Tango 1947
Dag Stenvoll and Michael Lavocah · 2020-04-22 · 2:09:07
By 1947 tango is deep into the golden decade, which Lavocah dates to 1935-37 rather than 1940, so this is year eleven, not eight. Pugliese and Troilo are now the dominant creative forces; D'Arienzo still sells well but has stopped innovating, and the music overall has grown far more complex as three successive waves of style (D'Arienzo's beat, the Troilo/De Caro lyrical school, and Pugliese's extremes) stack on top of each other. New tango composition has collapsed to under half of 1944's output, a side-effect of the lunfardo radio ban imposed under 1943 censorship, forcing orchestras back to older repertoire. Baritone voices (Jorge Durán) start joining the catalogue of tenors, and wartime shellac shortages are making records noisier just as some bands want wider dynamic range. Once-major orchestras (Biagi, D'Agostino, Tanturi, Federico) are visibly declining, while rarer names pointing toward tango's future (Gobbi, Francini-Pontier, Piazzolla) get real attention.
What this episode gave Tangopedia
Facts said in the episode, each now cited to the minute it is said.
1947 is deep in the golden decade, which Lavocah dates from 1935-37 rather than 1940; new tango composition had fallen to under half of 1944's output because 1943 censorship banned lunfardo slang from the radio.
Francini-Pontier was formed by two musicians who left Miguel Caló's orchestra: Enrique Francini, Caló's first violin, and Pontier; the band mixed Caló's romantic sound with Pugliese's complexity.
In 1947 Di Sarli's only singer was the new bass-baritone Jorge Durán, who sang with him exclusively from 1945 to 1947 after losing Rufino and Podestá the year before.
Durán's bass-baritone was a new kind of tango voice: before 1944 all recorded tango voices were tenors, which were easier both to record and to blend with the orchestra's violins.
Maderna was Caló's pianist and arranger, shaping Caló's delicate, romantic 'diaphanous' sound of the early 1940s, before leaving in 1945 to form his own orchestra where the piano takes centre stage.
Records played · 24
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.
Now playing
Mam'selleFrank Sinatra · 1947Played as a pre-show bumper before the episode properly begins, picked for its closing line about crying violins as a callback to tango.
♪ Music · 0:51 ·
Welcome to 1947. This is Dag talking to you from Bergen, and with me I have Michael Lavocah from Norwich. So Michael, I haven't seen you since 1944. How have you been this last week?
“These past three years have been a real voyage.”
These past three years have been a real voyage. Yeah, it's gone really fast, hasn't it? It has.
So for new listeners, this is the third program in the Tango by Year series. Yeah, we call it the series now because we started with a 1941 program two weeks ago, and it was so fun that we traveled on to 1944 last week, and now we're already in 1947. So this is how it goes. I am going to play tracks from the year 1947, and I'm gonna ask Michael some questions about them, some easy ones, some harder ones, and also about orchestras. And for those of you are with us for the first time the plot twist here is that Michael doesn't have a clue what I will play, neither the orchestras or the songs.
So this is not a milonga because we'll be talking quite a bit, but feel free to dance, of course. It's not a lecture either since we're going to spend more time listening to the music than talking about it. So the idea is to keep it informal, and this is also why Michael does know what I'm being while I'm displaying, and it's gonna be interactive, so please keep using the chat windows for questions and comments. We do miss some of it because last time there was just too much to keep track on, but Michael will answer as much as he can and as much as he wants, and we'll try to, and also you can write to each other, of course, and comment on each other's comments. It's really nice anyway. So let's get back to 1947.
Michael, we saw a big change in tango music from 1941 to 1944. What about from 1944 to 1947?
Dag, I think we see an even bigger change. So 1947 we're well into the so-called golden decade of the 40s, and if you start it in 1940 then it's year number eight, but actually the golden decade doesn't really begin in 1940, does it? It begins 1937, maybe even 1935, depending on your point of view. 35, the year that D'Arienzo starts recording with his new orchestra. 37, the year that D'Arienzo really becomes successful and has an impact on the scene. And the same year that Laurenz records his Arabal, so two strands of this new wave, which D'Arienzo is pioneering.
So if it's 1937, then actually we're in year 11 of the golden decade. We're in overtime, and tango music has come in a long, long way. And that means it's grown and it's become a lot more complex. So that's the first thing. Most of the music we're going to hear tonight, not all of it, but most of it, is going to be a lot more complex than anything we've heard in the previous two programs. That's the first thing to say, and as music becomes more complex some bands handle that better than other bands. So the center of gravity is shifting in the musical scene.
D'Arienzo is the initiator of this golden decade, so we know what kind of music that is. Relatively speaking, it's a simpler music, a beat-driven music. Then a second wave emerges from that, the wave of the followers of De Caro, Laurenz and Troilo, to give two examples. Let's stay with Troilo, someone who's pushing the lyric, and that's what we enjoyed last time, last week in 1944, listening to how lyrical the music had become. But now the third wave, which is Pugliese and his school, it's really come to the forefront of music. So as we enter 1947 then Pugliese and Troilo are the two dominant musical forces, and D'Arienzo, although he's still very successful in selling many records, he's not a creative force in the music anymore.
So looking at the music, that's a huge change. And you said, I remember you said last week that the later 1940s are really tricky to understand. What do you mean by that?
Well, I mean that, um, oh, how should we say. We've had the music that's just about dancing on the beat, and we've had music that's just about making, uh, beautiful lyrics. But now complexity is becoming important, so that's one reason why we don't hear so much of this music in the milonga. A lot of it is just complicated, so you need to have a bit of a grounding in tango music before it makes sense to you. And there's another factor as well which we haven't spoken about so far, which that overall tango is not doing so well, and this is largely down to censorship since 1943. We haven't had a 1943 program yet, but maybe we will. Censorship has come in, and Lunfaro, the local algo, the slang of Buenos Aires, has been banned on the radio, which is the mass media of its day.
So what this means is that the lyricists are finding it hard to express themselves naturally. Not all of them. It depends on how they like to express themselves. If you just want to make a love song, you don't necessarily need that slang. But if you want to express yourself like a local, you do. So the total number of new tangos in 1947 is much less than half what it was in 1944. The number of new tangos is beginning to dry up. I really noticed that when selecting the music. It's much, I mean, there are still hundreds of recordings, but it's much less than 1944.
“The total number of new tangos in 1947 is much less than half what it was in 1944.”
But let's get to the music, and before we started you could hear Frank Sinatra's Mam'selle, and at the end of it Sinatra sings, "And I know someday you will say goodbye, then violins will cry, and so will I." So crying or weeping violins, that reminds of someone, doesn't it, Michael?
Let's begin 1947 with Carlos Di Sarli, and in our 44 program last week we talked about how that wasn't a very good year for Di Sarli. I mean there were some good recordings, but he lost the singers Rufino and Podestá, and now Podestá is back. What has he been up to since he left Di Sarli?
Alberto Podestá, well, he's continuing to enjoy the freedom that he's offered, but in particular he's been singing with a new orchestra, the orchestra of Francini and Pontier. So that's two band leaders, both of them out of the orchestra of Miguel Caló and Enrique Francini, the formerly the first violin with Caló, who makes a very sweet, perhaps a bit classical, violin sound, and Pontier, who's perhaps a bit less distinctive, a bit like Troilo. They have an orchestra, and it's an interesting orchestra actually. It's an orchestra that I listened to quite a bit as we were coming up to this broadcast tonight, because on the one hand it's an orchestra following on from Caló. So there are others, I don't know what we're going to hear tonight, Osmar Maderna as well. Caló's pianist has left him and started his band, so we have the post-Caló orchestras.
But Francini-Pontier, of these post-Caló orchestras, is the most complex. It's kind of like a cross between Caló and Pugliese. So, yeah.
And Podestá starts singing with them. So we might get back to some of those orchestras, who knows.
But Di Sarli also has a new singer on board, Jorge Durán. What can you tell us about this guy with a darker voice?
He's a baritone, that's the first thing to say, isn't it? Up till 44 all the voices that we've heard on record have been tenors, and two reasons for that. One is, um, a practical reason: the tenor was an easy voice to record. Not even 44, and 44 you could do anything, but just going back historically, tenors were easy to record, and they were easy to arrange within the whole fabric and texture of the orchestra because the range of the tenor is the most similar to the violin.
So that's what the public are used to listening to. But now we've got baritones. We've had baritones before. Carlos Gardel was a baritone, not a tenor. But here with Durán's voice, it's a bass baritone. It's a darker tone of voice and it's very successful with Carlos Di Sarli. He's the only singer with Di Sarli from 45 to 47, and Dag, we could easily spend the next two hours just listening to Di Sarli with Durán and go home happy. It's wonderful music.
Yeah, maybe we should do that. No, we won't do that, but we will start with a song from with Durán, Otra Vez Carnaval, or not just the carnaval. It was recorded in January, and then after that I'm going to play one song by, I would sing, Alberto Podestá, La canción más triste. That's from May the same year. So let's listen to these two songs.
Opens the Di Sarli set to showcase Durán's new bass-baritone voice, Di Sarli's only singer from 1945 to 1947.
♪ Music · 3:50 ·
Paired with Otra Vez Carnaval to contrast Durán's dark voice with Podestá singing for Di Sarli.
“Saddest song ever, people just want to dance.”
Saddest song ever, people just want to dance. When I was looking for the lyrics, Michael, I discovered that the first song, Carnaval, was written by Di Sarli himself. Did he compose many songs?
Di Sarli is not a prolific composer, but there's something else that I'd like to bring out about that song, which is that Di Sarli recorded it before in 1942 with Rufino, and the Di Sarli discography is not so big, 350 odd recordings. So what's that about? It's to do with this decline related to censorship that I've been speaking about in the introduction. The supply of good new tangos is drying up.
In the 30s and the early part of the 40s, new tangos were being produced like confetti. That's the phrase that the Argentines used at the time to describe it. But now there are not many good songs being written, and therefore people are having to go back to the past to find some material and be very selective about the new material.
I don't want to leave Di Sarli just yet because he also recorded the milongas, Di Sarli. They're not so often played, but let's listen to one of his milongas. It's Pueblera, again with Durán singing. And I think the poetry in the lyrics is a bit sad, and I was wondering, is it common with sad lyrics in milongas? I mean from a dancing point of view they're quite joyful, I think.
It's quite rare actually. I mean there are some sad waltzes, and I notice that those are the waltzes I tend to like the most, to be honest. But in the milongas it's really unusual to have a sad milonga, and I'm not talking about the milonga campera of the countryside, milonga in terms of the city milonga, the they're generally upbeat. They're telling stories or talking about a party. So that is unusual. So let's listen to this one, Pueblera, city girl.
Picked as an example of how Di Sarli's melodic, phrased style carries even into his milongas, which are usually upbeat rather than sad.
♪ Music · 1:47 ·
Look at the comments. Nim, I don't know who you are, Nim, or where you are, but look at this comment. Love the long phrases over the beat.
Uh, Nim, you have the same feeling as me about what's special about the Di Sarli milongas. Di Sarli is a melodic phrased orchestra, and he brings that quality to his milongas as well. It's very unusual and very beautiful, special, great comment.
So, um, let's move on to another orchestra. And you mentioned in your introduction, uh, Miguel Caló and those of his musicians who moved on to form their own bands. And when you talked about Caló in 44 you talked about the orchestra of the stars, really good musicians, and Domingo Federico already left the year before in 1943, and then in 45 his pianist Maderna leaves, and also, she said, Francini-Pontier, violinist and bandanist. So let's listen to a track by Osmar Maderna. Can you say something about him as a pianist and his band?
Well, there's such a big change, isn't there, between what he does with Caló and what he does thereafter. When he was with Caló, Caló was already a romantic orchestra, but he really influenced the development of the Caló orchestra, like any of the big orchestras who have just one arranger. Without the arranger, you know what's there. So the romantic touch that we think of in Caló in the early 40s, that's all Maderna. A phrase that's used a lot to describe it is diaphanous.
What's this word if you're not a native English speaker? It's when you look at the wing, not of a butterfly but of a dragonfly, the insects that fly by a river, and you can actually look through their wings. This is the quality that they talk about, a touch on the piano that's a bit like Chopin, delicate, intimate, and romantic. That's what Maderna did for Caló.
He creates the style of orchestra, but then when he leaves, he does something quite different, where the piano is much more featured, different to what happens when Biaghi leaves D'Arienzo. When Biaghi leaves D'Arienzo, he pushes his special quality onto his orchestra and doesn't really feature himself, or he tries not to, but Maderna doesn't do that. So it's another romantic orchestra, but one where the piano is allowed to take center stage and does a lot of romantic stuff, and in the extremes we get tracks like, um, a tango version of the flight of the bumblebee by Rimsky Korskikov, or Luna de estrellas. I don't know if I've got the title right, stars. So a very decorated style, very interesting style.
Yeah, so just, uh, decorated, and as you say, I also thought about Chopin when I was listening to it. He kind of takes, he really lets himself loose with the piano playing when he has his own orchestra. So we're going to listen to one of those called Fantasía en Tiempo de Tango. It's an instrumental.
But before we listen to that, I want to play my favorite Caló track. I know you're a big fan of Caló, Michael, but this one is recorded in 47 and it's called Plomo. It's with singer Raúl Iriarte. So I'll play that first and then we'll listen to Fantasía en Tiempo de Tango with Maderna after that.
Dag's favourite Caló track of the year, chosen to set up a comparison with Osmar Maderna's own orchestra next.
♪ Music · 2:50 ·
Played right after Caló's Plomo to show how differently Maderna, Caló's former pianist, uses the piano in his own romantic orchestra.
It's easy to understand why this is not so often played by longas, maybe because it's great to listen to but maybe so not so accessible for dancing. What do you think?
But look at the comments. People are loving this so much, positive reaction. At least two people have commented that they hear in this, uh, charlas the Hungarian rhythm, and it's not the only example, um.
Oh god, what's the guy's name, bandagnon player, played with, um, Piazzolla in his 46 orchestra? Roberto de Filippo. So when he was teaching his students in the 70s and they recorded his performances just for their homework, he performed a chardash. So yeah, they knew all these rhythms. Um, Maderna, this is a fun fact, or I guess it's not a fun fact, but he dies in a plane crash in 1950, just like Gardel 15 years earlier. Yeah, he was a um a pilot though, wasn't he? Like for sado he was flying his own plane and he was like, you know, pulling stunts on an airfield and I think hit another aircraft.
Chapter · 30:53
The pianist who died like Gardel
He made a tango orchestra sound like a dragonfly's wing. Then he died exactly like Gardel.
So you talked about another band coming out from the Caló orchestra, Francini-Pontier. They're not often played either. If you say in Tango Stories, your book, and there's no chapter on Francini-Pontier there, that they were maybe too innovative to be of interest for dancing. What do you mean by that?
Well, people did dance to them at the time, but when you listen to them they take the romantic sensibility of Caló but add a lot more complexity to it, so it's not the most obvious music for dancing. Like, uh, with Caló they give a lot of freedom to the singer. There's this very interesting comment from Podestá in one of his many interviews. All these interviews with Podestá, they're really boring, and then, you know, there's this tiny nugget of really important information hidden away amongst all the rubbish. And um he's talking uh in one interview about what it's like to sing for different orchestras and he says uh meaning strict tempo, bang bang bang bang bang for me as a singer and to the death, and then he adds which was completely unlike what I was doing with Caló.
So if the beats are doing that, how much freedom do you have as a singer to phrase what you're doing to be different to that? So with Di Sarli relatively little, with Caló quite a lot, with Francini-Pontier a lot. If you listen to the Francini-Pontier vocals you'll hear that the singer is really flexible, and just look at the repertoire. Um, you know, those who've got their collection ripped to their computer, put in Francini-Pontier in 1947 and you'll see some really interesting things like there's um La Jumba, Arabal, Tigrevecchio. What's that? It's the Pugliese repertoire and the repertoire of that stream in the instrumentals. That's not something we heard from Caló. So in some ways a bit like a cross between Caló and Pugliese, complex music, but yes, it was dance too at the time.
Yeah, and when I was looking into the orchestra from and the tracks from 1947, I was struck by the incredible vocalists they had, because in addition to Podestá they had Raúl Berón singing for them. I mean, that's maybe not so surprising because both had been singing together in the Caló orchestra, but the more surprising maybe was that they also recorded with Roberto Rufino, who was the Di Sarli's star singer from 39 to 43, and I wanted just to listen to two of these vocal tangos. First, Adiós Marinero from January, this is with Raúl Berón and Alberto Podestá singing together. It's not the best track I think, but I really I would like to listen to it since it's one of the it's actually the only recording ever with these two star vocalists singing together. So it's really sort of interesting, and yeah, you want to add something, Michael? And then we're going to listen to something with Rufino.
Yes, Déjame, no quiero verte más. I've got, it's not specific to that particular performance but to Rufino's work with Francini-Pontier in general. Let's all of us now listen in the second track, the Rufino track, to the quality of Rufino's voice, and let's ask ourselves, is this how he sounded when he was with Di Sarli or not? Because to me he sounds really different.
Okay, interesting. So first, Adiós Marinero with Berón and Podestá. And the second one, Déjame, no quiero verte más with Rufino.
Chapter · 35:16
The duet that happened exactly once
Two of tango's biggest singers recorded together. Just once, ever.
The only recording either singer ever made with the other, chosen for the heavily phrased duet singing.
♪ Music · 3:45 ·
Played to compare how different Rufino's voice sounds with Francini-Pontier against his earlier years singing for Di Sarli.
Well, there's a lot of good singing and so many nice comments also on this, Michael. It's really stimulated our public. Two really interesting performances there. The first one, the duet with Francini-Pontier, I hope everyone noticed just how phrased that was. They didn't sing that, they really played with the timing, and as a duet that was more difficult because they did it together, so that was a special track. And this performance of Déjame, Déjame, if you give me the title of this tango, I'm thinking oh Di Sarli, and then in second place I'm thinking canada with Nelly and more Nelly Omar, so I really wasn't expecting to hear this one, and they do it beautifully. I think so too. And yeah, the disorder according with Podestá is actually from the same year, so we could have listened to that if we didn't have already listened to this element.
Chapter · 41:25
The earthquake who fell in love on record
Tango's wildest singer calmed down the moment a song made a woman fall for him.
Yes, and I want to just pick up on two things in the comments. The first one was Rufino doesn't sound like he's 18 anymore. No, he doesn't. Rufino gets married during his time with Francini-Pontier. He meets his wife because he sings Clavella's Blancos, and when she hears him sing she just falls in love with that. I think that's a 1949 story so I shouldn't really have told it tonight, but it's a great story. But for Rufino, who's the terremoto, the earthquake, completely uncontrollable energetic young guy, to meet a strong woman really calms him down. But yeah, he sounds really different here, and somebody else pointed out how because we've got this Domingo Federico style walking bass, that's what we sort of glue ourselves to as the dancers, and then that gives the freedom for this melodic play over the top, which is really appealing.
Okay. After this two, three less played at Milongas bands, let's get back to more known territory, Juan D'Arienzo. And Michael, you write in your book on D'Arienzo, which came out last year, that the late 40s D'Arienzo tracks are the most neglected, especially the instrumentals. Why? Are they bad or why?
Well, as far as the instrumentals go, he's not doing anything new. He's just recycling the earlier repertoire. They sound different. So mostly we've got the same tracks that we know from other periods, for example Sabado Ingles or Hotel Victoria, and if you're going to pick one of those tracks to play at the Milonga, your first choice is going to be the version from the late 30s when the band is brand new, and your second choice might well be from the 60s. So this late 40s period is not that well known. And then from the vocal repertoire that's another story, maybe I should pick up on that later.
Well, let's listen to one instrumental. But first, I want to play a song with Armando Laborde, I think I'd say my favorite 1940s vocalist with D'Arienzo. I prefer him to Aixago, actually, in the 40s, although Aixago, of course, great in the 1930s. And the song is Y entonces jurarás. And the instrumental I picked we'll listen to afterwards is one that's actually not recorded except in 1947 I think, so it's a bit interesting because I don't think I even heard it played it for me long. I looked it up for this program. Is it Lagrimas?
No. It could have been Lagrimas, that was the only one I was thinking about, but it's Contra Luz. Ah yeah. Okay. So let's listen to this. Y entonces jurarás and Contra Luz.
Picked to showcase Laborde, Dag's favourite D'Arienzo vocalist of the decade.
♪ Music · 3:07 ·
An instrumental that, as far as Dag could find, was only ever recorded in this one 1947 session.
Really hard to sit still on this one, isn't it? Perfectly. So, gosh, so much to say, actually. Laborde, I totally agree with you. I think Laborde is the best singer that D'Arienzo has in the second half of the 40s, because he's the one who's taking on the role of the lyrical repertoire, whilst Echagüe, who's come back the tough guy, doing the strong man of the street repertoire, that's a difficult job to do in the late 40s and there's some really strange songs. I think carton now I think is from 1947, which is a song about a criminal, but everyone loves it because it uses lots of linfado words. So maybe if we do 46 one night we can really get into the body and listen to what's special about him. I love his voice, and then the instrumental, beautiful. I loved it in a way similar to what D'Arienzo has done before but in a slightly more complex fashion. I agree it's not the same change as we see in some of the other orchestras.
So let's move on to a new orchestra that we haven't listened to before. And when we were talking about like last week in 1944 about the chapters in your book Tango Stories, we agree that maybe if there's a third edition there should be a chapter on Domingo Federico, and then you said that even more importantly there should be a chapter on Alfredo Gobbi. Yes. And Gobbi's music is not something you hear often at Milongas. But why would you want to include a chapter on it in your third edition of Tango Stories, if there is one?
Well, Gobbi is an evolutionary orchestra, somewhat in the mould of Pugliese, but really balanced. So he's had his orchestra since 1943, but he only gets to record in 1947. What did he sound like in 43? It's one of those big questions, isn't it? A close personal friend of Orlando Gogni, Troilo's wonder pianist, and like him, someone with a reputation for living a real bohemian lifestyle. He's a violin player and he leads his orchestra from the violin, which is not so common, is it? If you're leading an orchestra, 50-50 chance, you're a pianist, and then most of the rest are band-a-gnon players. And if you're a violin player, you've someone who's put down your bow to pick up the baton. So there's very few orchestra leaders who are leading from the violin. Gobbi himself, the violin sound in ancient time would call it small. So it's not an in-your-face, super strong violin, but it's an extremely expressive violin.
Gobbi, I feel, is an orchestra that's just going to become more and more appreciated because all the advanced elements of music making are present. What do I mean by advanced elements? I mean, um, change of musical time, a flexible musical tempo, a change in dynamic, complex arrangements, complex harmonies, but mostly in a form where if you pay attention you could dance to it, and it's a music that's liked also by people outside the tango world, by classical players for example. If you play them some Gobbi they go, okay, that's nice. And mostly outside tango people only know Piazzolla's work, which as dancers is often not turning us on quite so much. So Gobbi's music, yeah, it's really balanced, all the elements are there in a balanced way, not in an extreme way. Pugliese takes these elements and pushes things to extremes, Gobbi doesn't do that. The instrumentals are quite easy to dance to, the waltzes are nice to dance to, but there's not so many. If you're a three waltz DJ you can make the tanda, but if you're a four waltz DJ you can't.
Yeah. What are we gonna hear? We're gonna hear, well, he recorded six tracks in 1947, which is his first recording year. Four tangos and two waltzes, and I want to play one tango and one waltz, and they're both from the first recording session. So on the 16th of May 1947 he recorded these two and they are his first recordings. First one is the instrumento La Viruta, which is of course a very old tango, it has been recorded more than 30 times. We know it from D'Arienzo in 36 and Desireless versions from 43 and later. And the second song I want to play is the waltz, La Entrerriana. And I was looking for the lyrics of it and found a really nice story behind it. And I'm going to tell it since you're a man of tango stories, Michael. Maybe you know it already. But the man who composed it and wrote the lyrics, both, was Gobbi's father, actually. His name was also Alfredo Gobbi, incidentally.
Chapter · 56:02
The song that brought Gardel to a teenager's living room
The waltz that got Carlos Gardel into a 15-year-old's living room.
They didn't have much imagination at the time. I'll have a story for him as well.
All right. And when Alfredo, this guy we can listen to now, was just 15 years old in 1927, his father brought Carlos Gardel home to rehearse this waltz. And the young Alfredo was handling the piano as Gardel was rehearsing it. And it was recorded by Gardel in 1927. So now 20 years later, in 1947, Gobbi records his father's song with Carlos Heredia and Hugo Soler singing. I also actually find the lyrics a bit interesting. I'll post it in the chat window while we listen to it and we can talk about it after. But first we'll listen to the instrumental tango La Viruta.
Gobbi's very first recording session; chosen as a well-worn old tango to hear in his new, violin-led orchestra.
Danced to it · 5 of 14
♪ Music · 2:23 ·
Picked for the family story: the waltz was written by Gobbi's own father, whom Carlos Gardel visited to rehearse it in 1927.
Now, Michael, the lyrics here are quite political, aren't they? I mean, it's about getting rid of chains and the oppressor, and there's a homeland, there's glory, there's a flag, there's Argentina. Is this common in tango lyrics, Michael, this political liberation kind of lyrics?
Political in general, more common than we think, like in the Milonga la Muleteada or the Tango Federacion. Argentina is a country, if you'll excuse me for making a political comment, but then politics is the theme. Argentina is a country that likes a strong leader and they've had a history of dictatorships. So when there's been a strong tough guy leader, even if he's then gone on to create great oppression, has been very popular. So this one is maybe a bit different. I don't know anything about Gobbi's politics. So this is a bit more neutral. It's not praising any particular party. And of course, there's censorship and self-censorship going on. So just because we don't see many political lyrics doesn't mean that they didn't exist. But it means they weren't recorded.
Gobbi's father was the first person to record tango music. Did you know that? His father and his wife traveled to Europe in 1907 to make tango recordings in Paris. Obviously not dance recordings, not with an orchestra, but sung tango. So yeah, tango runs very deep in the family and I was so delighted to see all the comments in the chat window praising Gobbi's music and remarking on how interesting it was, on the texture, what a complex and interesting texture it was. So Dag, maybe as a result of this evening we're gonna get a bit more Gobbi in the milonga, you know. His time, his time's coming. Yeah, maybe.
Well, and from Gobbi you said that he was kind of in the mold of Pugliese. So it's natural to go on to Pugliese. And in our last program, you said that in 1943, 1944, although he did record some great tracks, he hadn't really found his style. And his three monuments were from, like Larjarumba from 1946, and Negracia, I think, from 1948. And is it Malandrama from 1949? Yeah.
So there are none of those monuments from 1947. But we have the number four monument.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was thinking about number four monument, in my view. And it's an unknown song. No, it's not actually, but it's called N.N. It's an instrumental. I don't know if you were thinking about this one, but I really liked this song. And it's very inventive, I think. And do you know the story about this name, N.N.?
Chapter · 1:05:01
The tango named 'No Name'
He wrote one of tango's most important tunes. He didn't even give it a title.
N.N., now it's Latin. Perhaps an academic can just type in the chat window. It means something in Spanish would be Ningun Nombre, no name, but in academia they use a Latin phrase to describe that. What's interesting, well, so many interesting things about N.N., but just in this context it's Pugliese didn't write it, so that the three that you mentioned, this triptych that defined the Pugliese earth, the Pugliese's own compositions. Now N.N., N.N. is not one of those. N.N. is written by Ruggiero, his first bandagnon. When it was brought to rehearsal, Pugliese said, what's the title of your new tango? And Ruggiero said, it doesn't have a name. So Pugliese said, okay, we'll call it N.N. So that's, well, that's what would be understood by it.
And N.N. is a super important tango for half a dozen reasons. I could talk about it for 10 minutes. I'll try not to. First thing is it proves that Ruggiero has totally understood and internalized the Pugliese style. I mean by that the Pugliese style, it's a bit like Bach, so although you have motifs they're not very singable motifs. For example, what's the motif of La Jumba? If you're a German you've got an advantage because you understand what a motif is, because it's an everyday word in your language. What's the motif of La Jumba? It's not very melodic, isn't it? It's not like la la la la la. It's not really very singable.
So this is something that kind of impacts in a negative way the popularity of the Pugliese band, because you can't really sing those tunes as you walk down the street because they're not very tuneful. And N.N. takes that even a step further because the main motif, the main riff, has only got two notes in it. It's a supreme example of rhythmic melody. So that's a super important thing about this track.
“The main motif, the main riff has only got two notes in it.”
And you'll hear in it as well one of Enrique Camerano's greatest violin solos, where he really demonstrates the control that he has on the bow. There's this incredible descending run. And when we get to the variacion at the end, when Ruggiero goes crazy, you'll hear him play this little two-note motif, a different two-note motif, a shorter one, in four octaves. One after the other. And this creates, as my hand is showing, a great feeling of internal movement. It's super exciting.
Yeah, I think so too.
Well, we're going to listen to two tangos by Pugliese. First, I want to play another one called El Mareo. It's a vocal and it has Chanel and Moran singing together, very unusual. There's just, I think, three like of those. Yeah, right. I like this combination. So let's listen to first El Mareo and then the masterpiece N.N.
A rare duet between Chanel and Morán, chosen because there are only about three such Pugliese recordings.
Danced to it · 3 of 5
♪ Music · 2:30 ·
Called Dag's 'number four monument' alongside La Yumba, Negracha and Malandraca; chosen for its two-note main motif and Camerano's violin solo.
Danced to it
Oh, what a buddy. I saw that. Oh, Dan. I always wanted to snap my pencil in two. No other, who else could record that? I mean, La Jumba. Okay, we've got a few other recordings of La Jumba, but Malendraca, Negraja, how could anyone else do that? You can't do it. It's so exciting. It's amazing. I want to scream. I want to scream.
“I want to scream. I want to scream.”
Yeah, what Pugliese does, and combining this complexity and this originality with, it's so danceable also. You just want to like go crazy on dance floor to this music, providing you're willing to give it everything you've got.
But Dag, let's go back to El Mareo, because that's an unusual choice. You know, we don't often hear that at the milonga, and what a special track you played for us. Thank you for that, because it's, I mean, I know it and I love it, but I don't hear it very often, because it kind of combines the old Pugliese in the new Pugliese, doesn't it? It's got that 1943 spirit. It opens with this intense lyricism and then suddenly you get the darker, stronger flavor, and they're just saying in the comments people loved it.
Good. Um, we can't leave Pugliese just, let's do the same as who did this early, play a third song, and what's it gonna be?
I want to play it like this earlier, I won't play milonga, because you really heard, you rarely hear milonga. So pretty, yes, but in 1947 he recorded one, so I want to listen, I want to play it. It's called Anda... Lola, and with the singer Roberto Chanel, and it's the second last recording of Chanel actually before he leaves Pugliese, and there's a lot of singing going on in this, uh, in this, uh, milonga. Maybe a reason it's not, I don't think I've heard it play that milongas, but it's, uh, I like it. It's, and it shows Chanel's like street guy singing, very bit aggressive singing, and the ending is very original, it's challenging for dancers, so just wait in here. Do you want to comment it before we play it or no, just go for it?
Um, yeah, there are very few Pugliese milongas. The milongas are done a la parisia. Yeah, so for the tangos they're coming up with these complex arrangements but the milongas they just do it. So, you know, something that the, our lovely public here can do after the show, you can listen to this and then listen to Portasos, which I think is also with Chanel from 44, and it's almost the same really. So they just go with it. Okay, let's listen to Anda... Lola.
One of very few Pugliese milongas; picked to show how the band keeps its milongas simple even while complicating its tangos.
♪ Music · 1:33 ·
When I was looking through the 1947 catalog, there were a lot of bands, or some bands with few, or actually, in my opinion, no good recordings. There are two great orchestras that only made two recordings in 1947. So just one record. It's Biaggi and D'Agostino. Do you know why? Why did they almost?
Well, overall, a lot of bands are recording less than before. This is this contraction of tango music that we spoke about at the beginning.
And I can't remember what the two, don't tell me, what the tracks of Biagi are from this year, but they don't really sound any different from anything he's done before, do they? Biagi is just kind of doing the same kind of thing. He hasn't got anything new to say in the late 40s, and that's pretty much true of D'Agostino as well, and the D'Agostino orchestra kind of comes to an end because they want to go on tour and not abroad just within Argentina and D'Agostino doesn't want to go and that's when Vargas eventually leaves D'Agostino. He doesn't really desert D'Agostino, D'Agostino just says no, I just want to stay in wood as i is.
Well, I agree. I'm not going to play any of those tracks, and neither am I going to play any from Federico. He made 14 recordings, I like none of them actually, although I'm a Federico fan. Tanturi also was a big disappointment. He listened to 47. What happened to the Tanturi? It was so much good music from 44 and 41. Tanturi's music becomes a lot more complicated and, um, until we had the tango tunes transfers I didn't like it at all. So that the singers are, um, Osvaldo ribo and what's the second guy singing with him? I can't remember. Someone's going to type it in there immediately in the comment section, but the Tanturi's music becomes more complicated in the late 40s and in particular as a dancer he changes the kind of syncopation that he uses.
So, oh okay, so the main syncopation in tango is the one that goes yappa, that one, yatta yatta yatta, and there's a variety of that where you don't give the first note, so instead of going yatta there's this build up of energy which is discharged with the syncopation. What if you don't give that and you just go, or you give a little clue a bit earlier, as a dancer it's much harder to respond to that. Maybe it's different in the milonga. I don't know that. Maybe it's really easy in the milonga because you connect to the band and you can see what they're doing. So there are good tracks from Tanturi, but they're not so easy to dance to because of the changes in syncopation. Maybe I just don't like them. I mean, of course, it's subjective.
But there is another orchestra that only made two recordings, which I do like, actually, and that's Pedro Laurenz. And I think they're both really interesting and nice variaciones.
And you said last time in 44 that Laurenz changed his style a lot from around 1940 until 44. What about 47 Laurenz? 47, uh, no, I don't think it's so different. Yeah, it's slowly getting more rich and more complex but no, I don't think it's so different from 44.
Okay, let's listen to two instrumentals by Laurenz, Mala Junta and Amurado. They're both known from other orchestras of course, and Amurado is more known also by Laurenz when he records in 1940 with Casa singing. Let me just say both of these songs are songs that Laurenz himself had a hand in composing. So if you look at what it says in the database for Mala Junta, it says Julio De Caro, Pedro Laurenz. But that means Pedro Laurenz wrote it while he was in De Caro's orchestra. De Caro added a couple of notes and put his name first. That's how it worked.
And Amurado is super interesting as a composition because, uh, um, Laurenz co-wrote it with Mafia and the way it works was that the A section, or the verse we could say, except it's not a song, the A section was written by Mafia, and then he wrote that and he brought it to Laurenz while they were in De Caro's band, and then Laurenz wrote the B section, the chorus. And actually when you listen to it you can hear very clearly the contribution of the two men because they're two different musical personalities. What's Laurenz's musical personality? Bright, shining, extrovert music. What's Mafia's personality? Ligado, we say, smooth and linked and more introvert, the aspect that Troilo took on, and you can really hear that change between the verse and the chorus of Amurado. And these are two songs that Laurenz kept in his repertoire and there are later versions even from 52 which are not very easy to find where you can hear them getting richer and richer, like wine that's been left in the barrel for a few more years before it's bottled. Okay, let's listen to these two songs by Laurenz.
Co-composed with Julio De Caro while Laurenz played in De Caro's band; De Caro added a few notes and took first billing.
♪ Music · 3:00 ·
Co-written with Pedro Maffia; picked to let listeners hear the two composers' different musical personalities in the verse and chorus.
Oh, man. It's not exciting as the 1940 version but it's still really exciting, amazing, so satisfying, so much color in that music, and even in 47 this is still not mainstream music.
So, um, I'm talking to you now, Dag, and I'm talking to everybody, so you don't tell me what you're going to do, what we're going to talk about, and that means sometimes I forget some important things. So last time you said to me, oh, 44 Laurenz is sporting loads, now you know what's going on, and I missed a really important point which we touched on but not as a central thing, which was the fact that he's got Podestá with him, because once the singer had been elevated to a really central part of the orchestra it meant that the public went to go and listen to the singer as much as they did to listen to the orchestra. So without a really top level singer you couldn't reach the highest levels of success. So Laurenz becomes really successful in 44 because Podestá was there for a while and he makes these lovely recordings.
Now when I listen to them now and I listen to Podestá, of course Podestá's voice is wonderful, but I remember saying last time, well, when he's replaced by Bermudas and Linares, it's not so different. Not to my perspective or our perspective now, listening maybe, but back then it was a very different perspective. So once Podestá moves on in his journey, Laurenz really crashes in popularity again because this kind of instrumental richness, somehow he's not able to sell it to the public. When you look at the discography, he's not even recording with Odeon anymore. Odeon have got this sub-label called Pampa for the sort of like cheap second-rate stuff, and now he's recording on that. This is not mainstream music, this is specialist music even in 47, 10 years after arabal. It kind of shocks me, it makes me a bit sad to realize that.
You know, and sometimes we ask ourselves, you know, if you could go back for one night which orchestra would you go and listen to, and everyone's got their own answer to that and I'd go back to listen to Laurenz. So the reason is because we don't know what he was playing. If you went back to listen to Troilo in 43 of course you'd have a fantastic night, but you would know what the repertoire was going to be. It wouldn't be full of surprises. Even the songs that weren't recorded, you know what they were, but that's not true with Laurenz. You know, a working orchestra that was busy might have had 100 songs ready to go without music, and as you've pointed out, Dag, in 1947 he recorded two. So what were the other 98? I'd love to know.
“What were the other 98? I'd love to know.”
Amazing. Yeah, and well, I think on the top of my head, I think I would have gone back to like Troilo 1940, actually. That would have been interesting. Anyway.
Troilo, okay. We'll save that for the 1940 night. Yeah, okay.
I don't think many would have gone back to listen to the next orchestra I'm going to listen to. But as you said in the introduction, if you ask people who don't dance tango about tango or talk to them about tango, it's a fair chance the only tango orchestra they're going to know is Astor Piazzolla. And it's not something you hear at milongas often. Why is the most famous tango musician ever never, and I mean literally never, played at milongas?
But he didn't care about the dancers. He was almost proud not to care about the dancers when he was playing with Troilo. So just to remind everyone, people say Piazzolla was an arranger for Troilo. That's true, but he was the principal arranger for Troilo in the early 50s. In the 40s he arranged only 10 numbers for Troilo. And you can hear them. Every time it's a Piazzolla arrangement, you know, we can do this one evening, you know, we can have an online class, and at the end of it I'd play one and you'd go, that's Piazzolla, because he puts in a bit too much stuff, even though Troilo's busy getting rid of it.
And there's a great anecdote from when they performed, not Inspiracion. What was the one that came after Inspiracion? Inspiracion was 43, 44. The Inspiration, it was the Inspiration. When they performed it for the first time, it was at a big Open Air Milonga, I think at Boca Juniors, and the dancers just stopped because they were confused.
Chapter · 1:33:36
The night the dance floor just stopped
The first time this arrangement was played live, the dancers simply froze.
What's that? Now, I mean, of course, you know, that killed Troilo, but Piazzolla smiled. He said, "Providing the musicians are enjoying themselves, I don't care."
“Providing the musicians are enjoying themselves, I don't care.”
So when he forms his typical in '46, that's what's in his mind, and he has a huge song book. Like for an unknown orchestra, they have 120 songs with really complex arrangements, and they've got to learn all this stuff, and they're playing in cafes on Calle Corrientes, so they're not playing for dancers. But even so, some of the feedback that they get from the owner of the cafe is that the people who are sitting here drinking coffee, not dancing, they'd like to hear stuff that's more danceable. So it's really complex music. People sometimes refer to it as the 1946 orchestra because that's the year that it's formed, and it performs from '46 to '48.
I wasn't expecting you to play it tonight. I was expecting to hear it on the 1946 night, because, uh, my opinion, the best song that they perform is one of the first ones, 1947. I'm going to guess what you're going to play now. Is it going to, could be Aragon, or no, I don't know what you're going to play. Tell us.
I'm going to play Che Bandoneón, the band on their own. I wasn't expecting that. Wow, good. It's an instrumental, really old composition, recorded about 60 times, and you know it from bi g Troilo and Di Sarli, and they're all fantastic versions. But let's, in our minds, probably we're going to be comparing it to the version of Troilo from '44, and that's a good comparison because Piazzolla wrote that arrangement. So now we've got the opportunity to hear in this interval what he wanted to do himself musically.
Good. And when I listen to this, I remember what you said about, uh, the Caro two weeks ago, Michael, that about this 1941 recordings, there's hardly any walking beat. So it's kind of listening to that, it's interesting to listen to, but, uh, and it can be kind of touching, but it doesn't really go below your heart. It's not the best for dancing. So listen to that one, but, uh, um, I also want to play another song by another guy who was with Troilo for a while, but now he's on solo. It's Alberto Marino.
And there's a beautiful recording from the end of 1947 of Desencanto, where he's backed by Emilio Balcarce. And this is our common friend, Gabriel Michael, who sent me this some days ago. So let's listen to Che Bandoneón by Piazzolla and then Alberto Marino, his solo recording with Emilio Balcarce.
A very old, much-recorded tango chosen so listeners can compare Piazzolla's own 1947 instrumental to the Troilo 1944 version he arranged.
♪ Music · 4:16 · The lyrics, on the song's page
A solo recording sent in by a listener, chosen because Marino's voice is clearer here than on any Troilo recording of the time.
That's so sweet. And what a better way to make a transition to our last orchestra tonight, which is Troilo. Do you want to say something about Marino first, Michael?
I just want to say what a pleasure it is to listen to his voice on these recordings that he makes when he's a soloist. When you listen to Marino singing with Troilo, even on the very best transfers that you can get, you can't hear his voice quite as clearly as you can do on a track like that. And I suspect that's to do with Troilo. And in these days, so now in 1947, there might be more than one microphone. In '44, they were probably still recording with just one microphone. So how loud and how clear you were depended on how close you were.
And I can hear anyhow, you know, whatever the technical circumstances were, I can hear Marino's voice much better there. If you listen to the timbre, the quality of voice in that track, and then go and pick any song you like from Marino with Troilo, you can't hear the quality of his voice quite so well when he's singing with Troilo. So it's a real pleasure to hear him there. And I sometimes at home listen to Marino's solo recordings, not to dance to them, but just because I want to listen to his voice.
Beautiful. And, uh, speaking of beautiful, I mean, Michael, Troilo 1947, can tango get any better than this? No. Hello, 1947. Oh my god. Um, Confesión and Gira Gira, I think that's the first disc Troilo releases in, it's what, April '47. Two old Discépolo numbers. The Confesión, the syncopation just hits you like a wave. And Giro Giro, really, really tragic. He's absolutely on top form.
I'm going to play one of those. I'm going to play Confesión with singer Floreal Ruiz. Troilo 1941, as we talked about, it's very exciting for dancing, but for me Destroy the 47 is just the most emotional and good for complex dancing with the right partner. And the first one, Confesión, is from April. And the second one I want to play is also recorded by Pugliese and Roberto Chanel the same year. It's Yo te bendigo with the new singer Edmundo Rivero, which has a very special voice. Can you say something about it?
Chapter · 1:45:09
Found on the radio dial at midnight
Troilo couldn't sleep. That's how he found his strangest singer.
Well, Rivero first, let's, um, let's just tell a little Rivero story. So, uh, how did Rivero get to sing with Troilo? When Troilo couldn't sleep, he would, uh, listen to the radio late at night with his wife. Isn't that cute? That's so cute. So they listened to the radio, and there were loads of radio stations. So there were three big ones: Mundo, Belgrano, Stentor. No, not Stentor, but, you know, there were maybe 20 radio stations on the dial, so you could twiddle around the dial and someone would be doing a live broadcast from some tiny little venue somewhere, and you could, it was a way to scout new talent without leaving your house.
So one night they're spinning around the dial late at night, and they listen to Salgán's orchestra. Now Salgán is this sort of super evolutionary vanguard orchestra, it doesn't get recorded for another three years, and he's got Rivero as a singer. And they listen to that and I think that's really good. So, you know, then the next night or a few nights later, when Troilo can get off work, they go and listen to it, and, um, Rivero's recruited to the orchestra. A really different voice, a different repertoire, because Rivero is championing a repertoire that's still connected to the broader tradition of music in Argentina. So he's singing countryside songs. He's a really broad, a really broad mind. He also becomes an expert in El Enfado, Yo te bendigo, fabulous interpretation. We know he was proud of this particular performance because at the end his voice fades out to a whisper.
As we got to the end of the war, it became hard to get good materials. It became hard to just get hold of shellac to make the records, so records were being recycled. And this meant that records became noisier because the materials they're being made from weren't as fine. So if you wanted to make music that really varied in dynamic range, with very quiet passages as well as very loud ones, that was a challenge for you. But that's exactly what we hear in the Troilo Rivero version of Yo te bendigo. And Rivero was really, really proud of his interpretation of that song, which kind of fades to a whisper and almost dies out at the end.
Very difficult for a DJ to play at the milonga, you know, because at the milonga often there are people talking or there's other kinds of noise. You need really a really good sound system and an exceptionally attentive crowd to get away with playing Troilo Rivero at the milonga. It's going to start happening. I've already heard a few DJs try Troilo Rivero at the milonga, but it doesn't always work, because if you don't have the perfect conditions, you just can't hear what's happening.
Let's listen to these songs, magnificent songs. Confesión with singer Floreal Ruiz and then Yo te bendigo with Edmundo Rivero.
Part of the first record Troilo released in 1947, two Discépolo numbers; picked for its syncopation and emotional complexity.
Danced to it · 5 of 57
♪ Music · 4:06 ·
Rivero's first big feature with Troilo; chosen for the ending that fades to a near-inaudible whisper, which Rivero was proud of.
Oh, what can we say about that, Michael? Is there anything to say? They've said it. Yeah. Yeah. Really special interpretation, full of emotion. You know, it's better to listen to it like this because you can really just listen while you hear it at the milonga. I rarely hear it, but when you hear it, it's kind of this small... The end drowns in just walking from the people, unless people are really silent.
Yeah, even if we had a super clean shellac, that would still be very difficult to play at the milonga because of how quietly Rivero sings at the end. But, you know, we have to tell things at the right time, you know, that, uh, there are similar arguments around the Tango Sur, which Rivero sings in '48, but we'll save that for, you know, maybe we'll have a 1948 evening. Yeah, okay.
Um, well, we can't end here, I think, because we need something a little bit more joyful at the end. It would be really tough to just walk out the door after that. We don't want people to go kill themselves after our program. So let's listen to more, more, more Troilo. Let's listen to one of the milongas he recorded in 1947. He recorded two, actually, and one of them is interesting because, well, for two reasons. One is that it has a glosa, and we talked about this in 1944, that this kind of declared tango lyric at the beginning of the song. And the second reason is that it's only one out of two recordings where Rivero and Ruiz sing together.
The other one is one of my favorite valses. It's La Gramita's Mi Corazón. Unfortunately, it was recorded in 1948, so we can't play tonight. So let's listen to instead this milonga, which I've actually never heard played at festivals or marathons and milongas. It's called Gardel Razzano. So it's a tribute, I guess, to Gardel and his partner Razzano.
Don't we have this from D'Agostino? I don't know, actually. Have you, yeah, I've heard it before. El morrocho y el oriental. Morrocho, meaning dark-skinned guy, that's Gardel. Oriental, meaning the person from Uruguay. I think that's the subtitle. If it's the one I'm thinking of, then yeah, well, let's listen.
Yeah, and since we can't listen to La Gramita's Mi Corazón, we'll listen to another vals recorded this year. So we'll finish off with a vals by Troilo, just like we did in our 1944 program. It's Romance de Barrio with Ruiz.
One of only two Troilo recordings with Rivero and Ruiz singing together; a tribute to Gardel and his partner Razzano, with a spoken glosa.
♪ Music · 3:48 ·
Closes the Troilo set with a waltz, since the vals Dag really wanted, Lágrimas de mi corazón, was recorded in 1948.
Danced to it · 5 of 78
Ah, beautiful waltz. So I want to round off with La Cumparsita, like we usually do, but before that, thank you again, Michael. Thank you, Dag, for creating this lovely possibility for us to share music together. 180 people tonight.
Yeah, it's great. New record and so nice, and we will make the recording available also for those who couldn't be present. Um, and I think we'll do this again, won't we? We'll meet in a few years. Yeah, we'll announce, I think we'll go for next Wednesday as well, so we'll announce the year in a couple of days. Thank you to everyone for listening.
And, um, well, actually, La Cumparsita 1947, there are two recordings, but both of them are horrible, so I'm not going to play any of those, because, uh, that will just be, couldn't do that after this beautiful Troilo songs. But there is a relevant one from December 1946. It's with Francini-Pontier, and they recorded La Cumparsita with Alberto Podestá. Let's listen to that. Interesting, he just comes in in the very end. So good night, everyone, and see you hopefully in a couple of years.
Both 1947 recordings of La Cumparsita were, in Dag's view, too poor to play, so he closed instead with this December 1946 Francini-Pontier version, Podestá only singing at the very end.
Tango By Year is Dag Stenvoll and Michael Lavocah's, published here with their permission. The audio plays from SoundCloud.