Tango 1945
Dag Stenvoll and Michael Lavocah · 2020-06-10 · 3:35:51
Dag Stenvoll (broadcasting from a fjord municipality south of Bergen) and Michael Lavocah treat 1945 as tango at its zenith, the point where the fast early-40s style has opened out into a melodic golden age. Three of the big four orchestras change their main singer: Alberto Morán arrives at Pugliese, Armando Laborde replaces Héctor Mauré at D'Arienzo, and Di Sarli swaps Podestá for the baritone Jorge Durán. The war ends, which slowly cuts Argentina's wartime export income that had fuelled the tango boom, and shellac shortages finally start to hurt record sound quality. Pugliese is still romantic, with his harsher signature style 'bubbling under' for 1946 and after; Troilo has a year Lavocah calls full of quality; Piazzolla's early orchestra accompanies Fiorentino. The show ends with an afterparty of Lavocah's picks (D'Agostino, De Angelis, Demare, Biagi, Tanturi, Di Sarli, Pugliese) and the note that there is no La cumparsita from 1941 or 1945.
What this episode gave Tangopedia
Facts said in the episode, each now cited to the minute it is said.
Morán joined Pugliese in 1945 and took the orchestra to a level of success it had not had before; Pugliese poached him from Cristóbal Herrera's orchestra.
In 1945 Di Sarli exchanged Alberto Podestá, who was on his second stint with the band, for the baritone Jorge Durán, who then stayed with him to the end.
Around 1943 Pugliese heard Durán singing with a folk group and wanted him, but the group's leader asked 5,000 pesos for him, a fortune Pugliese did not have; Lavocah calls it one of tango's great what-ifs.
Di Sarli made only two milongas; the other, Pueblera, was covered in the 1947 programme.
Di Sarli's milongas are about melody and phrasing, the Argentine 'cadencia', rather than a beat-beat-beat rhythm, so they are danced in a more melodic way than a D'Arienzo or Canaro milonga.
Records played · 44
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.
Yeah, welcome to 1945. We just heard Sammy Kay's big hit from that year, Chickory Chick, about the chicken who got sick and tired of just the same old thing and found something new to sing.
So, Michael, are we going to sing anything new today or just hear those same old tango stories?
We are going to sing new stuff.
That's good. Because the event photo gave it away.
There's big changes in the scene in 1945 and new vocalists in three of the big four orchestras. Alberto Morán joins the Pugliese Orchestra and propels it to the highest level of success where it wasn't before he joined, which is a real shock to those of us who love Pugliese and love those very sides in 44 with Chanel and the instrumentals. The same thing is happening with D'Arienzo, he's just taken on board Armando Laborde, who's a darker voice to replace Hector Maure, and Di Sarli, of course, exchanges at Boto Podestat on his second stint with the band for Jorge Durán.
So a lot of changes.
A lot of changes and 1945 is such a great year for tango.
And yeah, I'm Dag Stenvoll. I'm a DJ from Bergen, but this week I'm actually sending from a county municipality south of Bergen, Svejo, which is in the middle of the Norwegian fjords. And with me is Tango Oracle, Michael Lavocah, from, I guess you're still in Norwich, Michael, aren't you?
I'm still in Norwich. You may have heard that the lockdown isn't finished here in England, so let's start the music where we ended last week in 1958, Di Sarli and the ocean, and with Jorge Durán singing about the ocean.
I know what you're going to play the year before, 1944, when we had that program we were talking about. 1944 wasn't really a good year for the Di Sarli, was it? I mean, he lost both his singers, Rufino and Podesta. But now, as you said, we have a new man in town, Jorge Durán. And he has a very special voice. And we did listen to him last week in the 1958 program because he came back to Di Sarli and sang with him until the end. But at this time in 1945, he was really new and special with his baritone voice, as you've said before.
So I've got loads of stories about Durán. Should we save them until after we've listened to him for a bit or do you want one now and one after?
Yeah, go for one now.
One now. So Jorge Durán had been knocking around in Buenos Aires for a couple of years already when he joins Di Sarli. He's not from Buenos Aires. He is from the northwest of Argentina, from the province of Cuyo. A lot of Di Sarli's are not from Buenos Aires, actually. Rufino is the only one, and all the others are from out of town, which gives them a different quality, like Serpa, not a city voice, really.
Anyhow, so he's been knocking around for a couple of years, and I discovered, I found out from an interview quite recently, that around 1943, we're not sure exactly the date, he was singing with a folk group, and Pugliese heard him, and he thought, what a great voice. I want this guy for my band.
Chapter · 3:54
The 5,000 peso singer
Pugliese wanted this voice and could not afford him.
Wow.
So he went to the folk group and said, look, I want to poach this guy. And the guy who ran the group said, yeah, fine, that'll be 5,000 pesos. It was an absolute fortune for Pugliese and he didn't have the money. So he couldn't do it.
He couldn't do it. So this is one of Tango's great what ifs. Those first records with Pugliese could have been Jorge Durán singing. Now, just get your brain around that.
I can't imagine it. I really can't.
So we'll listen to Que no sepan las estrellas, as you probably guessed from the lyrics about the ocean. And the second song I want to play for a beginning is Siete palabras, which is an instrumental. And we can talk about those seven words after, can't we?
We can.
Opening Di Sarli with his new baritone, a sea song; Dag picks up where the last show's 1958 programme ended, and the lyrics about the ocean confirm it.
Danced to it · 5 of 35
♪ Music · 2:45 ·
A Di Sarli instrumental Lavocah finds timeless: unlike the Durán vocals he cannot guess the year from the sound, and he is more cautious about mixing it with vocals.
Danced to it · 5 of 104
Wow. That's a killer of a song, isn't it?
Wow. Oh, God. What can I say? Fabulous. Can we just listen to Di Sarli all night? 1945 Di Sarli?
We'll play one more.
Play one more. It's no problem. Gosh.
I was listening to a classical music channel this week and what the guy does is he takes four different interpretations of the same piano piece and just plays them one after the other, puts them together in a video with some program notes, a famous pianist, different interpretations, and someone asked him, well which one do you like most? And he said, I like most whichever one I'm listening to at the moment, and I think that's exactly how I feel now because later we're going to listen to Pugliese, for example, and then I'm going to like that the most. But when that's playing, I like that the most.
And, okay, what did we hear? In the Rodriguez Pena, there's this walking beat that's almost like La Yumba. Like five or six seconds in, you get this zzzz, zzzz, zzzz, with the double bass and the left hand growling away. Beautiful. So many people.
The Siete palabras you mean, the last one, the instrumental?
No, the first one.
The first one. Already.
Yeah, so again. Sorry, yeah. The walking beat is there and people love the voice of Jorge Durán, and then Siete palabras, it's just kind of timeless. Like if you listen to Durán singing there, you know it's not 39. You can kind of guess the year by the style of the orchestra. But with Siete palabras, I can't really do it. Okay, I know it's not 39 because it's not fast, but it's just timeless. There's a real difference in the sensations that I receive from Di Sarli's vocals and from his instrumentals. And I just can't explain it.
So as a DJ, you'll be more free to mix maybe this one with the instrumentals from early 40s or later 40s.
Yes, and I'd be more worried about mixing vocals and instrumentals with this kind of music. Okay, easy. Just follow the rules and never mix vocals and instrumentals. That's the safe thing to do. And most of the time we do that. But there are exceptions, but I would say this is not one of them.
Can I just pick up on one comment in the chat window? Peter's asking about the pizzicato in the violins because it struck him as unusually fast. So tango violinists use a different technique to do pizzicato to classical violinists. As far as I'm aware, someone's going to come in and comment on this. I'm sure immediately some classical violinist or someone with classical knowledge. Classical violinists use one finger to do their pizzicato and tango violinists use three, so you can get more notes.
All right, yeah, yeah, okay. So let's listen to some more Di Sarli before we move on, and we'll listen to a milonga because Di Sarli milongas are not so often heard at milongas. Well, there aren't very many, so it's hard to put together a tanda.
Yeah, and with the runners only two milongas actually who existed, and we listened to the other one, Pueblera, in 1947 program. And it's kind of difficult to mix Durán's baritone voice also because it's very difficult to mix with other singers. But this one, Con alma y vida, I find it very bubbling and playful. And I really wish that Di Sarli had recorded more milongas.
Well, of course, he would have performed more but not recorded them because the band would have just improvised them for the dancers but not felt it necessary to commit those versions to disc. Can I just say something about Di Sarli's milongas in general? So what's Di Sarli great at doing? He's great at delivering melodies. Now melodies means phrases and that's what's special about Di Sarli's milongas. The sense of phrasing, it's not just about beat beat beat beat as some bands are with their milongas, but you get a real sense of what Argentines called the cadencia, this untranslatable word, the swing through the phrases like this. And Con alma y vida has exactly this, a beautiful phrase with swing and dynamic. So as a dancer you have to listen to it in a slightly more melodic way than you would say with D'Arienzo's milongas, which you listen to in a more rhythmic way.
So they're really special, a unique feeling and sensitivity for milonga. And I think this must have been special milonga for Di Sarli because I think it's the only one he actually re-recorded twice. And he recorded with Serpa in 1953. So maybe we'll go to that one. But let's listen to it. Carlos Di Sarli with Con alma y vida, with Jorge Durán singing.
A bubbling, playful Di Sarli milonga, one of only two he made; a Di Sarli and Héctor Marcó composition, re-recorded twice, the other time with Serpa in 1953.
♪ Music · 3:17 ·
Yeah, you posted the lyrics there, Michael. Do you want to translate them?
It's just heart melting. It's a really tender lyric. I oír la voz querida, to hear the beloved voice. I mean, doesn't everyone listening to this know that feeling in your life when you hear the voice of a person that you love, how it goes straight to your heart?
It's more intimate as a milonga lyric than usual, isn't it?
You're right, you know, because normally you can guess from the title if something's a tango, waltz or milonga. So the super romantic, slightly slushy titles are the waltzes.
The milongas are sort of about stories. I went to the pub and there was a fight, and then all the rest are tangos. But it doesn't work with this. You're absolutely right. And this is a Di Sarli composition. Di Sarli worked with Hector Marco, the lyricist. That was his team. So yeah, in-house production, not recorded by any other orchestra.
Yeah. And when we're in the romantic mood, let's move on to Fresedo, because he has Oscar Serpa on board in 1945. Serpa, who later sings with the Sully. And Fresedo makes 16 recordings in 1945, and it's really bad sound on many of these. It's really disappointing because, um, once we have the feeling for a particular music, then we can start listening through the noise. But the recordings of Fresedo with Serpa, all the ones we have, are really poor quality. It's quite difficult to feel Fresedo's romanticism, particularly because the music is quite soft, so it's not cutting through the crackle on the records.
Well, let's try. We'll listen to Minatai, which is a song maybe more known from Carlos, 1944 recording. And we'll also listen to Julián, which is a groovy instrumental. That's not really typical of Fresedo, I think. No. Well, Fresedo's instrumentals are a bit different. They are old, right? All of them. All of them. Like, listen to the Fresedo Derecho viejo.
And as a DJ, as a DJ, as a tango lover, it's quite an interesting challenge to put together a tanda of Fresedo instrumentals because, not surprisingly, there are not very many. So you have to choose songs that are really quite apart in years, but they're quite coherent. Maybe that's why we don't hear this instrumental so often at milongas. But I think it's really nice. It's really groovy dancing. So let's listen to Mina Tai with Serpa singing and the instrumental Julián, Osvaldo Fresedo.
One of Fresedo's 1945 sides with Serpa, played to show his romanticism; the sound on all of them is poor. Dag says the song is better known from Di Sarli's 1944 recording.
♪ Music · 2:39 ·
A groovy instrumental that Dag thinks is not typical Fresedo; Lavocah loves its melody until a sudden drum roll.
You don't think it sounds like Di Sarli, Michael? I think we think it sounds like Di Sarli because they're both romantic orchestras, and sure, Di Sarli has roots in Fresedo's music back in the 20s. So there are moments when it sounds like Di Sarli, but then there are moments where it suddenly changes. It doesn't have the walking beat. That's the first thing, is it? It doesn't make you want to go... It doesn't do that in either song, in either the vocal nor the instrumental. Fresedo always has a wonderful sense of melody. I really enjoyed listening to the vocal number, and just picking up on something on the comments.
The key, as so often, is to try not to compare it to the thing it reminds us of. Because if it reminds us of Di Sarli, then our brain is going, well, it's like Di Sarli, but we don't like it as much. And then it doesn't have a chance. But if I can try and forget that and just listen on its own merits, then Fresedo with Serpa, I like a lot. The instrumental, I love his feeling for the melody, and just when he's convinced me, he ruins it. Suddenly there's a drum roll, isn't there? No, no, why did you do that? Don't do that. It was good. Don't do that.
I know that feeling from other songs. But it's interesting with Fresedo that he's one of the old guys that seems to be coping well with different times in tango. He keeps recording nice stuff, unlike some of the other orchestras that have much more trouble adapting to the new times, new styles. Yeah, I mean, I think Fresedo is quite a mature personality. He was born into money, first of all, and he was very confident as a young man. Don't forget, he went to New York the first time in 1920. So a very adventurous person, wasn't so concerned about being the most popular band. Obviously, he cared about that, but it wasn't his main motive. So I think he felt quite free to play the music that he wanted. And later in the 40s, he stops playing for dancers altogether and just plays in hotels, really. And you can get a hint of that already in this music, that it's moving in that direction.
Let's move on to another romantic orchestra, Miguel Caló, who has lost many of his good musicians since last year. And Michael, we agree that when Caló competes with Troilo, he usually loses. So I'm going to play a waltz that's unique to Caló, as far as I know. And it's called No te olvides de mi corazón, with the singer Raúl Iriarte.
A waltz Dag believes is unique to Caló; played because Caló has lost many of his good musicians and usually loses when compared with Troilo.
Danced to it · 5 of 7
♪ Music · 2:37 ·
Beautiful. Nice melody and smooth Caló voices. So I'm not going to play more Caló. We have a lot of things, a lot of orchestras and songs on our program for 1945.
But we'll move on to a musician who played for color, Domingo Federico, and I'm gonna play actually two songs by him, because I like his 1945 recordings: one instrumental called Honda tristeza, and the vocal with Carlos Vidal, El huérfano, which is also recorded by Rodriguez, I think, the year before, a couple years before. Um, yeah, we've heard, we listened to Federico before, you talking about his walking beat, this kind of rock and roll, walking bass. Honda tristeza, it's a very nice track of Federico from this year. And let's just recall, what does the title mean? It means deep sadness.
And this is the tango that Ferdinand Pohr wrote when he lost all his money back in 1931. He had dreams of giving up tango and becoming a cattle rancher. And there were floods on the river Paraná, and all his cattle drowned in the floods. And in the little money he had left, he lost in the stock market crash. And he had to go back to work. But yeah, let's see what Federico does with this idea of deep sadness.
Yeah, and I think it's much more restrained than, for instance, the instrumental Le Lenda Gocha, which you hear much more often in Federico tandas. This is much so. And I like that there are two really strong arrastres in this song. Federico, Honda tristeza, and El huérfano.
A restrained Federico instrumental with two strong arrastres, chosen as a quieter alternative to the instrumental heard more often in his sets.
♪ Music · 2:51 ·
The vocal Federico side Dag likes in 1945; also recorded by Rodríguez a few years earlier.
A lot of different opinions there about Federico, eh? So I'll confess, for a long time I didn't like it at all, but now I do. And first of all, it's a subtle music, isn't it, that there's no sort of spectacular moments at all. He has a nice sense of melody, which I enjoy. The problem for me is that we're used to more from the piano, so we hear the walking bass of the left hand ringing out. That's really the signature sound of the orchestra. And someone commented, we wouldn't have that without Orlando Gogni. He was Troilo's pianist in the early 40s. And that's true, but Gogni did a lot more with the piano than just that. We don't have time to go into that tonight. I have an idea that we're going to talk about that in a few weeks' time.
But many pianists were influenced by this particular aspect of Gogni's, which is letting the bass notes ring out legato. And that provides a simple underpinning over which you can create melodies. And the presentation of those melodies is quite subtle. So that's the flavor of this orchestra. I think it would have been very nice to dance live, actually. Probably, yes. No, it's not the fireworks orchestra. No, it's not.
The next one is, I would say the pianist is a more interesting one. It's D'Agostino. And I want to play one song by him. It's called A pan y agua. And it's a very unusual song, I think. It's got a bit of strange things happening. A pan y agua means on bread and water, and it's about doing your military service. It's an old tango from 1920.
And it's absolutely bizarre, isn't it, because it starts off fairly normally and then suddenly it breaks into a milonga. Yeah, yeah, it goes really fast. So I played it, I think once during a milonga, and some dancers freaked out and the rest started laughing. So I think those are the two appropriate reactions. So yeah, but so I guess it's pulled out of the hat in 1945 because it's, uh, yeah, the last year of the war. So there are maybe more lyrics that refer to the soldiers and these kind of things? I don't know. I mean, that's a really good question, isn't it? It is a topic.
Of course, the war ends in 1945, and that has an impact on the tango scene. I mean, the main impact is economic, really, because once the war ends, Argentina loses its lucrative exports. So the flow of money into the country is not as great as it has been in the war years. And it's that money which has put money in people's pockets and fuelled the tango boom, because they could afford to go out and do all these things. So that slowly decreases and, yeah, it has its impact.
Here's a nice story. So when Berlin falls in 1945, the bartender at the Madabu, I like to tell stories about the Madabu because we're connected to them now. The bartender at the Madabu, his name was Manolo, invented a new cocktail, which he called the Berlin 45, to celebrate the end of the war. And I've written this down, so I'm just going to hold up my post-it here, because I'm not really good at cocktails and I can't remember the ingredients. So there's four ingredients to represent the four Allied forces. So for the equal part, it's gin, which is English, cognac, French, vodka, Russian and bourbon, American.
Chapter · 43:39
Berlin 45
A bartender in Buenos Aires invented a cocktail the day Berlin fell.
And I don't know if they're still serving it, but I'm going to ask for one the next time I go there. And there's nothing more, it's just those four. Nothing more, no, that's it, neat. But coming back to D'Agostino, I think that 45 is a brilliant year for D'Agostino. And yeah, only one, Dag? We have a long night, you know, so let's listen to this one, A pan y agua with Ángel Vargas singing. Yeah.
A bizarre 1920 tango about military service that starts normally and breaks into a fast milonga; Dag calls it perhaps the least danceable D'Agostino ever, kept for its crystalline piano.
Danced to it
♪ Music · 3:10 ·
That's quite fun, isn't it? I think the D'Agostino fans are hating you now for playing the least danceable D'Agostino number ever. But as you keep telling us, Dag, that's the great thing about these evenings, is, you know, we can play stuff that we wouldn't play at the milonga. Exactly, exactly. And, you know, we're torturing you with wanting to dance. So you've taken that away. And 1945 is a great dance year, so it's hard to find non-danceable numbers, actually.
And in that performance, in that interpretation, we've still got D'Agostino's beautiful, crystalline piano breaking out, which I enjoyed listening to very much there. Let's move on and listen to one recording by Francisco Lomuto, because I think we can hear a slower and much darker Lomuto than we know from previous years, now in 1945. Can you say something about Lomuto in this period, Michael? Is it a characteristic?
Well, you commented a few shows ago that maybe Lomuto adapted to the decade of the 40s with more success than Canaro did. That's success from our point of view, not in commercial terms. Of course, Canaro was far more successful commercially. And I think that's right. Lomuto manages to maintain his really elephant-like heavy beats. And I like his music to dance to, especially the instrumentals, of which there aren't so many. Yeah, there's an instrumental here, La voltosa. And I really like the piano playing here. It's really cool. So if you listen to it, yeah, let's hit it.
A slower, darker Lomuto instrumental that keeps his 'elephant-like' heavy beats; Lavocah says it sounds only partly like the earlier Lomuto and likes him better two or three years earlier.
♪ Music · 2:35 ·
I just heard this play at the Milonga. I wouldn't have a clue what it was. It doesn't sound like Lomuto, does it? It sounds like Lomuto to me, but... You know Lomuto better than me. We're used to hearing the earlier stuff. But it's a clear heavy beat. So okay, Federico's got the walking bass, but it doesn't have the weight that this has.
Yeah, yeah, I like it. Yeah, really, yeah, it's not my favorite Lomuto. Yeah, I think I like him two or three years earlier. Yeah, there's a little bit more, more power. Of course, this is 45, tango is slowing down a bit, like, you know, like a flower that opens. You know, the fast part is at the beginning, is the bud opens. We're here now with the flower fully open. That's where we are.
“Tango is at its zenith in 1945. It's at its very highest point in its trajectory.”
Well, speaking of power, let's go over to D'Arienzo because he's still got some power, even though the flower is opening.
Tango is, it's kind of at the zenith in 1945. It's at its very highest point in its trajectory. And I think D'Arienzo is the orchestra that illustrates that, because what we hear is this transition from Hector Maure, who was making this very lyrical music, to Armando Laborde. And that's the only thing that changes, it's the same band and the same arranger, the only thing that changes is the main vocalist. Okay, Echagüe's there, but the guy taking that repertoire is Laborde, and the feeling that we get really changes a lot. And it sets D'Arienzo on a path that starts taking him away from that lyricism.
But still in 45, D'Arienzo with Laborde, it's really good. Not always easy to find the music in good quality, you have to hunt to get it. I like it a lot. I hope these tracks are acceptable. I play Pájaro sin luz with Laborde singing, and the instrumental, like galasita, for the first two, and then we'll hear some more.
Laborde's darker voice and an arrangement with unusual space, phrases that end softly in an almost Di Sarli way instead of D'Arienzo's big stop.
Danced to it · 5 of 36
♪ Music · 3:10 · The lyrics, on the song's page
A D'Arienzo instrumental from the softer, more decorated second-half-of-the-40s style, which Lavocah says DJs rarely pick.
I love the energy of this last instrumental. It's a different flavour to D'Arienzo from earlier years. And Pájaro sin luz, it's a great track because there's so much space in the arrangement, and the way that's handled is very different to what D'Arienzo's done before. So what D'Arienzo does is the big stop. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Bah! That's what we're used to hearing. And he's still doing that sometimes.
So this is 45, next year 46. There'll be a second recording of Loca, one of his big hits, and he's still doing that. But in Pájaro sin luz, no. Every little phrase comes and it just kind of ends in almost Di Sarli fashion and this space opens out. The accompaniment falls silent, but not in this sharp way, in a soft way. It's a very different flavour than anything we've heard before from D'Arienzo. Very unusual and special track.
And then, yeah, these middle instrumentals. You don't hear these so often at the Milonga. No. Because as a DJ, you're likely to pick something that's more powerful, that's got more bang to it. So you're more likely to pick an instrumental from the late 30s or from the early 40s or from the 50s than this period in the second half of the 40s, where the instrumentals have a different flavour because he's trying to do a similar repertoire. This is a unique recording. D'Arienzo only records this. But in general, the repertoire is the same D'Arienzo repertoire, but performed in a softer way and a more decorated way.
So an interesting track to take would be, say, Sabado Inglés and compare the 35 recording to the one that's coming up in 46 or 47. And the same with Loca, which I just mentioned. Compare the 46 one with the 42. And Felicia and Hotel Victoria, compare the mid-late 40s versions with the other ones from before and after. And you can see he's trying to do something different that's more in keeping with this melodic golden age, golden 40s that we're in.
One comment just to pick up on the chat window. The sound quality goes down in 1945, and it seems to be on the original records themselves, as far as we can tell, because of the war there are shortages in shellac. And now only finally in 45 that really starts to affect the sound quality of what we're listening to. And that's the difference that you hear in the sound. Same studio, same technology, but the materials that the records are made from is poorer, and it suffers a bit from that.
Yeah, we have to listen to, we're going to listen to the other vocalist from this year, and he sounds very different from what he did in the late 30s. As you said before, here he has a kind of more street guy voice, so he sings the more powerful songs. And I picked Giorno Esperonada, and it's very powerful. I like his, she's a macho singing it, it's a lot of force in it. Yeah, and he remained extremely popular all through this period. So at this time he was probably more popular than Laborde, if you were listening to this music today. Personally, I prefer Laborde to Echagüe in this period. In this period, that's very important to say. Yeah.
So we'll listen to that. And then I'm going to play one milonga with the two of them singing, Del pasado, which is quite a fun milonga, I think. A bit dark in the sound. There are not many duets in D'Arienzo. I mean, if you're a macho orchestra, the idea of the sweet male vocal duet doesn't really fit, does it? But it begins in 1945. There's El Aparcero, not El Aparcero, just Aparcero. That's the first one, and now, yes, the track that we're going to hear, Pregonera, which people will know from De Angelis. Del pasado. Del pasado, yes. I beg your pardon, which we know from De Angelis. And yeah, whatever next, D'Arienzo's own vocal duos, what's going on?
It's a nice and kind of dark, it's a bit too long and a bit too much singing for dancing, I think, but it's good for listening in this context. Well, let's listen to it together and see what we feel. John Esperonado and Del pasado. Juan D'Arienzo.
A powerful, macho Echagüe vocal; Dag prefers Laborde to Echagüe in this period, though Echagüe was probably the more popular singer then.
♪ Music · 3:45 ·
A rare D'Arienzo vocal duet (Echagüe and Laborde); the first of such duets was Aparcero, and both singers' presence makes the milonga heavy on lyrics for dancing.
Danced to it
“It's the same story. It's Mimi from La Bohème... a huge figure in world literature at that time.”
Rock and roll! Yeah, that's a lot of singing in the Parmalonga, both of them. The first one of, I don't expect anything. I expect nothing. You were rocking out to that one there. You should talk about that theme.
Well, when I listen to that, it's a bit what you said in the introduction. When you listen to some song, you think this is the best one, and then you change your mind. So at that point I thought maybe Echagüe is even better than Laborde in 45, but I usually also prefer Laborde. Yeah, I love that song. Yeah, powerful. Powerful, but with a bit of sophistication. And the milonga as well, it's got great drive. It just rocks. And then, quite compelling melody. I like that a lot.
Yeah, let's move on to Tanturi, and he makes his last recordings with Campos this year, doesn't he? I'm afraid he does, yeah, he does. I'm going to miss Campos. Yeah, it's not quite the same after, is it? Not quite the same, no, no. I want to play this De seis a siete, which is a nice tango, I think. It's about being stood up on a date, isn't it? From six to seven, I waited for you at the cafe, and you didn't turn up, and I don't know why. And you never found out? No! That's real life! This is a sette with Enrique Campos. Tanturi.
One of Campos's last recordings with Tanturi, about being stood up from six to seven at the cafe; Lavocah is moved by the creamy violins.
Danced to it · 5 of 17
♪ Music · 2:38 ·
Yeah, that's a nice song. And I hope you found someone else to date with after he was stood up on this one, Michael. I was, I'm so touched by Tanturi's music. So on the one hand it's a tough orchestra with strong beats, but it's also romantic and sensitive. And when the violins come as well, I'm really touched by the violins. And so I'm just sitting here comparing the emotions that I felt in those three minutes to the emotions that I felt when D'Arienzo was singing with Echagüe. So with D'Arienzo and Echagüe in 44, I was excited, but here I'm more moved. There's a different thing going on inside.
The creaminess of the violins, great voice from Campos, and the style of the syncopation. The way the band is accompanying is still quite clear and easy for us to follow, and it gets more difficult later in the 40s, especially on the records. Maybe live it wasn't like that. So I'd love to dance to that. Yeah. Lovely music.
I remember in one of the earlier programs we talked about this saying in Argentina that there was a discussion about what's best for dancing. Is it on tour with Campos or on tour with Castillo? We're not going to get into that discussion now, but I want to play a song by Castillo because he went solo. Was it the year before or two years before? He went solo in 43. 43, yeah. So now he made 15 recordings actually in 45, and it was accompanied by, on this song which I'm going to play, which is Mentira, which is a very known song, many good versions. Yeah, it's a good version by D'Agostino and Pugliese from the same year. But let's listen to this one, and it's accompanied by D'Alessio, this orchestra that he also has nice waltzes with. This is out of the ordinary, you wouldn't hear this at the Milonga. I think Mentira.
A solo Castillo side (he left Tanturi in 1943 and made 15 recordings in 1945) with D'Alessio's orchestra; chosen as something not heard at the milonga, showing his phrasing.
♪ Music · 3:11 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Isn't that special? That was fantastic. And you're right, it's not something we're going to hear at the Milonga. And now you've really raised a question for me. Something I've never thought about, because through the 40s, Castillo has two main accompanists.
First of all, there's the orchestra of Emilio Belcarce, and then there's this orchestra with Enrique D'Alessio. So, of course, they're backing orchestras. They're doing a job. The soloist is in charge, and he's saying, I want it to sound more or less like this, so their own personal preferences they have to put to one side, but nevertheless now I've got this new question in my mind which I never had before: is there a difference in the way that these two guys accompany Castillo? Because that was, yeah, quite a subtle performance, I think. It really displayed Castillo's phrasing there. There's a number of people have commented on that. Yes, he really does have a special way of phrasing.
Troilo was asked about it. Somebody asked Troilo, oh, wouldn't you like to have Castillo in your orchestra? And he said, well, he was a very good singer, but not for my orchestra, and refused to elaborate. So we don't really know what he meant. And Florian's comment, very interesting comment. He said, I could hear the volume of the singer changing. Is he moving around in front of the microphone?
Now we know that just generally speaking, Castillo did that because he was a very flamboyant performer, wasn't he? He had his top button undone, which was unheard of, you know, loose tie. And he would take his handkerchief out of his pocket and wave it around and make lots of dramatic flourishes. So he moved around the stage a lot when he sang. So maybe he just couldn't stop himself in the studio.
Tango rock star. He was a rock star. He was huge. Yeah, I mean I love the Pulier Zemoran version a lot, but I found this really refreshing also to listen to because it's different and it's a special voice.
Okay, let's move on to Biagi, and we have to play one song by Biagi because he recorded the best milonga ever this year, Flor de Montserrat. It's one of my favourite milongas. Where does it come from? Where does Flor de Montserrat, I mean, okay, when you listen to the music it comes out of the floor. That's what's so exciting about it.
“It's like in the cowboy movie where they're in the middle of the plains and there's this silence... then you start to hear the thundering hooves of horses and then they appear over the horizon.”
It's like in the cowboy movie where they're in the middle of the plains and there's this silence, but somebody sort of looks up and he looks around, and then you start to hear the thundering hooves of horses and then they appear over the horizon. It just comes out of the floor and there's nothing else like it. Yeah, amazing. Extraordinary, extraordinary. And again, sorry, I'll shut up. I'll talk about it. Yeah, let's just enjoy it. And to the singer Alberto Amor, Flor de Montserrat with Biagi.
Dag's pick as the best milonga ever recorded; Lavocah says the music rises out of the floor like thundering hooves in a cowboy film.
♪ Music · 1:41 ·
Yeah, I see what you mean about with the cowboy movie. It just comes and the violins are so special, they give, um, there's two things giving the phrasing at the same time, the singer and the violins, and it's really nice to dance this because you don't have to dance to all the rhythm. You can just do like whether follow this, all these musical uh things that it does. With that one I follow the violins as a dancer, so once the violins, because they're not there all the time, but once the violin starts up when they're going and they go, then I make my movement on that, and then when the violins pause I just walk on the spot, which is quite a nice possibility to have in milonga because otherwise you end up running. So the violins really help you to navigate your way in a comfortable way through that really special milonga.
Chapter · 1:27:06
Castillo and the handkerchief
Why does Castillo's voice drift in and out?
“Somebody asked Troilo, wouldn't you like to have Castillo in your orchestra? And he said, he was a very good singer, but not for my orchestra, and refused to elaborate.”
Oh, thanks for playing that fantastic milonga, and a lot of people I've seen from the chat window, a lot of people wanted to dance. So let's play another milonga that's not so danceable maybe by Cirilo Ortiz, because he also recorded a few milongas and his backpack guitars. This is a milonga called Betinotti, which I've never heard of, played at the milonga because it's not really dance music. But it's an interesting listen. Very introvert.
Cirilo Ortiz, not an introverted person, but musically an introverted personality, a big influence on Troilo, gave that introverted impulse to Troilo's music. Betinotti was one of the great pagadores, one of the traveling minstrels, composed some important pieces in the early days. So this is a tribute to him. So yeah, Cirilo Ortiz on Banduignon, backed by two guitarists, Vicente Spina, and I forget the name of the other one. All right, let's listen to it. Betinotti by Ortiz, Cirilo Ortiz.
An intimate, introverted milonga for bandoneón and guitars, a tribute to the payador José Betinotti; Ortiz was a big influence on Troilo's introverted impulse.
♪ Music · 2:18 ·
It creates a really special mood, doesn't it? Intimate. Yeah. So Rico, it is a band of non-player. It's intimate. And I want to pick up on something. Somebody asked me privately in the chat window.
So with these guitar groups, sometimes you would have guitars, just two guitars, and other times you would have a guitar and a guitarron. So a guitarron is a guitar but a fifth bigger, and then each string then is transposed down a fifth and it makes the bass accompaniment. So actually I'm not 100% sure what we were listening to, whether it was two guitars or whether it was guitar and a guitarron. In terms of getting the sound balance it didn't matter because you would just change the distance of the musicians to the microphone according to what sound balance you wanted. But if you had a quartet like the Troilo Guerrilla quartet that some people have mentioned in the chat window, then definitely one of the guitars would have been a guitarron to give a little bit of bass power.
Yeah, so nice. And there is a connection to Troilo Grela because of the intimacy of the bandagnon playing. And speaking of Troilo, he's doing quite well in 45, isn't he? And I remember in 47, we concluded, oh, 47 must be the best year for Troilo. But when you listen to 45, you kind of want to say the same thing. So much nice stuff. It's full of quality. Yeah, 1945 for Troilo, full of quality, sophisticated. Maybe 47 has got a bit more punch than 45, but there's nothing you can say against it. Fantastic tracks, we could just sit here for two hours listen to Troilo 45 and we would all go home happy.
So let's first listen to two songs with his singers, the one called La noche que te fuiste with Floreal Ruiz and Cotorita de la suerte with Alberto Marino. These are both very touching and emotional song, or sad songs, and they were both recorded in June 1945, that's exactly 75 years ago. Nice. It's amazing. So wow.
One brief comment: so in the Troilo Orchestra you don't get long violin solos. The intervention of the violin as a solo instrument is always very short, and this despite the fact that David Díaz, Troilo's violin player, is one of the best violin players in tango. I mean he's absolutely extraordinary, but you don't notice it because he's not given very much to do. It's like the opposite of Di Sarli, isn't it, where the band and Yons are not giving anything to do? It's something a bit like that with Troilo.
And the reason I mention that in particular is because a lot of the listeners who are with us tonight, when you say La noche que te fuiste, they're also going to think of the version of Miguel Caló, which is a beautiful, beautiful version. And, of course, in the Caló Orchestra, you've got Enrique Francini. You've got a great virtuoso violin player, and then after him, you've got someone else doing his job. So that's the difference with the Troilo Orchestra. The Troilo Orchestra features the solo players in a more sort of dicaro way, a more chamber music way. Troilo doesn't do that. So he does open La noche que te fuiste with the violin, but only for three seconds less, and then the rest of the band takes over.
The Night You Left, beautiful, sad one. And Cotorita de la suerte, that's a heartbreaker. Yeah, a heartbreaker sound. A heartbreaker. Very sad sound. Break my heart, Dag. Yeah, be prepared to be broken, guys.
And with Cotorita de la suerte, the thing, I mean, you'll all notice it, but just to be aware of what we're noticing is the way that Marino can go from singing really loud to really quiet, and he's still singing, even when he sings quietly he can still sing with perfect articulation. That's the advantage of a bel canto training. Yeah. All right. Troilo, La noche que te fuiste and Cotorita de la suerte.
Recorded in June 1945, exactly 75 years before the broadcast; Troilo opens it with a three-second violin and gives the band no chamber-music solos, unlike Caló.
Danced to it · 5 of 32
A heartbreaker in which Marino moves from loud to quiet with perfect articulation thanks to bel canto training; Lavocah tells the full lyric (a seamstress, a fortune-telling parrot, tuberculosis).
Oh, Michael. Okay, so I've promised to explain the lyric.
1945, Floreal Ruiz is a great singer, but I would say his best performances are yet to come. But before I talk about the lyric, maybe we can all... Hasn't the quality level just gone up a couple of notches? You know, I'm dying here. I'm dying.
Cotorita de la suerte means lucky parrot. Now, after I published the Troilo book, one of my readers sent me a message. I learn a lot from my readers. I really do. And she said to me, oh, I went to Taiwan on holiday and in the street markets, like a bazaar, there was a street market, covered market, big one, and I went in there and there was somebody which had a parrot that told you a fortune, a lucky parrot. So you gave some money to the guy and then the parrot went and pulled out a piece of paper from a box with all paper stacked in it and then he gave it to you and it had your fortune on it. And that's what this tango is about. Cotorita de la suerte.
Now you don't get the whole lyric in Troilo's presentation, but we have to remember that an Argentine listening to this tango in 1945 probably remembered Gardel's version and knew the whole lyric even though we don't get the whole lyric. So what happens in the whole lyric? There's obrerita. So there's a girl, a young girl, who's a seamstress. And as people have guessed in the chat window, she gets TB. Chebacalosis. Chebacalosis was a massive killer. You know, it's a hundred years ago, and there were no antibiotics. A lot of people died.
Chapter · 1:43:00
The lucky parrot
A tango about a fortune-telling parrot ends in a deathbed.
There's a huge amount of world literature about that, Thomas Mann, the magic mountain, and you know the whole image of the romantic suffering artist, Chopin, and all of that. Anyway, I digress. So yeah, she's poor, she's not one of these girls who goes off downtown to become a Milan Gita. Let's leave to one side this quite patriarchal dual discussion of the woman as Madonna or whore, yeah. Let's just leave that to one side and talk about the specifics of this lyric. She's a poor seamstress and she draws a fortune from the lucky parrot which says good luck, fortune, a nice boyfriend, marriage, happiness. And she gets TB, como tossa, tossa is to cough, so she starts coughing, she gets TB, she lies on her deathbed and she says to her mother, you didn't come, and then she dies and that's the lyric.
Jesus man, that's heavy stuff. And the moral is don't believe in fortune tellers. That's a good moral.
And Marino in 1945, and yes it's La Traviata, of course. It's Cotorita de la suerte. It's the same story. It's Mimi from La Boheme. Yes, of course it is. A huge figure in world literature at that time. What a performer. I'm dead now.
Yeah, well, Troilo has fantastic vocalists, but he also has some good instrumentals that tend to get underplayed because of all the brilliant vocal numbers. So let's listen to Color de rosa. Yeah? You like this one? I do, very much. It's one of the things that I listen to preparing for tonight. I love this song. Very rarely played. There's also an interesting version from Di Sarli, but very satisfying. Yeah.
And after that, a waltz again, called Rorarras, Rorarras, with Floreal Ruiz singing. Beautiful waltz. Oh, yes. So let's listen to those two, by Troilo.
One of the Troilo instrumentals underplayed because of the vocals; Dag says it is very rarely played, with a Di Sarli version also worth hearing.
Danced to it · 4 of 5
♪ Music · 2:50 ·
A beautiful Troilo waltz with Floreal Ruiz, played second of the two; the piano is José Basso, not Gogni.
People are dying again, not from dancing, being able to dance to this. Troilo 1945, great name. José Basso en piano. Okay, he's not Gogni, but it's pretty good. Yes, pretty good, I think he's doing a great job. Just a general point, one of the really important people isn't playing and that's the arranger. This is arranged music and the role of the arranger is more important now than it's ever been and everything's scripted here by the arranger. Okay, they modify in rehearsal but the arranger is a super important guy.
Yeah, I think we'll have a few, say a few more words about Troilo towards the end of the program. We'll get back to that, so that'll be a mystery for now. But before we approach the end, let's listen to some specials, like songs that you wouldn't hear at a milonga. Some more of those. I want to play a song by Libertad Lamarque called Garras. And you know this song, of course, from Troilo, and what's the other orchestra who plays this? Michael, help me. Garras, it's, well, do you know what I mean? After Troilo, for me, there isn't another version, but it's got to be Caló, isn't it? Those two competed, doesn't matter, doesn't matter. Anyway, it's very different. I think she really, I like this song because she delivers this really heartbreaking emotion when she sings and I really get goosebumps from this interpretation, and it's not for dancing. This is, this is tango at its best. Garras.
A heartbreaking song about a dark alley sung by Lamarque, notable for her low register, which is rarely heard.
♪ Music · 2:58 ·
Isn't that magnificent? It is. I really like the way that she started low down because often we hear her voice only in the high part of her register. But here we heard her low down as well. That was tremendous. Thank you for playing that. That's what I like with this song.
And from one magnificent soloist to another, let's listen to some Fiorentino songs, because he went solo before, but he sings solo in 45. And he has some interesting recordings, I think. I want to play two, actually. And the accompaniment, the orchestra is Astor Piazzolla. And the first one is well-known from Pugliese and D'Arienzo, Corrientes y Esmeralda. This is an interesting version. And the second one is Soy una fiera. It's a milonga.
Oh, Soy una fiera is... As dancers, not as connoisseurs, just as dancers, it's the most successful interpretation of that orchestra. Really interesting. Fantastic number. So, yeah, this is into Fiorentino singing.
Fiorentino as a soloist with Piazzolla's orchestra, an interesting version of a song better known from Pugliese and D'Arienzo.
♪ Music · 3:10 ·
Lavocah calls it, for dancers, the most successful interpretation of Piazzolla's early orchestra, though that band was not danced to.
That's a killer, isn't it? It is a killer.
I guess we have to say really untypical of that outfit. So just to make it clear for everyone who's joined us tonight, people didn't dance to this orchestra. And that was the difficulty that they had. So this Typica that Pietzola started didn't engage the dancers and they had a lot of complaints from the places that they played at. But wow, great music, really rich and interesting.
People getting tired or, I mean, as you can see, it's still sunny here in, uh, Norwegian fjord. Well, 10 minutes past 10 p.m. I've been up there. Yeah, I mean, where are we? You took me, you took me last year to the land of the midnight sun, man, and that messed with my mind. Like the sun shone on my face after midnight and there was no sleeping after that, so, you know, we don't trust this Norwegian people.
Yeah, but still, it's still daylight here, but we've got to round off soon. And of course, we're going to end with Pugliese. But before we do that, we're going to play another special song. And well, for new listeners, I didn't say that in the beginning, that our plot twist here is that Michael doesn't know what songs I'll be playing. He knows the year, of course, but he has no idea what songs he'll be playing.
So the next one, I don't know if you know it. It's by an orchestra called Carlos Marcucci and he recorded very few songs, just two recordings in 1945.
He recorded in 1945? I didn't know that.
Yeah, two recordings and then a few in 1929 to 1931, which you probably know. Just to give everyone the context for Carlos Marcucci, band-a-gnon player, very able technically, the composer of Midolor.
Ah, he was. I didn't know that.
Yeah, great. That's why Di Caro plays it in the 50s because Marcucci joins his orchestra and he brings that song with him.
Oh wow, that's a great recording too. So but now we're going to listen to Milonga called Flor de Montserrat with a singer called Roberto Abrodos and I've never heard it said Milongas or anywhere before I was praying for this show. I've never heard it at all. I hope it'll be a surprise to most of you too and I think it's kind of playful and fun. Let's listen to Flor de Montserrat with Carlos Marcucci.
A curiosity from one of only two 1945 Marcucci recordings, with a poor-quality source; Dag says it is playful and fun.
♪ Music · 2:14 ·
Sorry about the sound quality of that one. I couldn't find any better.
You found it at all is a miracle. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That was a curiosity. So let's move on to some more non-stop.
You've had to put your shades on. Yes, I do. Yeah, the sun shines right to the window. So what can you say about Pugliese in 1945, Michael? It's not a bad year, is it?
What can I say about Pugliese in 1945? Jesus. Good music. Pugliese in 1945, it takes a long time to work out an idea. So, listeners, what's your idea about how a song's composed? How long do you think it takes? You know, sometimes it takes a week. You come up with an idea, you take... There are tango songs that we know were composed in two or three days. Words and music, like guru-a. But there are other songs that we know took three years. And there are songs that we know took ten years.
Like a song that you haven't played tonight, Dag, Cancion Desesperada, from 1945, took ten years to write and it's the same with giving birth to a musical style. So when we talk about Pugliese, I hope you all know that there's a triptych of three songs that define his oeuvre and his style in the 40s: la Jumba, negraja, malandraka, 46, 48, 49. But all those songs started life in 1943 and Pugliese didn't record things till they were ready. So la Jumba took him three years to get ready, the Gratia took him six years to get ready and Malendraca took him nine years to get ready, which is, uh, it's kind of curious actually because Malendraca is the simplest of the three pieces, but that's how Pugliese functioned.
Chapter · 2:09:40
Three years, six years, nine years
Pugliese's three classics each took years to record.
So in 1945 on the one hand we hear a very romantic Pugliese, so like the first recording of Pugliese in 1943. Nobody listening, watching with us here tonight imagines that as typical of the Pugliese oeuvre, but it's a big part of his oeuvre, this romantic stream, and there's still some very romantic numbers in 1945, like his version of Porqué, super romantic. But this other current, the more Pugliesean current, is bubbling under. It's not yet burst through, at least not in the recordings. You would have heard those other numbers maybe at the Milonga as he tried them out from time to time.
“Pugliese didn't record things till they were ready so La Yumba took him three years to get ready, Negracha took him six years, Malandraca took him nine years.”
And there's a lot of joy in the instrumentals of Pugliese in this year. Again, as Dag says, I've got no idea what he's going to play, but tracks like Las Marionetas, The Dolls, which is Pugliese's own composition, if memory serves, and then Raza criolla, which is not complex, but very joyful. So that's where we are with Pugliese. We're poised. Looking at the music in the broadest sense, we're poised. And then 1946 is the point where we're really going to hear the Pugliesean style. And there's real aggression in some of the playing, like the violins in Derecho viejo and Florida Tango. Goodness gracious.
We're listening to the first one you mentioned. Derecho viejo. An old tango. Before that, we need some vocal and the singer Roberto Chanel, El sueño del pibe. And he has a street voice, hasn't he?
He has a street voice, but with class, which is a really interesting combination. So what do we mean by street voice? We mean that it sounds a bit nasal. We hear that very clearly. So it's a voice that a working class person can identify with. And El sueño del pibe again is a working class tango, the dream of the lad. What's his dream? His dream is to score the winning goal in the cup final in football.
And, okay, most people watching today are not dedicated football fans, but in the 1940s most people were, so football was a huge part of culture, not just in Argentina but in all our nations, in all our countries. So, yeah, plenty of football tangos.
All right, let's go for the football tangos. El sueño del pibe and Derecho viejo by Pugliese.
A football tango about a lad dreaming of scoring the winning cup-final goal, sung by Chanel's 'street voice with class'.
Danced to it · 5 of 23
♪ Music · 3:20 ·
An instrumental played for its pairing of aggression and beauty in the violins.
Danced to it · 5 of 60
More! Yeah, power. Aggression and beauty, you say. Aggression and beauty. I mean, the way the violins attack the strings. Yeah. There's nothing left in the tank. They give it everything. Yeah. It's this great contrast. Wonderful for dancing.
Yeah, that's just... I mean, I say it in the book. I've said it before. I'll say it again, but this is what's so beautiful. Beautiful is the wrong word. What's so unique about Pugliese is that he does two things, which for everyone else you can't do at the same time. Violence and beauty. And as you said, he does his more characteristic stuff later. 1950 is probably my favorite Pugliese year, but still this is very, very good music and it's good for dancing also because it's less complex. So you don't really need to know the music super well to be able to dance to it. It's still a good rhythm, a good walking beat.
Chapter · 2:18:10
Violence and beauty
Pugliese doesn't suggest. He demands.
“What's so unique about Pugliese is that he does two things which for everyone else you can't do at the same time. Violence and beauty.”
Oh, gosh, now you're just opening huge topics there, Dag. Did you mean to do that?
Yeah, of course. So I'm not going to agree with you there. I do agree that it's much easier to dance to than it is in 1950, but I don't agree that you need to know what the music does in 1950. The unique thing about Pugliese is he doesn't suggest, he demands. He doesn't say, well, here's a possibility, like now you could follow this or now you could follow that or you could just walk, I know, do what you know. He says, now you this. And then he changes, now you that. And we have to obey. And of course there's freedom with insight. I don't want to say we don't have freedom. We do have freedom. But he asks for a certain kind of surrender. And that becomes deeper in the 50s than it is here.
“The unique thing about Pugliese is he doesn't suggest, he demands.”
Someone asked about Morán. What about Morán? Of course you're going to listen to a Morán song. You're going to listen to Hoy al recordarla with Alberto Morán singing. But before that, this is La cachila, which is an instrumental, and it's known also by Di Sarli, great versions, a lot of other versions, but this is, yeah. Do you want to say something about this, Michael?
About Morán? No, I'm not going to say anything about Morán, except to say, I'll say one thing about Morán. When Pugliese poached Morán from the orchestra of Cristobal Herrera, he was singing all of these songs that we hear with Pugliese, all of them except Pasional, and the only reason that he didn't sing that before was it hadn't been written yet.
Yes, and La cachila, an exceptionally complex instrumental. We had a wonderful evening a few weeks ago. We listened to 1929 and we listened to some Canaro that night and Canaro fans just went, yeah, that's... The fans of the old stuff were not surprised, but the people who didn't normally listen to that stuff went, what? What was that? But Canaro never attempted La cachila because the complexity of the music is just a bit too high for Canaro's conception. There's two recordings of La cachila from Pugliese. There's this one, 45, and the other one's 51 or 52, and I don't know, how can you compare them? This one's better recorded, so maybe easier to enjoy from that region. Exceptional, exceptional recording.
So let's listen to it, La cachila, and after that, Hoy al recordarla with Alberto Morán singing. Wonderful songs.
An exceptionally complex instrumental, better recorded than the 1951-52 version; Lavocah says Canaro never attempted it because it was too complex for his conception.
Danced to it · 4 of 6
♪ Music · 3:10 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Morán at full dynamic range, which a chat listener compared to a weapon of mass destruction.
Danced to it · 5 of 7
So Teresa's just described, I'm not using her phrase, but based on what she just said, she's describing Moran as a weapon of mass destruction. We're all dead now, that's it. I love this aggression he gets to in his voice, like these changes in dynamics. It's amazing. Moran likes going to the maximum, and we respond to that.
So, yeah, we're getting towards the end, Michael, and as always we should say thank you to the listeners. And I want to say thank you to you again for sharing your knowledge with us. It's been another great night, a huge thank you to the listeners. Without the listeners there's no program, so I'm so happy that people want to come together with us and share this joy of listening to music together. And thanks for those supporting Michael in his work and his book writing. And I think you're currently working on a couple books, aren't you, Michael? It's been a little bit busy recently.
Yeah, so after three years work we've completed the Turkish translation of the first book, yes, which will be the fifth language that it's published in. So that's a huge work. I think the translation team were a bit taken by surprise, but how much work it is to translate a book. And the other thing which is gonna please a few people is a second edition of the Troilo book, which is now, yes, now complete. So the Troilo book, that was the first orchestra book and that was written with Troilo's centenary in mind. So that was, that's a hard deadline because you can't move someone's birthday, 11th of July. 11th of July, people, there's two dates you need to know in tango, one of them's 11th of July, that's Troilo's birthday. So 11th July 2014 was his centenary and so I got the book out and it was the first one and it's six years ago and I think three years ago, I had an email exchange with Teresa Faust, who I know is with us tonight. And she said, you know, how about a second edition? So three years later, it's ready. So we'll be telling you about that in the next days. A much bigger and fuller book. So, yeah, it's been a busy month, and I think I'm going to sleep for a week after tonight's show.
Yeah, and thanks also to our sponsors, our Tango Clubs, Tango Brasso in Bergen and Tango Norfolk, right, in Norwich, and to the Marabou nightclub in Buenos Aires, to the Marabou. Also a thank you to our sound engineer Paul Stradwick who's really helped us with the audio for the show. And we usually finish these programs with La cumparsita from the year, and I think I've said before that in between 1926 and 69 I think there are more than 300 recordings, but there are two years there are no recordings from. One is 1941 and the other one is 1945, so tonight you'll hear no cumparsita. There's no cumparsita, there's no cumparsita from this year.
Chapter · 2:31:12
The empty year on La cumparsita
Two years in 40 have no recording of the world's most famous tango.
So, do you want to say something? We've got to have an after party tonight, sunny setting here in Bergen, or not in Bergen, but in the fjord land. So I'll leave the playing, the after party to you, Michael. I'm looking at your face and I'm seeing the sun on your skin and I know what that's like. 40 minutes past 10 now. Very special memory. It's lovely to see that. Are you going to sleep tonight after this? I think so, yeah. After you're playing, at least I didn't come home.
Okay, so I'm going to take over the audio. I'll play a cortina or two. I might mute my video while I go and get a drink or something, and then we're going to have an after party. No, bearable. There's no D'Agostino cumparsita in 45. It's from 46. It's on February. But good guess. So I'll take over the audio at this point, if I'm able to. Play a cortina, and then we'll have a little after party because there's so much good Di Sarli, good Pugliese, good D'Agostino, good Troilo that there just isn't time to listen to in such a short little program.
Thank you so much, Dag. Yeah, thank you to our sponsors, sound engineer. Some of you will leave us now. And for those who don't, I'll see you in five minutes.
Hi everyone, we're back. Oh, and thank you to Dag for making this evening possible, and got this request coming in the chat window, I'm going to ignore those for the moment. Let's start off with a little bit of soft D'Agostino because 45 is a wonderful year for D'Agostino. Who sang the cortina, and that was Ella Fitzgerald. I want to start with Hotel Victoria. Inish is waving her arms in the air. Really special piano introduction and everything that D'Agostino, so D'Agostino is the pianist in his band. He conducts from the piano and everything he does from the piano is really special. It's a very limpid, minimalist music. He could have been from Estonia. So at the beginning, almost nothing happens, but the piano just walks up out of the bass.
And now that I'm playing the music, my actions will be synchronised with the music. The piano starts off walking out of the bass, but there's one of the most perfect solos in the whole history of tango music from D'Agostino's piano in the introduction of this piece before Vargas even kicks in. And it consists of entirely one note, and I will play it with this hand here like this. D'Agostino, Vargas, Hotel Victoria.
“There's one of the most perfect solos in the whole history of tango music from D'Agostino's piano in the introduction of this piece before Vargas even kicks in, and it consists of entirely one note.”
Afterparty: Lavocah plays it for D'Agostino's one-note piano introduction, which he calls one of the most perfect solos in tango.
♪ Music · 3:30 ·
Afterparty: a second D'Agostino and Vargas side from a year full of good ones.
D'Agostino in 45, isn't that great? So the title, I did type it in the chat window, it's No vendrá, that second one. And there's lots and lots of other good songs from D'Agostino in 45.
Well, let's move on to another orchestra. Now, an orchestra, I wondered, I wasn't sure, would we hear tonight, is De Angelis. Now, I know De Angelis is deeply uncool among certain circles, but 1945 De Angelis? Come on people, let's give it a shot. You know, it avoids some of the violin excesses of his later output. It's romantic. It's very, very popular. And there's some good stuff. He's got two great singers, Carlos Dante and Julio Martel. Very contrasting. Also because of their ages, Julio Martel is a young guy. And Carlos Dante is super experienced. From the 1929 show, you may remember. D'Arienzo's first orchestra in the late 20s was formed to back Carlos Dante. And in fact, he's retired. And he's got himself a proper job in an oil company when De Angelis tempts him out of retirement. So that's how we get these two guys in 1945. There's some good stuff in there, even if we don't like everything that De Angelis does.
Where should we start? Let's start with Dante. I'll play one with Dante. This is Ya estamos iguales, which means now we're even. And after that I'll play something from Julio Martel.
Afterparty: Lavocah defends 1945 De Angelis, before his later violin excesses, with Dante lured out of retirement from an oil company job.
Danced to it
Afterparty: a contrasting side with the young singer Julio Martel.
Roots because we were really, uh, people were interested by the 1929 program, so we'll go a bit back, not that far, but I think maybe 1932, without the acceptable, yes. I mean, but it's such an interesting tango year because it's just the cusp between the depression and the depression really hits in 31 and has a huge effect on the Argentine economy and on the music scene. And then in the beginning of 32 it starts changing, so there's two really contrasting emotions to 32. So we'll listen to music about depression next, next week. Yes, we shall, and, um, week after, year to be decided, and coming up, date for your diary.
8th of July, Troilo special. Yes. Troilo special. 8th of July.
So we're going to do something a bit different over the summer because we can't just do the same thing every week. Then we need some holiday too. Especially when the weather's so good as it is in Norway. Yeah. Goodness.
So what have we listened to? We've heard a little bit more of Ángel D'Agostino. We've heard some De Angelis, which hasn't convinced the people who don't like him, but I really enjoyed it. Now when we get to Pugliese it's the end, so thinking backwards, before Pugliese is gonna be Di Sarli, and before Di Sarli maybe a bit more D'Arienzo, but also I think it would be a shame not to play a little bit more of Lucio Demare.
Afterparty: Lavocah sets a quiz that its opening melody is plagiarised from another tango.
Danced to it · 5 of 36
Special bonus point. The melody of Igual que un bandoneón. The opening melody, of course, you know, there's a few themes in a song. The opening melody is stolen. It's plagiarised from which tango? Okay, we'll let that run. You've got three minutes to answer that.
In the meantime, a lot of people have asked for Biagi. Now, you asked for this, so it's your fault. I'm now going to play the tango with the most demonic ending in the history of the universe. This is a tango as a DJ that I don't often play. One time I played it as some friends of mine danced past me. I told them, look, the ending's coming and it's going to be like this. And they still couldn't hack it. The ending is just vicious. This is Equipaje. Equipaje, equipment, baggage. There's a nice version from Troilo, but this version from Biagi is just something else.
Afterparty: the tango with 'the most demonic ending in the history of the universe', which Lavocah says is too vicious even for dancers who were warned.
♪ Music · 2:54 ·
Who got the ending? Demonic, demonic, if you heard the music at all while looking at Dag's tour of Norway, and having traveled a little bit, only a little bit, in Norway, it's all like that. It's not all like that, there's so many beautiful places in the summer in the north of Norway, just wow. Thanks for that. Bergen, embrace, who knows, maybe we'll be able to think about coming to Bergen for summer next year, Inshallah. If God wills it. If God wills it and if it's on, I'll be there, you can bet your body a dollar. You'll be DJing. Even better.
Okay, so that was Biagi. There's not that much be actually in 45, actually folks, so that's all you're gonna get. Let's have a little bit more Tanturi, because in 45 we have the changeover from Campos to Videla, so we should hear something with Roberto Videla. This is a really nice track called Corazoncito. See what you think.
Afterparty: the changeover from Campos to Videla at Tanturi, with a recommendation for a recent Tango Tunes release of the 1945-46 Tanturi recordings.
Danced to it
Nice, huh? Yeah, nice one. I like that, Michael. And there's more nice Tanturi from that year. Andres has mentioned one of Campos' last recordings, Que Serra de Ti. And there's also a nice waltz, a duo with Campos and Videla together, To Vieja Ventana. Well, that's your homework. You can go and listen to that.
There's a very nice tango tunes release of the Tanturi recordings from that year. And it's quite important actually, because before that release, you just couldn't hear the 45, 46 recordings of Tanturi in good quality anywhere. So I do recommend that. More recommendations flooding in. People weeping also in the chat window because there's no Larenz in 45. Me too, but what can you do?
There's enough shit going down in the world. I can't afford to think about that right now. Excuse me for that. Do you know what? I'm not going to play any more D'Arienzo because it's kind of a vocal year and I'm just not in the mood. So we're going to hit some Di Sarli before we hit the Pugliese. I think there's about 55 star tracks from Di Sarli with Durán in 1945. Oh, God. Where to start?
You played Que no sepan las estrellas. Yes. Beautiful sea tango. Okay. How about Tus labios me dirán? Tus labios me dirán. Your lips told me. What did they tell me? It's a tango. They said goodbye. Yes.
That's right. Here we go. And we'll play at least one more Di Sarli after that, because I really like this early period with Durán. It's special.
Afterparty: one of 'about 55 star tracks' with Durán; Lavocah points to the violins under the voice.
Did you listen to the violins? It's hard to listen to the violins because the voice is so beautiful, but did you listen to those violins? Special. Really special. Another one, goodness, there's a lot. Let's listen to one instrumental and another vocal. Mmm, Rodriguez Peña, I think. Yeah, Rodriguez Peña, or maybe Tinta verde, it's difficult. Our choice is Michael. I mean, this is real life, isn't it, you know.
I'm going to play Tinta verde actually, because Rodriguez Peña is a kind of more obvious choice, because it's kind of classic Di Sarli, he records it loads of times, there's this really strong walking beat. Tinta verde, one of those really old songs recorded by many different bands, it's on the B-side of Troilo's 1938 single on Odeon, where there was with coming for, so it's inspired a real variety of people, and this is a very unusual recording. And the unusual thing about it actually is that there's still a violin solo. And this is 1945. And by this time, Troilo's, sorry, not Troilo, Di Sarli has eliminated the idea of the solo from any instrument except himself, from his idea, his conception of what tango music is. So this is one of the later solos that we're able to appreciate, and not a song I hear often in the milonga.
So this is Tinta verde. Tinta verde means green ink. Tinta, tint, ink. I think that's Arolas, isn't it? I'd better look this up, because sometimes I tell you things under my inspiration. It's Agustín Bardi, of course it is. Agustín Bardi.
Chapter · 3:10:17
A tango named for green ink
Nobody named this tango. It was the sheet written in green ink.
“It's just the one that's written in green ink.”
And Agustín Bardi worked for the railway company. They were all English railway companies in those days. Lots of people had part-time jobs as musicians and part-time working jobs, as some of us do now. And they worked with green ink. And Bardi was a prolific composer, but wasn't really concerned to promote his music. So if it was successful, great. Somebody came to him, I forget who it was, but I think it's in the Di Sarli book, and rifled through his sheet music. It was Arolas, that's right, that's why I got confused with Arolas.
Arolas came to him and said, I want to have that tango that you did the other night, that you played. And he said, oh, just take it. So he picked up the sheet music on the desk, and what's it called? It's just the one that's written in green ink. That's all that Bardi had to say about it, and that's how it got its title, which wasn't given to him even by its composer, but given by Arolas.
So this is Tinta verde. Beautiful pizzicato at the beginning with the piano, and then listen out for the rare violin solo from Roberto Guisado towards the end, of course playing on gut strings.
Afterparty: unusual because it keeps a violin solo (Roberto Guisado) in 1945, after Di Sarli had otherwise banned solos from every instrument but the piano.
Danced to it · 5 of 40
♪ Music · 3:10 ·
Afterparty: a closing Di Sarli vocal; the lyric begins 'La dicha es un castillo con un puente de cristal'.
Play some Pugliese and then it's goodnight. Right then. Let's have a little look. Pugliese, 1945. I think let's start with the instrumentals. And there's some really important ones in this year. Okay. Raza criolla, we have to listen to Raza criolla.
Afterparty: not complex but very joyful, the lightest of the three Pugliese instrumentals Lavocah orders by intensity.
Danced to it · 5 of 79
♪ Music · 2:23 ·
Ha! Requests are flooding in through the chat window, which I like, but it's going to be absolutely impossible to play them all. They're all good. Which one next? I'm going to try and structure the music through intensity. So in terms of intensity, that was the lightest one. Now, next one will be Las marionetas, which is also sort of quite light and joyful, but structurally really quite complex. And I think that's why we don't really hear it very often at the milonga. I wish we did. Here we go, Las marionetas.
Afterparty: light and joyful but structurally complex, which Lavocah gives as the reason it is rarely played at milongas.
Afterparty: confirmed by the lyrics ('esta noche tengo ganas de olvidarla'); Lavocah had said Morán could not have sung it before because it was not yet written.
The requests are still flooding in through the chat window. There's still over 130 people with us. You've got to get going all night, Michael. No, we can't go all night.
Jujo Verro with Morán suggests Teresa. Why not? Melesa? No, I'm not going to play Melesa. OK, well, I'm going to play two more with Morán and then I'll play out with some Amália Rodrigues from 1945. Por qué no es venido is not 1945, people. Sorry about that.
So, yeah, Jucho Verde. Dag, you played Hoy al recordarla with Morán, right? So I can't play that one. So we'll have Jujo Verde and then Mentira for which you played the La Moto version. Was it the La Moto version? No, the Castillo solo version. Oh, with Castillo, yes. Unusual track that I wasn't familiar with. So. Two more and then some play-out Cortinas.
Thank you all for joining us tonight. Super evening. We enjoy it a lot. We really do.
Thank you for this evening. It's been a fantastic evening. We will see you in 1932. We'll post details for that. We'll post details for the Troilo Special event as well. And thank you all again. Thank you for being here. Thanks to Dag. Thanks to Paul. Thanks to our sponsors. And thanks to you, Michael. Thanks for the after party. We all enjoyed it.
There's so much. 27 people. There's so much good music. So I'm going to play a little bit of Amália Rodrigues. Now the recordings we listen to from Amália Rodrigues, if you don't know who she is, the greatest diva, but she wasn't really a diva.
Portuguese singer. We know her recordings from the 50s, 60s, early 70s. But here she is in 1945 when she was really young. The pure voice of Fado. This is Se Finalmente which means at last I know that's it for tonight. Thank you. Goodnight.
Afterparty play-out: the young Portuguese singer, known to most listeners from the 1950s to early 70s.
♪ Music · 4:11 ·
Tango By Year is Dag Stenvoll and Michael Lavocah's, published here with their permission. The audio plays from SoundCloud.