustín Magaldi. And you said this was the big singer after Gardel died. And Magaldi himself, he died this year. For three years. Yeah, and he died this year. He died in autumn, I think. Which we mentioned in last week's After Party when we listened to the Waltz Amagaldi. Ah, yes, exactly. Of course, that was also the reference.
And this guy has been kind of off my radar for Tango By Ear, but I was listening through his recording from this year, and he has a wonderful waltz called ¿Quién eres tú? Who are you? Back by guitars, and I find this exquisite. So I hope you like it too. You want to say something? I'm excited to listen to it. Yeah, no, I can't say anything. Magaldi has a different quality to his voice. I can't describe it. Let's all listen ourselves and see how we feel about it. But it's not Corsini's voice, but it's not Gardel's voice either. Listen to this. ¿Quién eres tú? with Agustín Magaldi.
A waltz with guitars and a harp; Magaldi, who died that autumn, sounds like a 'cantor nacional' more than a tango singer.
♪ Música · 2:43 ·
What about that? It's not just fantastic. Really special, isn't it? It doesn't feel like a tango waltz. You can hear that Magaldi is not so much a tango singer as a cantor nacional. And again, Carlos Puentes pointed out in the chat window that we were able to listen to a harp amongst the guitars on that recording, which is something I'd missed listening to it previously. A unique voice, huh? Yeah, very special. Not a Gardel, not a Corsini. Yeah. And it starts off quite ordinary, but then when he goes up on this Canaris 2. Yeah. And then all the guitarists come in accompanying in chorus. A very unexpected ending. I loved it. Thank you so much for playing that. Something a bit different with a bit of the flavor of the Argentine countryside. Wonderful.
Yes, it's almost 11 o'clock here in Norway. We've been going for three hours, so I was planning to, like I said in the introduction, to play the second chapter of the D'Arienzo with Polito. But thinking about it, I think I'll just skip that and leave it to you, Michael, if you want to do an after party and you can do whatever you want with D'Arienzo, because there are some great stuff also with D'Arienzo from after, after Biagi leaves in June. But since we've been going for three hours, I'm going to finish off with La cumparsita, as we always do.
But before I do that, let's talk about the future. Because next week we're doing the last, or you are doing the last of the Lost Afterparties, 1951, right? Yes. And then we'll go back to a fortnightly schedule, which will be a bit more relaxing for us. We've been very happy to provide a program once a week through these dark winter months in the northern hemisphere, but it is a lot of work for us, so it's going to be good for us as well, happy as we are to have done the weekly program, to go back to a fortnightly schedule. Yeah, and there's a second reason, in addition to the not getting overloaded by work, is that we want to last, wanted to last a little bit longer because we're running out of years, people. Um, our original plan was to do these years between 28 and 55, and if you look back, it's just three years left. It's 31, 49 and 43, not necessarily in that order, but those three years.
But we discussed it last week and we found out that maybe we should do, because we got a really good feedback on the 1928 show. Yeah, and we weren't sure how that would go down. Yeah, so that was a bit experimental, but there was a very positive feedback from the public. Yes, so we decided to do an earlier program as well, not on every year, 26, 27, but like, let's make one program on the recordings from 26 and 27, which are the first years that we get the good sound recording, electrical recordings. So that means that we'll have that program in, I can't remember the date, but it'll be three weeks from now. So next week there'll be the after party, the lost after party from 51, and then two weeks later it'll be the 26-27 program. And then we've got 39, and then 31, and then 43. Not 39, 49. 49, sorry, yes, and 31, 43, so it'll be like, yeah, we'll be into April by then. So at least there'll be good weather to get out.
And yeah, Dag and I are already talking about, you know, maybe some other possibilities could be, but we want to stick to our concept. Yeah, it is stick to the concept, but at the same time have some alternatives when it's still not possible for most of us to go out to milongas. Yeah, anyway, so that's the, and thanks to you, Michael, for all your fantastic commentaries. You said it earlier in the program that you don't know what I'll be playing, so you just, you're just improvising all the comments for this. So it's, I'm always amazed by your knowledge and your ability to just pick up on every song I play. This is an easy year to enjoy. Yeah, that's true. You feel the youthful energy of tango. There's a spring-like feeling to the music. True. And thanks to our sponsors, Tango Norfolk, Tango Brazo, and as you said earlier, the Marabou nightclub in Buenos Aires.
And for La cumparsita, there aren't that many alternatives for the composite. There's just two obscure recordings, I'd say, and one is by a guy called Adolfo Leopoldo Rosquelas, and it sounds very square and European. I would say it's not so interesting to listen to. What I want to play is a very untraditional version that you mentioned in your introduction, Michael. It's a rumba version by the orchestra. Ah, you're playing Harry Roy, the rumba compositor. Yes! You're going to love this, folks. When you listen to this, remember this was very controversial when it was released. I mean, people bought the record, but other people were scandalized.
The British jazz band. As you said, one of the most successful, best jazz bands of the times. And they went to Buenos Aires. In financial terms, the most successful jazz band of the day. And I Googled them, and according to Wikipedia, it says that this was a British jazz band, and they had some suggestive lyrics. And I checked that. And one of these lyrics you'll hear in a later Tango Bayou program as a Cortina before. I won't say which one it is, but I was astonished by the rudeness. They were not the only one. In the early 30s, I forget the band, but there was a huge jazz hit. And excuse me, we're after nine o'clock, so I can say this, but the huge jazz hit, I think of 1931, was My Girl's Pussy.
This is Harry Roy. This is what I was talking about. We're going to hear that in 1931. So, anyway. So, thanks for tonight. And if you want to hear more D'Arienzo and probably other stuff as well, stick around. This is Harry Roy, a British jazz band performing the Roomba version of La cumparsita.
Closing track: the British jazz band's rumba La cumparsita, recorded for Buenos Aires, which scandalized tango lovers.
♪ Música · 2:23 ·
Pure heresy. You can understand why people were, but I like it. It's fun, yeah, pure heresy, but I like it, yeah. Oh, you know, you know the, uh, the origin of the word heretic and heresy is from a Greek word meaning to choose. Oh no, yeah, let's choose this one, I'm happy to choose that.
You know, that was a perfect evening, Dag. You know, I don't feel the need to play anything else, but we've still got 169 guests. Yeah, wow, that's so, maybe, maybe we should play some more music. So I was thinking about tonight, people, and it's a great year for dance music, isn't it? One of the first great years for dance music, as color said in the chat window, everything's come together to create this year.
So I'm slightly wary of just playing you more and more music that you want to dance to and can't dance to. So what I'd like to do is to modulate the after party and also play some music that's not for dancing, some European tango music. It's not going to excite you so much and make a bit of variety. And I don't want to make such a long after party tonight.
Okay. Dag, thank you so much for your music. Excellent selections and some great surprises in there. A couple of things I totally wasn't expecting. So I like to give a little opportunity at the beginning for everyone to rush off and do something else for a moment.
So we're going to play quite a bit of music from Poland in the after party because Poland is a very important country for tango music. They have an introvert spirit. It's also touched by the Slavic sense of melancholy, and this is being intensified as the world goes towards war, and they feel the threat of that. And of course, the whole music scene in Poland is going to be extinguished in a year's time, in the autumn of 1939.
But I'm not going to play a sad song, although there are some very delicious sad songs from Poland. I may play some more later. So to give you a chance to go and make a cup of tea, I'm going to play you a number by Albert Harris, backed by the Odeon Dance Orchestra of Poland. This is Sex appeal.
Afterparty, Lavocah: Polish tango, played as a chance for a tea break.
♪ Música · 2:46 ·
So Dag was really restrained and hardly played any D'Arienzo tracks. So I'm not going to kill you with too many D'Arienzo tracks, but how about we listen to the tango Nada más in two different versions? First of all, the version of Juan D'Arienzo, but secondly, the version of Ada Falcón. I think that would be interesting to hear. Very few recordings by Ada Falcón. She's entering into her phase of tension with Canaro, and she's about to quit the scene altogether.
Have a listen to these. First, D'Arienzo. The beautiful violin intervention from Mazzeo quite near the beginning and wonderful band-a-gnon playing. And then Ada Falcón back by the Francisco Canaro Orchestra.
Afterparty, Lavocah: a D'Arienzo version with Mazzeo's violin near the start, before Ada Falcón's.
♪ Música · 2:10 · La letra, en la página del tango
Afterparty: Ada Falcón, backed by Canaro; she was in tension with Canaro and about to quit the scene.
A second Ada Falcón side, a lyric about when the tango was danced 'heart to heart'.
♪ Música · 2:50 ·
One more by Ada Falcón. I think you may know this from another orchestra.
Okay, as there's so many of you that are having problems, I'm just going to play one more number before we go for the end. And I want to play you a Polish tango from the Kordana. Now, in Central Europe in particular, there were a lot of male harmony vocal groups in the 1930s. The word that was used to describe them in English is revelers, like the comedian harmonists.
They're the best known in Germany and the Mills Brothers in the United States. But they were by no means the only groups. There were many similar such groups in Germany, and there was one in Poland called the Kordana. Dan was the nickname of the guy who ran the group and played the piano. Chord obviously is choir, but when you see that translated into English, it says something like Dan and his revelers. This is a tango called Gypsy Ballad from 1938. Ballada cygańska.
A Polish tango by a male harmony group, like the Comedian Harmonists.
♪ Música · 4:36 ·
Tango By Year es de Dag Stenvoll y Michael Lavocah, publicado aquí con su permiso. El audio se reproduce desde SoundCloud.