Tango 1952
Dag Stenvoll and Michael Lavocah · 2020-09-02 · 3:29:41
By 1952 the single direction tango had in 1950-51's up-tempo revival has fractured: Troilo and Pugliese keep developing their sound, while D'Arienzo and Di Sarli mostly repeat what already made them famous, with D'Arienzo even pulling back from the previous year's instrumental experiments toward straight vocals. The 'big four' orchestras dominate the year almost completely, crowding out the newer bands that had broken through in 1950-51. Several singers move from orchestra employee to independent star with their own guitar or small backing group, including Ángel Vargas, Edmundo Rivero, Jorge Vidal and Nelly Omar. Odeón introduces tape mastering this year, prompting Pugliese to re-record much of his back catalogue, not always for the better. The episode closes with an attached 'lost afterparty' set stacked with Di Sarli and a run of milongas, plus a solo cortina from gypsy-jazz guitarist Oscar Alemán.
What this episode gave Tangopedia
Facts said in the episode, each now cited to the minute it is said.
Preparing for the show, Michael kept finding himself picking songs from these four orchestras; the newer bands that broke through in 1950-51 mostly failed to sustain that level.
the "big four" orchestras (Troilo, D'Arienzo, Pugliese, Di Sarli)
Tango's single direction from the 1950-51 up-tempo revival has fractured: Troilo and Pugliese keep developing, while D'Arienzo and Di Sarli mostly repeat their established styles, with D'Arienzo even regressing from 1951's instrumental experiments back to mostly vocals.
The 1952 re-recording of Malena adds violins and cellos "weeping" after the opening piano, on top of the arrangement Héctor María Artola made for the 1942 Fiorentino version.
Berón stayed with Troilo for about four years before being sacked after Troilo asked him to turn his microphone volume down in a noisy cabaret and he turned it back up.
By the 1950s there are more good singers than bands to employ them, the reverse of the 1940s, when orchestra leaders had to hunt for and build up their own vocalists.
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.
Now playing
Kiss of FireGeorgia Gibbs · 1952Dag's cold open: an American pop hit built on the tango El Choclo, used to set up the whole episode's theme of tango splintering and reaching odd corners of 1952 pop culture.
♪ Music · 1:19 ·
“That's a dramatic entrance, Doug.”
That's a dramatic entrance, Dag. It is, isn't it? It's Georgia Gibbs in Kiss of Fire. And it's, as most of you have heard, of course, based on the tango El Choclo. Allegedly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Allegedly.
Yeah, it was a big hit in 1952. And the Gibbs version was the most popular, but also recorded by lots of others, including Louis Armstrong. And there was another big hit in 1952, which those who have only just tuned in will have missed, which was Leroy Anderson's Blue Tango. Dare I ask, are we going to hear an Argentine recording of that later in the program? Not as far as I know, but maybe there could be one at the after party. No, I don't think, I don't want to alienate our listeners.
But I mean Leroy Anderson's most famous composition and one of the very few songs written outside Argentina to be, you know, taken on board. Yeah, maybe that's a sign of how things are developing. Because it is, you know, cheese factor 10, it's really cheesy. Um, yeah, hello everyone. We've got to say, and yes, hello everyone, welcome back, we're so happy you're here. Yeah, we're really happy.
“It is, you know, cheese factor 10, it's really cheesy.”
And Michael, two weeks ago in Tango 1942, we heard Fiorentino sing Malena with Troilo. And you said it exemplified the change to lyricism and slowing down in tango music. Yes. And tonight's event photo is also a Malena version, but a later one. Can you explain?
Well, it's another beautiful version. Troilo re-records Malena in 52 with Raúl Berón. But we can no longer say that it exemplifies the spirit of the times, because the spirit of the times is now fractured. People are doing their own thing. And Pugliese is doing his thing. He's very much found his own voice. D'Arienzo is doing his thing. And when we say his thing, we mean the thing he did back in the 30s. So not the 40s D'Arienzo, who was trying to be a bit more mainstream and a bit more lyrical.
So there isn't any one single current. And if we look at the scene as a whole, tango was really down in the dumps at the very end of the 40s. And then there was this explosion in 50 and 51, where it went up tempo again and there were lots of new bands. But this explosion is now over. So certain bands like Troilo and Pugliese are still developing, but other bands like D'Arienzo and in a different way, Di Sarli, they're not developing anymore. They're just carrying on doing their own thing.
And in D'Arienzo, we might even say he goes backwards a bit, because in 1951, there was a lot of creativity with all the new instruments that he did, but in 1952, mostly vocals. So he really stops developing now. So maybe the very beginning of the writing is on the wall. Yeah.
And when I was preparing for this night, it struck me that I kept picking songs from the big four. So Troilo, D'Arienzo, Pugliese and Di Sarli. And it seems that, I mean, I realized that maybe at this time there are more the big four than ever, because in 42, we listened to a lot of other really nice music. But in 52, of course, there are other nice recordings, but they really stand out as monuments this year, I think. I would agree with that.
And I mean, of course, in 1950 and 51, we heard lots of new bands making interesting music, but I can't say that they really established themselves at the same layer of these others. It's like the pantheon of stars is kind of fixed now. Yeah. Um, also to do with how famous you're going to be. Like Gobbi, he's in the pantheon but he's got a minor place. Yeah, he doesn't become more famous. Yeah, yeah.
But let's start with Troilo. Since we talked about Malena, I listened to Malena, the 52 version with Berón singing. We talked before about Berón entering Troilo and really finding his place. I also want to play a second Berón song, actually the Troilo version, the only Troilo version and recording of El Choclo. So that's interesting to hear, I think. I mean, we know it much more. That would be more interesting. Yeah.
So, yeah, I really like Berón's voice here, but the rhythm is very interesting in this interpretation. Yes. So first the Malena, the arrangement is similar to the 42 arrangement that Héctor María Artola had done, but clearly it's been retouched because at the opening you get that distant piano sound. Remember that everyone, the way the piano starts in Troilo, but in this 52 it's answered by violins and cellos weeping. And that wasn't there before, so someone has retouched the arrangement, quite possibly Piazzolla, but we don't know, and it really works. The changes in the arrangement really work.
And I think overall there's quite a soft feeling about it. There's, Troilo is such an interesting band in this year because the instrumentals and the vocals create really a very different impression. Yeah, we'll listen to some instrumental after these two vocal numbers. So an instrumental El Choclo. Yeah, I guess El Choclo was one of the few tangos that managed to survive both as an instrumental and a vocal. Mostly the community decided it was one or the other.
Yeah, you know the story behind the name El Choclo, the corncob? Well, I've heard lots of different stories, so why don't you tell the one you like. Yeah, I just read on Todo Tango that the composer Ángel Villoldo, he loved corn, and since he was satisfied with this new composition and found it very savory, he named it after his favorite food. Well, it makes sense, and, you know, compositions like this were putting corn on his table. Yeah, and the lyrics has nothing to do with corn. It's, uh, this version is, it's composed by the Jeppolo as late as 1946, the lyrics. Yeah, let's go, hit it. Troilo.
A later re-recording of Malena with Berón, picked to show that tango's single spirit (heard in the 1942 Fiorentino version) has now fractured into separate, incompatible directions.
Troilo's only vocal recording of El Choclo; the hosts note the song is one of the few tangos that survived in the catalogue as both a pure instrumental and a sung number.
Danced to it
Yeah, that's a little lunfardo singing, isn't it? And a lot of singing full stop because he sang two full verses and then both times we got the chorus. So he sang four sections of music. And back in the early 40s we were getting two sections of music and then a little bit at the end. So a lot more vocals, but yes, a lot of lunfardo, and it's typical of the transition. You've talked about the transition period of Troilo from the early 50 and through 57, I think it was. And this is typical that he gives more space to his singer, and that's true for all orchestras, but Troilo, I think, is leading the way on that.
Um, rhythmically much more playful, there's almost a flexible tempo at one point near the beginning. And the voice, it still divides. Well, I say still divides, not everybody likes, uh, but on with Troilo, but I think he finds a really nice combination. They suit one another, and Troilo knows how to get the best of all his singers. Yeah, I've discovered this after you came out with the second edition of your book, which gives more space to Berón in Troilo's recording. Yeah, and again the sound fidelity of those records is not that great, and that's not helping us to really appreciate what he could do.
But Troilo liked him well enough to keep him on for about four years. In the end he was sacked because Troilo's strategy was not to overwhelm the public with sound when they played at a cabaret and everyone was noisy and chatting. Anyone ever had that problem as a DJ? You start off and everyone's chatting. Troilo's strategy was, I'll play really quietly at first until people shut up and then we'll pick the volume up. So that's how he approached all these matters. And Berón, Troilo asked him to turn down the volume on his microphone. So he did. Troilo went away, turned it back up again, and he just sacked him. But that was after four years.
Now, in the 50s, there are not enough good bands for the good vocalists anymore. I mean, if you think about all the people that went through Di Sarli's orchestra, for example, Ruffino, Podestá, Durán, they're all still singing, but the band only needs one or two at most. So as an orchestra leader, you've got a bit more choice over your vocalists than you did in the 40s. In the 40s, you were hunting for them, making their names, creating their careers. Now there's lots of good and famous vocalists. Yeah. That Berón stayed with Troilo so long tells us that Troilo really liked the sound.
“It's very hard to make a tanda; there's only a handful, and to get a Pugliese waltz tanda that sounds coherent is basically impossible.”
We'll listen to a couple of the soloists later in the program. But let's go to, since Troilo is so terrific, let's go to two of his instrumentals. And first I want to play Quejas de bandoneón. And Michael, you write in your book that this is by many considered to be the best of his three recordings and possibly the best recording of the piece ever. Absolutely. Yeah. Why is that?
Well, what does Troilo do in his career? He starts from the youthful vigor of the band and then it grows in sophistication and complexity. But by the end, it's too symphonic. So too near the end of the career sounds like a symphony. Too near the beginning, we don't get all the complexity. Here we get a nice balance between that, and the recording is brighter than the 44 recording. Yeah, it's nice. One of the first Piazzolla arrangements for the band as well.
And the second instrumental I want to play, you mentioned Gobbi in the introduction, and since 1952, it's not a good year for Gobbi. I think he only made two recordings. But we'll instead hear Troilo's interpretation of Gobbi's composition, Orlando Goñi. It's a tribute to Gobbi's friend, and of course, your favorite pianist, Michael, who played for Troilo until mid-43. Yeah, now this second song is a much more advanced arrangement. It is, yeah. It shows the transition. Yeah, I think, yes, it's going to show that transition very well.
Yes, some new elements creeping into the arrangements, thanks to Spiltalnik, actually, who I think is the arranger of this piece. And, okay, Piazzolla does his thing arranging for Troilo, but a lot of the real innovations that stayed with the band, like crashing down through octaves in discords, which is something we're going to hear in Orlando Goñi, at Orlando Goñi, I should say. I actually found myself studying the arrangement because, you know, they've had these projects for the past five or more years to digitize all the original arrangements of Troilo, which they found. And I found myself looking at this particular one about a month ago to identify some of these features. So let's listen in particular to the second one and see if we can hear things in the band that we haven't heard before. Yeah, and we'll talk about it after. So Troilo, first Quejas de bandoneón, and then Orlando Goñi.
Michael calls this the best of Troilo's three recordings of the piece, and maybe the best recording of it by anyone, balancing the band's early vigor against its later, more symphonic style.
♪ Music · 2:08 ·
Chapter · 21:20
Troilo's Pianist Got His Own Song, From His Best Friend
He played piano for Troilo until 1943. In 1952, Troilo paid him back with a tango.
A tribute composed by Alfredo Gobbi for his friend, pianist Orlando Goñi, who played for Troilo until mid-1943; played instead of a Goñi recording because Goñi himself barely recorded anything that year.
Yeah, that's a lot of advanced music. It is a lot going on in the music. A lot going on. Um, I guess we should just always remember we don't have to dance to everything in the music. That's true. Maybe that's like a modern mentality that we bring to musical interpretation, but just pin yourself to the rhythm, which is a little bit flexible, so that's the real challenge. But in terms of dancing all the details, you don't have to do that. So a show dancer who wants to perform to that piece might need to do that. You just need to feel. So I think that's a mental problem that we've got, we try a bit too hard.
Yeah, it's a bit like you talked about the ending, so the slow ending of waltzes, you don't have to always dance them, you know. You can just let some things go in the music. Yeah, but yeah, it's a different Troilo to the one that we heard in the 40s. So Troilo, like Pugliese, is not content just to do the same thing. He's advancing musically.
So let's continue a bit in the listening more than dancing music genre and go to our man Edmundo Rivero. I love his voice. And he makes some recordings this year with guitar backing. And Giragira is one of them, but we've heard Rivero sing that with Troilo in the Troilo special. So instead I want to play the tango Cuando me entrés a faltar, which was a hit from 1952. This is one of the big songs of the year. Yeah.
But did you look at the lyric, Dag? I did, yeah, but I couldn't find the translation. So maybe you can... I found it a bit difficult. So I'll give an outline, but perhaps once the song is playing, maybe some of the Porteño speakers can just fill us in on it. So at the beginning, we discover that it's an old guy and a younger woman has fallen in love with him. So he's made a mess of his love life in the past, but now he's got a second chance for this young woman. But he still can't help acting like a macho.
In what sense?
Um, well, that's, um, the last line, um, which again I struggle with the exact meaning of the Argentine Spanish, but he says, you know, you watch out, girl. So he's got a lovely younger woman who's his lover, but he says to her, watch out. So don't try any of your tricks, I still know how to deal with you when I start to fail, when I start going downhill. So he's, um, not growing old gracefully.
And so one of the questions I have when I listen to a tango like this is how would it have been perceived by the audience at the time, would it have been perceived ironically or not? And I can't answer that as an Englishman in the 21st century, but it's an excellent tango. Well, one of the strongest compositions, and Rivero's performance. Yes, it's the best one, I think. Yeah.
Well, and the second song I want to play is connected to what you told us two weeks ago, that you were doing research for a TV documentary series on African roots of Latin American music and in your case, the Argentine music. It's a milonga called Milonga y negro. And it's Rivero's own composition where it does like a wordplay on the word Negro in some form, referring to lots of things like people from Africa or African descent, African culture, the color black, literally, and also the color black more metaphorically in terms of dark, you know, dark mood.
And this is him singing just with guitars? Yes. And he sings it a lot, the word. Yes. This is all explained in the new Troilo book. Rivero heard this from his mother and just wrote it down and performed it. And the song traces its roots back 300 years to Spain during the colonial era, 17th century, I think, when the first slaves were freed.
And this was creating an anxiety in the white Spanish population in Castile and Caris in the 17th century, creating anxiety that now that there was a black population, but they were free men and women. So somebody wrote, um, Caverro, the Spanish poet Caverro, wrote a satirical poem called, um, Black Wedding. So this originally was not a black milonga, it was a black wedding, and it satirizes the black population and says, well, they had this wedding, but they behaved really badly. And then it gives lots of examples of how they didn't know how to behave properly at the wedding. So it's basically there to reassure the white population. So when the colonists came to South America, this song came with them and it was slowly transformed out of all recognition.
So you find it in every country in South America in different forms. The most interesting one is the one sung in Chile by Violeta Para, Violeta Para, marvellous, marvellous singer who, if I'm not wrong, was murdered in the military coup along with lots of other people. But she actually transforms the song into something that has something really positive to say about the African population. Rivero, it's neither one thing nor the other. It makes me think of a nursery rhyme that I heard in school as a child: in a dark, dark forest, on a dark, dark night, there's a dark house with a dark, dark room. So that's the feeling I get. Yeah, same here.
So, uh, let's hear Edmundo Rivero with guitar backing, Cuando me entrés a faltar. It's a tango, and the Milonga y negro. And you can try to count the number of times he sings the word negro in some form, and you can type it in the chat window after if you want. It's like a competition.
One of the year's biggest tango hits, with guitar backing: an old man gets a second chance at love with a younger woman but still can't stop acting the macho.
♪ Music · 2:12 ·
Almost every line. Yeah, it's amazing.
“As the song has transformed over centuries, it's turned into a nonsense poem.”
Chapter · 34:14
The Milonga With 300 Years of Hidden History
Every line repeats the same word, for a reason going back to colonial Spain.
Rivero's own composition, built on wordplay he traced back roughly 300 years to a Spanish colonial satirical poem; Michael connects it to Violeta Parra's Chilean version of the same lineage.
That's a lot of black. So if people want to guess, that's the first guess. It's too much. But I was wondering about the last line, Michael, because he's seen something like, if I just said he's right, he's like, after the black party, the black bride and groom left, they went up to a black room, they laid black sheets, and around midnight, they did a black thing. The black woman slept in the bed and the black man slept on the ground. What's that supposed to mean?
I've no idea. It's really, yeah. It's turned into, as the song has transformed over centuries, it's turned into a nonsense poem. I guess so, yeah. Rachel's guessed 44. Yeah, it's a bit too much, actually. It was 43. But that's pretty close. That's close enough. You can have a prize.
So like Rivero, another name we kept returning to in our programs, Michael, is Julio De Caro, and a very important man for the evolution of tango, and it's not so often played, but it's interesting, in especially in this format I think, to listen to him. And in 1952 we recorded a song also with a negro in the name actually, Flores negras, instrumental. That's a beautiful song, isn't it? This is a beautiful song.
So these last few years of De Caro's recording career, I think, is when in a way he creates his greatest work, not the work that has the greatest impact on the scene, that was 20 years before, but in these last years from 48 to 53 he records not so many numbers, just a few each year, but they have a warmth to them which makes them much more relatable to us now. Flores negras is one of the most beautiful melodies ever written in tango music, with long phrases, not little phrases, and composed by Francisco De Caro, the pianist brother who was the musical motor of the orchestra. And as far as I'm aware there are no dance versions, so although it's an exquisite melody, never picked up by a dance orchestra. So the question to the public is, do you feel that the tango you're about to play is danceable or not, or would you enjoy to dance to it? Yeah, let's try, see if we want to dance. Yeah, let's feel, let's feel, do we feel like dancing to this exquisite melody?
Chapter · 39:11
A Melody So Beautiful No One Ever Danced To It
Tango's most beautiful unplayed melody, written by the quiet brother at the piano.
One of the most beautiful tango melodies ever written, composed by the orchestra's pianist, Francisco De Caro; no dance orchestra is known to have picked it up.
Danced to it
♪ Music · 2:28 ·
Most of those commenting seem to think that it's very danceable. Yeah, I would say it's not intended for dancing, but the melody is so beautiful and the way the band deliver it is so exquisite that it just seduces us onto the floor to dance those melodic phrases. Yeah, yeah, and with the right person, of course, you could dance with any, dance to anything. Yeah, and someone mentioned there's the De Angelis version, but you're not a big fan of that one, I think. It's from 1952. I didn't, you know, I'd really forgotten about it, I truly had, so thank you for reminding me, people. Yeah, we'll check it out after.
But, uh, since De Angelis was mentioned, let's listen to another De Angelis recording, um, he had Carlos Dante singing and, um, but I didn't really, um, like the recordings for him, so I want to play one with Oscar Larroca, who sang with, uh, yeah, sang with, yeah. This is something a bit different, isn't it? Larroca had sung with Domingo Federico and he creates a different sound with the De Angelis Orchestra, so it's got a bit more personality. And let's hear Zorro gris, which we talked about two weeks ago because it was the, yeah, the theme photo of the Garcia band was with the Los Zoros Grises.
And finally, because I was, I just knew this meant Gray Fox and I always assumed this was about, I was imagining some older milonguero guys that was sly type looking for, the hunting the young beautiful girls at the, but it's not about that at all. It's about a cabaret girl, quite tragic, pretending to have fun with champagne, but, uh, who's really sad, and when she leaves the tango club she wraps her cold soul in her gray fur coat. Yes, yeah, that's the sad lyric. Yes, it is. And there's quite a few lyrics that mention fur coats and it's usually about this, quote, warm yourself from the cold harshness of reality. Probably. Yeah. Okay. Let's hear it. Alfredo De Angelis with Zorro gris, Oscar Larroca singing.
A lyric Dag first misread as an old lecherous man, but which is actually a tragic cabaret girl pretending to enjoy herself while cold and sad inside.
Danced to it
♪ Music · 2:13 · The lyrics, on the song's page
No great enthusiasm in the chat window there, but I must admit that I like this recording. But it's like this kind of really creamy cake. You can have a piece, but then you get kind of filled up. You don't want to have more. Yeah, I guess I like Oscar Larroca's vocal interpretation more than I like the instrumental backing. Yeah, that's a point.
Yeah, so no more De Angelis tonight, but let's hear another one that we never heard before in these programs, Donato Racciatti. No, I'm very interested to get the feedback from the public on this one. So Donato Racciatti is one of the orchestras from Uruguay who maintains an old time feeling to the orchestra, so it's like they're trying to sound a bit like how tango sounded many decades earlier. And it always sounds to me like the piano is one of these highly strung upright pianos that you get in Western cowboy movies in the saloon bar. I was thinking about that too. There's, it's a very hard sound from the piano particularly, it's not a grand piano, it's, it's an up, it's more saloon tango. Well, maybe that's it. Yes, it's a saloon tango. So put yourself in the Wild West. Yeah, yeah.
And he has a female singer this year, Nina Miranda, and she sings Gloria. Her voice is very much liked. Yeah, and he worked with several female vocalists, Olga Del Grossi as well later. But yeah, Nina Miranda, probably the most famous of his vocalists, male or female. And it's funny that his first name is Donato. So if Edgardo Donato had the son, he could actually have named him Donato, and his name would be Donato Donato. Sorry, just a thought experiment. Let's listen to Donato Racciatti and Gloria, sung by Nina Miranda.
A deliberately old-fashioned Uruguayan orchestra with a hard 'saloon piano' sound, chosen for Miranda's voice and a lyric both hosts call an early feminist tango.
Danced to it · 5 of 15
♪ Music · 1:34 ·
That's really popular with our listeners. Yeah, I love the way she delivers the song. The way I enjoy this is by allowing it not to sound, musically speaking, it's not at the level of the Argentine orchestras of the 50s or the 40s or even the mid 30s. Musically speaking, this is at the level of an Argentine band of 1930, and not one of the good ones, but that doesn't matter. So once I say to myself that doesn't matter, then I can enjoy it, um, nice pace for dancing, lots to listen to, and a beautiful voice and an excellent lyric as well.
I didn't try to translate it, but what's she singing about? Girls are not toys, she tells the bloke. It's a feminist tango. More of those. We need more.
Next orchestra is Pedro Laurenz, but he only has four recordings this year. He has a very nice version of, but we already heard the Troilo version, so I want to play Amurado instead, which is his own composition, and I think he recorded this like three or four times, more than any other tango, so he must really have had a special relation to this song. It goes back to his early days in the Dikara Orchestra, because it's co-written with Pedro Maffia, and one of them, one of them wrote the verse and one of them wrote the chorus. And I can't remember which is which, but it's really obvious when you listen to the song, because Maffia does the smooth velvet phrasing and Laurenz does the excitement. And what most people know is the 1940 vocal version with Casa singing, the really energetic one. This is slower. It's an instrumental, this one, and it's much slower. It has this kind of 50s feeling, I think. Yeah, I like it. I think it's excellent. Yeah. Let's hear it.
Laurenz's own co-composition (with Pedro Maffia) slowed right down from the famous, more energetic 1940 vocal version, giving it a more mature '50s feel.
It has some groove, hasn't it? It's kind of rooted. Yeah, it's grounded. It's got a maturity as well, because it's like, no, we don't have to play this fast. We'll go a bit slower. We'll put a few more bits and pieces in, like the transition between the verse and the chorus. There's this da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da that's completely missing in the 40s version. Lovely touches.
The variacion was a bit different, because normally at the end of the variacion, Laurenz would always finish the phrase on the right-hand side, and you'd get this. So that, but on one of the times, I only noticed this the first time tonight, he played the whole thing on the left hand, i.e. the low notes, even the little flourish on the end. So they're having fun. Yeah. And a good thing, we don't have to choose between this and the 1940 version. We can listen to both. We can listen to both. And dance to both. And the 60s version is also really good, but very, very hard to find. And I don't think we're doing Tango By Year 1966.
We'll see. In 2022, maybe. Yeah, let's go to, uh, D'Arienzo, get some energy, more energy here, and, uh, I was happy two weeks ago and I was starting to prepare for this, uh, this program. Tango Tunes came out with a new edition, uh, D'Arienzo 1952 to 54, so I jumped at it and I bought it, and then we talked about it, Michael, and you said, well, you know, maybe that's not so important to buy this particular Tango Tunes edition, because, uh, the recordings, the tape, tape master recordings are really good in the, from before. Yeah, and we've still got the tapes. Yeah, we've still got the tapes and we don't have everything, you know, because, um, RCA Victor have never released all the songs that they have. Um, so this is an opportunity to get a complete, a complete overview of that.
So we've got, um, Echagüe and Laborde on vocals, so probably the strongest vocal team ever, and as I was saying in introduction 50, 51 there was a lot of emphasis in the instrumental numbers from D'Arienzo, but he shifts away from that and he shifts back towards pushing the vocals, but he's got his strongest vocal team. Yeah, vigorous and energetic. I think so too.
And, um, what are we going to hear? We're going to hear first two, two songs with, uh, Laborde. First the tango, and I want to play it because it's super special. It has a long introduction and, uh, like a, a glosa almost and some introduction which, which I, I can't remember if I've heard this any, any time before in the end. So, and the second one is a wall, siempre tu a mi corazón, both will Laborde sing. Nice. I like Laborde more than Echagüe in the 50s. I must confess, I'll put my cards on the table. That's all right. That's right.
So listen to this special beginning of the first one, El agente de la esquina.
“And if DJs play too much of 1950s D'Arienzo, I get really tired. But in small doses, it's fantastic and inspiring for dancing, I think.”
Dag picked this from a brand-new reissue; it opens with an unusually long spoken introduction, and the bandoneón imitates the whistling signal old-time street policemen used at night.
♪ Music · 4:58 ·
Wonderful voice, Laborde. I really liked the first one and I've never heard it before, so, you know, I have to eat my words now saying I don't bother with this latest release. Excellent.
Excellent. Maybe probably the recording you have, they took away this introduction part, maybe. No, I just don't. Well, it was released by CTA in Japan. The Argentines never re-released that one on CD. So I played the Lorenzo song you never heard. Well, I probably heard it once, but just forgot about it. Yeah. So well done. Yeah. So you made some comments about the special nature of the opening.
So the idea of just starting with this big chord and then having someone reciting, he does do that in another occasion and that's in the milonga a pugno limpio, I think, from 1950. You get this big chord, then the band falls silent and then the guy recites, but it's much a much shorter recitation, and then the milonga starts up at full power, whereas this was something really different.
And the agente is a kind of policeman who does the patrols, and then when the bandignon starts, it's imitating the whistling sound that the policemen made to each other at night. So when you could hear the next guy, you knew he was okay. And that's a very familiar sound in those days or perhaps further in the past. I think that was one of the inspirations for Frasero's El Espiente because he would hear that whistling sound at night. And it's one of the things he put into that tango. So an old piece of, well, not just Buenos Aires history, it was probably very similar in all our cities back in those days.
Chapter · 1:06:20
The Policeman's Whistle Hidden in a Bandoneón
A tango cop walks his beat, and the bandoneón imitates his whistle.
And it's kind of positive about the police. I suppose Pugliese wouldn't be recording this lyric, maybe as a communist and as frequently imprisoned by police. Well, also for other reasons, because this tango is just harking back to the past and saying, oh, there were so many tough guys on my street corner. There's something like Cientos de Guapos. I can't remember exactly, but you mentioned there that there were all these tough guys, but, you know, I was famous and, you know, like the respected policeman. That's not really a Pugliesian lyric, I guess. And the waltz as well.
Yeah, Laborde's voice, I think it's my favorite voice. I think it's the strongest voice for D'Arienzo in the 50s. But let's hear, anyway, a tango with good old Echagüe.
A tango the hosts picked to show Echagüe's street-edged voice, played right before the instrumental that closes the D'Arienzo set.
♪ Music · 0:01 ·
And it's not a very non-tango, but I think this one actually. I also agree that Laborde is, I prefer Laborde, but this one, Echagüe sings great, I think. It's a real edge in his voice, this kind of street edge, and a very. I think it's quite popular actually, perhaps not in Europe but in Argentina. I think this one's quite popular.
And the second track, which will finish the 1952 D'Arienzo chapter, is the explosive instrumental El Puntazo. We had to have that, the band is on fire on that one. They absolutely are, yeah. It's like a continuous variation from start to finish. Yeah, it's pure energy, it's etude for band union. Let's hear those two.
Called the explosive instrumental closer of the night's D'Arienzo set, with the whole band "on fire" and a rhythmic triplet trick Michael treats almost as an etude.
So, triplets you wrote, uh, Michael, it's the change of rhythm. I mean, that's something that's been in D'Arienzo since the beginning, but we don't really notice. But here you have to notice. Yeah. And so much band on your own play. It's almost like an etude. Yeah, lots of energy. And if DJs play too much of 1950s D'Arienzo, I get really tired. But like in the small doses, it's fantastic and inspiring for dancing, I think. Like an espresso. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, in the Echagüe track, I enjoyed that more than I thought I would. His voice sounds a bit different to the 40s and he spent a lot of time in the low part of his register, which made it more natural, and as his voice gets older he starts to force it a little bit, but here it sounded more natural, so that was good too. Right. Let's leave that answer and go to a new orchestra we haven't played before, Dante Puricelli.
I just picked this one because he recorded a tribute to Pascal Contursi, the lyricist. And I find the sound of this orchestra a bit bizarrely. And I remember you said in an earlier program, Michael, that Di Sarli took the break from, was it from 49, 48 to 51? 49 to 51, that's right. And there were some bands who kind of tried to fill the niche. There were a couple, but they managed to keep going. So for some imitators this Di Sarli's return was bad news because they, you know, immediately lost their space in the market, but, um, Dante Puricelli and one other whose name just escapes me temporarily, they managed to differentiate themselves enough to maintain their following.
Yeah, and you can hear, I mean, Di Sarli is, uh, is unique in his, uh, piano playing, but you can, I think you can really hear the influence on this orchestra, on the pianist. Yeah, on the pianist and on the way the violins deliver the melody.
A new-to-the-show orchestra Dag picked because it recorded a tribute to the lyricist Pascual Contursi.
♪ Music · 2:00 ·
It's like a mix of the Di Sarli and D'Agostino, isn't it? The piano is more like D'Agostino style, this tinkling, someone wrote tinkling piano. Yeah, maybe it is, actually. The violins aren't as good as the Di Sarli violins. That's the problem. That's true. They're a bit sour, you say. I liked it. I liked it. We've been spoiled by listening to Di Sarli. I mean, the violins in the 50s, Di Sarli's violin line was playing simultaneously in the Buenos Aires Symphony Orchestra. That's how good they were. So we shouldn't forget that. Yeah. Still, interesting tango with its own personality.
Yeah. Let's hear another performer or a singer that in my view also sounds a little bit Di Sarlane this year. It's actually Ángel Vargas. I was hoping we'd hear some Ángel Vargas. Yeah, he records some really known songs like Car Carcosa, Rie Payaso and Sola Compassion. But the one we listen to is Duelo criollo, with lots of recordings, but we know best from the Di Sarli, I think, with Duran and Pomar. So what can you say about Ángel Vargas in 1952?
Well, Ángel Vargas was very happy to finally make it as a soloist. So you and I, listeners, we may imagine that because D'Agostino and Vargas were together from all those years, from 1940 to 1946, recording, what was it, 94 numbers, that it was a happy working relationship, but it wasn't. And it was about the money. Vargas wasn't paid very much, just one member of the orchestra. But of course, he was the one the public really came to see. And there is this little gap in 1943 in Vargas's discography, where suddenly another singer appears called Raúl Aldao. And that's because Vargas has left the orchestra with a couple of the bandagnon players, and they've set up on their own, but they're not very successful, and Vargas goes back.
And in the 50s, finally, he makes it as an independent guy, employing the backing orchestras in the model that other singers have established before him. And it doesn't really sound very much different. They play more or less in a modern D'Agostino style, but Vargas is much more satisfied financially. He gives an interview to one of the magazines where he says, finally, I'm earning proper money.
Yeah, I agree. It sounds like late D'Agostino. He has, it's more heavy than the 40s stuff we know best, but it sounds a bit like this 1950s D'Agostino with other vocalists. So let's see this. Duelo criollo with Ángel Vargas singing.
Vargas's first year truly flying solo with his own backing band, after years underpaid as the draw in D'Agostino's orchestra.
Danced to it · 1 of 3
♪ Music · 3:10 ·
Yeah, I agree with what someone wrote in the chat window, that this slow pace really fits Vargas' voice. Yeah, he can take the space that's offered. And he immediately stamps his authority on the song, and it's not easy to perform Duelo criollo, because if I say Duelo criollo everyone thinks Di Sarli, so to take a song that's identified with another group is not so easy, I guess. There's some similarities in terms of spaciousness between Di Sarli and D'Agostino, even so very enjoyable. Yeah, and Vargas's voice is so characteristic. I mean, I must admit that I have lots of problems distinguishing the vocalists of some bands, but Vargas is really one of the ones you can't miss.
Yeah. It's what you say about Vardaro when he plays the violin, you can't miss it. I do sometimes, but. Yeah, and very nice at one point during the song, he suddenly brought his voice down to a whisper and that's not something that I remember hearing him doing with D'Agostino. It must have been magical in live performances to be there in a club with a bottle of red wine. And yeah, and I think probably because his voice is one they would describe as a small voice, it's not a voice to fill stadiums, and it's a voice that would have worked really, really well in that smoky tango bar.
Yeah, let's go to this early and, uh, two weeks ago in the 42 program, Michael, we listened to Oscar Serpa singing with Fresedo, and now he's with Di Sarli, and you said, Michael, that it's with Di Sarli that Serpa really finds his full potential. I really feel that it sounds so different to the singer, to the voice that we heard with Fresedo, and there are four recordings for this year to Di Sarli and Serpa, and we listened to two of them, the tango Cuatro vidas and the world's Un momento.
Serpa's voice also is like Vargas is something you hear as different to a lot of other things. Well, Serpa's not from Buenos Aires like the majority of the singers in the Di Sarli orchestra. He's from the province of Cuyo, which is the name for the bigger region that contains Mendoza over in the west of the country. So it's natural that the singers will have a different style, but it's a style that assimilates to the Di Sarli style very, very well.
So he's a country boy. Un momento is, uh, it's an exquisite waltz. I'm glad we're going to, yeah, I love that one, play that. And it's very interesting lyric. So waltzes are normally love stories, but not always happy love stories. Some of the most touching waltzes are the ones that are not simply happy, and in Un momento the guy sings, I've done the same old story just to live a moment and then for it to pass. So that's a really interesting lyric, I think, about not wanting an affair or a fleeting night of passion, but guys singing I want something more enduring. That's not something we hear so often. Yeah, not in those terms anyway.
Michael calls this 1950s Di Sarli at its most vigorous, with Serpa's resonant voice and a lyric Michael rates as perfect.
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♪ Music · 0:10 ·
An unusually mature vals lyric: not a simple love story, but a man singing that he wants something lasting rather than a fleeting night.
So romantic. Wow. What's not to like? 50s Di Sarli, this really vigorous delivery, Serpa's voice is just amazing, resonant, the violins and a beautiful lyric from Esposito, really interesting lyric, lovely arrangement, everything's perfect. I love Di Sarli from this period. Yeah, they're not a bad track.
Di Sarli's very selective with his repertoire, doesn't record a single weak recording, not one. And we need to listen to a couple of the instrumentals too, because they're also really good. Yeah, two, first one of the few with the Di Sarli solo, La cachila, which is, yeah, it's Beethoven, folks. Yeah, and the Di Sarli interpret, the Di Sarli, yes, I mean, Di Sarli almost never shows what he can do on the piano, but in La cachila about 30 seconds in he lets rip and it's Beethoven, it really is.
“Di Sarli almost never shows what he can do on the piano, but in La cachila, about 30 seconds in, he lets rip, and it's Beethoven, it really is.”
And the second song I play is Los 33 orientales, an instrumental. It's also with really powerful left hand, this utterly grumbling playing. Love it. What does it mean, the title? Do you know why it's called that?
Oriental normally is a code word for Uruguay because the full name of Uruguay is La Repubblica Oriental de Uruguay, the Eastern Republic of Uruguay. I don't know why. And the 33 Orientales were 33 men who united in the wars of independence to throw off the Spanish yoke. Oh, cool. So a resistance song. Yes. First La cachila with Di Sarli's magnificent solo and then Los 33 orientales.
One of the rare recordings where Di Sarli, who almost never shows off on piano, lets rip about 30 seconds in; Michael calls it "Beethoven."
Danced to it
♪ Music · 2:57 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Named for the 33 men who led Uruguay's war of independence against Spain; Michael calls it a resistance song with the same thunderous left-hand piano as La cachila.
You got your work out there, Michael. Really engaging. For me, the early 50s is stronger than the late 50s. In the late 50s, the balance of the orchestra, it's a bit more up in the air. There's so many violins, and there's a little bit of reverb in the recording. These early 50s recordings are more musical, they're more visceral. They've got more guts. The contribution of the piano and the double bass is more weighty. It takes a bit more space than it does later. And yeah, he's like a wild man on the piano there, crashing around. So exciting.
Let's go to another quite good pianist. He is. He has only one vocalist this year, Alberto Morán. Why does he only have one singer, you think? He has more into instrumentals than, for instance, I mean, D'Arienzo even has two vocalists. Yeah, maybe he couldn't find a second vocalist that he liked because you needed very special qualities to be with the Pugliese orchestra. And he's lost Vidal, hasn't he? Who was, well, how can we describe Jorge Vidal? 11 out of 10, the most powerful baritone that tango orchestras ever knew. So hard band to replace, I guess.
And the band is really developing with the instrumental numbers, making music that's more and more complex. So that's where the emphasis is for the Pugliese Orchestra in 52, definitely. And Morán, he's a great singer, so let's hear two of his songs. Cualquier cosa, which is a tango. I wondered if we were going to hear Cualquier cosa tonight because there are several recordings from 52. There is one by Troilo also, but I like this one, and the second one is a waltz, La noche que me esperes. You don't hear Pugliese waltzes so often. No, because it's very hard to make a tanda, there's only a handful, and to get a Pugliese waltz tanda that sounds coherent is basically impossible because you have to mix 40s and 50s numbers to get enough songs. Yeah, but this La noche que me esperes is exquisite. Great, and here we don't have to make tandas, so let's hear this too.
Pugliese's sole 1952 vocalist after losing baritone Jorge Vidal; several orchestras (including Troilo) recorded this song that year.
Danced to it
A rare Pugliese vals, picked despite Michael saying it is nearly impossible to build a coherent set from his handful of waltzes.
Wow. 100 octane. Yeah, he gives it all, isn't he? Every time. What I would say is that you can hear that Pugliese has passed through the near destruction of the orchestra. 48-49 was the time that the government literally tried to wipe the Pugliese outfit off the map, and you can hear that in the music. The music in 49 becomes extremely dense and complex, like something being compressed, and it comes through that time and it starts to become bright and luminous, beginning with Nuevo de Julio in 1950, then La Tupungatina, which I'm surprised we haven't heard yet, and then especially 54-55. So the space and light starts to come and the orchestra is on an upward trajectory, I'd say, for these years and manages to maintain a danceable style even as people stop dancing, which is quite an achievement. Yeah.
We have to listen to more Pugliese. And I'm surprised I'm not going to play a lot to the cantina. And you know why? Because then you have to do the after party, because you have to play it and tell the story of the two versions. But let's hear instead Entrador and Parados, two magnificent instrumentals. You talked about the combination of power and beauty in Pugliese. These are just really clear examples of us.
I think I may not be, if you're playing Parados second, which is definitely the correct order, I may not be able to speak afterwards, because if I recall Parados has got one of these violin solos from Camerano. Yeah, it's just leaves me dead, it's magnificent. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about the violin solo in Parados. And the contrast between this Pugliese power machine beat and this beautiful violin by Camerano is just... I think Pugliese, it's the orchestra with the most contrast. There are orchestras that sort of, they make a big contrast and it's like a digital switch version from one end to the other. But in terms of movement, I think Pugliese has much contrast.
“Camerano, yeah, it's just... leaves me dead, it's magnificent. I'm getting goosebumps.”
Anyone, let's just enjoy this too. Oh God, yeah, that's Mario Demarco, isn't it? So Mario Demarco, a bandoneon player who's joined the orchestra after a long career as a sideman in other bands, brings this one with him. And then Parados, like I say, I may need a lie down after that. We'll play a cotina after in case.
Paired with Parados to show Pugliese's trademark contrast of power and beauty.
Built around a violin solo by Alcides Camerano, answered quietly by the rest of the section before the whole violin line unites.
Oh, the dialogue there towards the end between the violins, the bandoneon, the piano, and of course... The dialogue is very special, but the violin solo, I mean, I know I gave it a good trail, but listening to it, it's even better than I remembered. And what I could really appreciate about it, listening to it just now with all of you, was how the whole section was involved. So Camerano always takes a solo. It's not a soli. It's not the whole section playing together.
But what happened, which was different, in Parados is he starts his solo and then the rest of the section, so Herrero and Carrasco, start playing a counter melody, but quietly. So there's a dialogue between Camerano's violin and the violin of the others. And they kind of build and play off against each other. And then finally they unite. Beautiful. Astonishing. Should we hear it again? Then I'll definitely have to go and lie down. No, we can't do that. Let's move on to...
We finished the Pugliese chapter, but not quite, because we're going to listen to a solo recording by Jorge Vidal, which you mentioned, because he also records back by guitar this year. That's what he loved to do. That's really why he left the Pugliese Orchestra. Yeah. Let's hear Tres esperanzas, Three Hopes, and it's music and lyrics by Di Shepolo. And I quote from the rather bleak chorus of the song, I had three hopes in my life. One my mother, old and defeated, another people and another love. I had three hopes in my life, two deceived me and one died.
Oh man! It's super sad, you gotta laugh. Oh God. And the simplicity of the guitar backing. It's a song that really suits Vidal, I think. Let's hear it.
Chapter · 2:00:55
The Singer Who Quit to His Boss's Face
He told the Maestro exactly why he was leaving, and never looked back.
Vidal's own solo recording with guitars, composed by Enrique Santos Discépolo, with a bleak chorus about three hopes, two betrayed and one dead.
♪ Music · 2:19 ·
“Maestro, if I stay with you another year, when I leave I'll have to get a backing orchestra, because that's what the public will expect of me. But I don't want that. I'm a singer with guitars.”
I need a whiskey. So Philip Hidalgo didn't stay with Pugliese, isn't it? It is for us, but it wasn't for him. No. Yeah, he said to Pugliese, because Pugliese couldn't believe it when he quit, and he said to him, Maestro, if I stay with you another year, when I leave, I'll have to get a backing orchestra because that's what the public will expect of me. But I don't want that. I'm a singer with guitars. So that's where his heart really was.
So it's a bit like the Rivero story with Trollo. He left to sing with guitars. Related, yeah. I mean, both of them did do a few recordings with orchestra, but what they most preferred to do was to sing with guitars. And that's what I hear because I prefer those. Yes, very much.
When I listen to the recordings with orchestra, they don't really appeal compared to the guitar ones and they were just done for more commercial reasons. Yeah. We need something to cheer up after this. Yes, please. Yeah, let's hear a milonga. Milonga with Nelly Omar singing Tu Vuelta and also with guitar backing. So there is a connection here, but it's much more joyful than what we just heard.
But Nelly was one of the women vocalists and she also has quite a dark voice, doesn't she? Yes, it's more of an alto voice and that fits tango in a way better than a soprano voice does. I can't remember if we've listened to her before. Can you remember when she started recording? With who? Well, she had very limiting recording opportunities. Did I play the Nelly Omar Despoys in the 44 after party? Maybe you did. I think I did.
Now, wait a minute. There wasn't a 44 after party. We didn't have after parties during the first programs, unfortunately. Ah, well, then I didn't. Maybe we should do just an old after party edition of the Lost After Parties edition. I think the Lost After Party, that's a brilliant title. So had there been a 1944 after party, I would have played Nelly Omar's recording, of course you would.
Which is absolutely tremendous if you don't know it. She recorded those 10 numbers or so with Francisco Canaro from 46 to 48. But after that she slowly establishes a career singing with guitar backing, and nearly all the recordings we have with her are with guitars, and she worked with the same couple of guitar leaders for the rest of her career. Yeah. So this is not something you've heard at Milongas, but I really like this. Let's hear it. Tu Vuelta.
A guitar-backed milonga the hosts call hypnotic, likely including a guitarrón (a deeper-toned guitar a fifth bigger than normal).
♪ Music · 2:39 ·
Isn't that beautiful? Absolutely beautiful. Hypnotic guitar backing. Yeah, someone said it's something other than guitar, maybe in the background a guitarón or a double bass, something. Probably a guitarón in that case, which is a guitar that's one fifth bigger, so you get darker. Not everybody used it and I've sometimes got confused about that, but often they did. Troilo used a guitarón when he made his quartet.
Have you got any more like that? Not I think like that, I mean, it's difficult to play something as beautiful as that. But we want, we have, yeah, we're heading towards the end, but we have two orchestras left, and the first one I want to play is Horacio Salgán, which we'll listen to I think in 51 or 50 or maybe both, I can't remember. But that's also an orchestra we don't hear much at milongas. No, very challenging to dance, and he has Goyeneche singing with him, 52 I think. Yeah, he just started singing. So I want to play one song just because I think it's one of the first recordings with Goyeneche ever, and it's a tango called Ya lo ves.
And then also I want to play, well, we'll see if we play something after, but I think before that I want to play an instrumental also that we've listened to before. We listened to it in 42 actually, and it was a Troilo recording with Fiorentino, Los mareados. And Salgán records an instrumental version of this in 52, which I think is interesting, nice and interesting. It's very different from the Troilo one, but yeah. I expect it to be rich, lively and happy.
Yeah, and there are some interesting musical, I should say, effects in it, that are very original ones, so it's not for those. So first the instrumental Los mareados, and then Ya lo ves with Goyeneche singing, Horacio Salgán.
Salgán's own instrumental take on a song the show had already played in its Tango 1942 episode as a Troilo/Fiorentino vocal recording.
♪ Music · 4:11 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Chapter · 2:15:19
Troilo Heard the Future Before the Singer Did
One of Goyeneche's earliest recordings, and Troilo already knew where it was going.
One of Goyeneche's very first recordings, well before he became known as a reciting, speak-singing "diseur" of Argentine song.
♪ Music · 1:44 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Yeah, of course, I forgot to say the author of the lyric is actually Edmundo Rivero. Another connection. Yeah. So, gosh, what can we say about that? I mean, it's not very familiar music, largely, to us. Extremely rich, musically speaking.
When I listen to the instrumental, I'm sort of excited and interested by it. And for the first half of the song, I said to myself, but where's the emotions? And then finally the emotions came. So it's not an orchestra that's focused on delivering the emotion. It's focused on something else, but the emotions are included.
With the vocal number there, doesn't Goyeneche sound different to how he sounds later on when he becomes a diseur, a speaker of the lyric? And one person has typed in the chat window, El Polaco, that's Goyeneche's nickname, The Pole, because Polish extraction, blonde hair. And Polaco at the peak of his powers. And from one point of view, you could say, yes, in terms of a more conventional singer, he never sounds better than he does here, but he's going to go on and do something else, which is what we remember him for. Yes, because it's the 60s and the 70s, which are really the Goyeneche heydays. I mean...
Yeah, and Troilo knew that. Troilo kicked him out of the orchestra because he knew that he was going to develop in a way that would take him outside of tango music in terms of an orchestra típica. And Goyeneche himself didn't know that at the time. So Troilo saw where Goyeneche was going to go before Goyeneche did, which I think is extraordinary.
It's getting late, but I want to play another Salgán song. And it's a waltz I suspect most of you have never heard before. It's Ilusión de mi vida, My Life's Illusions. People may have heard it by another band. Could be. It's composed and recorded by Feliciano Brunelli back in 1949. I think it's magnificently interpreted by Salgán. And he's a pianist, right? So listen to the piano. I think this is a goosebump material. Great stuff. I hope you agree. Let's listen to it.
A vals most listeners won't know, originally composed and recorded by Feliciano Brunelli in 1949; Michael calls Salgán's piano playing "goosebump material."
♪ Music · 2:30 · The lyrics, on the song's page
I think that I could have danced to this waltz. I mean, this is a danceable Salgán, I think. It's so full of ideas and creative. Well, all of Salgán is, isn't it? Heike was commenting on that in the chat window. He heard all this stuff in his head and he was trying to get it out in music.
Waltzes from super creative bands are often a bit easier to dance to because the waltz tempo gives you more of a fixed pace. So it makes it a bit easier to follow. But yeah, very exciting and rich, and he goes crazy in the end there on the piano, like almost Madonna style. No crazier than Madonna, yeah. I guess, maybe he's, maybe, yes, he is more jazzy. Maybe he on piano is a bit like Laurenz on bandoneón.
So we have one orchestra left. You want to guess, think of this price, it's Fresedo. We'll finish with Fresedo tonight. And in the 51 program, I listened to it, Michael. You said that, I think you said that Fresedo is a bit like Troilo. He went modern in the 50s in the sense that he cared less about the dancers and made music more for listening. And performed a lot of Piazzolla's new repertoire, which other bands were frightened of. And his singer this year is Héctor Pacheco.
Pacheco. And I'm not going to play one of the more experimental Piazzolla compositions, but a classic. Vida mía, his own composition, Fresedo's own composition. And he recorded it for the first time back in 1933 with Roberto Ray singing. And this points towards our next program, Michael. And what's our next program going to be? It'll be The Connection. So the first recording of this song in 1933. So let's go to 33, let's jump to 33 in two weeks, super nice, let's see. Fresedo with Vida mía and Héctor Pacheco singing.
Fresedo's own composition, first recorded in 1933 with Roberto Rey singing; Michael still prefers the original for the spirit of its era.
Danced to it · 5 of 64
♪ Music · 2:01 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Beautiful romantic lyrics. To compete with Roberto Rey, and I think 10 years ago, almost nobody would have liked that. But now we're more used to the 50s sound in general. For me I still prefer Roberto Rey, and it's not so much his voice, I think it's the spirit of the era that I prefer, but it's got something, it's got something. Yeah.
So it's La cumparsita time finally, and there are six versions from this year, 1952, some very good ones, but the most accessible ones are by D'Agostino with Tina Garcia singing and one by Troilo, an instrumental. I think I've played the Troilo one because I like this one.
And the event photo for tonight's program, the shellac of Malena, was borrowed from Jens Hingo Brothers, the DJ in Belgium, who posted it on his website. And he also posted a lot of interesting stories about, I think you posted it in the Facebook group, Michael, didn't you? I did. And he writes about this recording of La cumparsita.
And there was a review from a magazine called Discomania, which was, I guess, a kind of Argentinian Rolling Stone type. Exactly. And the review of this recording goes as follows. La cumparsita, the most executed tango in the world, perhaps the only one that is treated differently by each of the orchestras that included in its repertoire, is offered by Troilo in a different version. Pichuco does not try to show off making the bellows cry. The defects that we point out in the other typicas is that according to the instrument played by the director of the ensemble, la cumparsita is arranged or disarranged for the director-performer to abuse the solos. But in Troilo's registration, the orchestral equipment is complete. The strings, the piano and the bellows alternate the rhythmic melodies complementing each other perfectly, without special phrases that in most cases only serve to distort the original sense of the score.
That's a good review. Yes, Troilo's place at the top is a student and he's a master of good taste. Yeah. So with this one, I want to say thank you to everyone, to you, Michael, especially, of course, as always, sharing your immense knowledge of tango, the orchestras and the stories behind them.
Oh no, thank you, Dag. 1952, it's been lovely to explore with you. A big thank you as ever to our sponsors, to the tango communities of Norwich and Bergen, and also to the, um, the Marabou nightclub, Buenos Aires. Yeah, so I see you in two weeks in 1933. Yeah, and don't go away, that's true. Yeah, yeah, you can stick around, it might happen something. Stick around, there might be some more music. La cumparsita, Troilo, instrumento, 1952.
Closes the main show; Dag reads out a contemporary 1952 magazine review praising Troilo's restrained, ensemble-balanced version over directors who overdo the solos.
♪ Music · 2:00 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Yeah, there we go. Perfect. So, yeah, really a perfect cumparsita. So I'm going to play a little Cortina so that everyone has got time to make a cup of tea or whatever else they need to get. So a little Cortina, a couple of tracks from Oscar Alemán, Oscar Alemán, famous Argentine, well you call him a gypsy jazz guitarist, if you didn't know, of course he's not a gypsy, went to Europe, came back, well was thrown out of Paris by the Germans, unfortunately, um, managed to get back home to Argentina and recorded some very lovely and interesting music here. Here's a couple of slowish, well one fast and one slow jazz number from Oscar Alemán from 1952. The first is Saudade, I hope I said that right because it's a Portuguese word, and the second is pa pa pa.
Chapter · 2:34:08
The Jazz Guitarist the Nazis Threw Out of Paris
He survived occupied Paris, then came home and recorded gypsy jazz in Buenos Aires.
A cortina break: Argentine gypsy-jazz guitarist Oscar Alemán, who was thrown out of occupied Paris by the Germans and came home to keep recording.
♪ Music · 3:22 ·
The faster of the two Alemán cortina tracks, played straight after Saudade.
Okay, well somebody commented it's been a bit of a big full night. That's kind of true. For me, it's almost a Di Sarli night, almost. It's such a strong orchestra. Let's wake everybody up. I hope you've all had time to make a cup of tea or get another glass of wine or whatever it was you need. And let's have some milongas. Three milongas, three different orchestras. The first one, an orchestra we haven't yet heard tonight, and maybe you're not expecting me to play, but the first number from Francisco Canaro, Flor de arrabal.
A milonga with a joke ending Michael says is risky to play at a real milonga, since dancers enjoy the first three minutes then give the DJ a look when the trick lands.
Danced to it
Ha! That's hilarious. A little bit of joy there from Francisco Canaro. And a trick ending. I'd never play that at the milonga, probably, because everyone would really like it for the first three minutes, and then you'd get the DJ look at the end when you get the trick ending.
Now, second milonga. We're going to play three milongas. The second one, the singer Enzo Valentino made what many people would consider the greatest recording of Cualquier cosa, which we heard tonight from Morán with Pugliese, but he made it in 51 with Domingo Federico. So we can't play that. But in 52, he switched orchestras, and he's playing with the orchestra of Alfredo Attadía, which isn't very well known today, but he's got a special voice, Enzo Valentino, a little bit reminiscent of Corsini actually. And there's a super performance here, but maybe something most of you won't have heard before. The Milonga Bettinotti.
Valentino made what many call the greatest recording of Cualquier cosa with Domingo Federico in 1951, then switched to this lesser-known orchestra in 1952, which Michael says deserves to be better known.
♪ Music · 2:26 ·
How about that? That's an orchestra I think deserves to be a bit better known. Alfredo Attadía. One more milonga and I'm going to play a Troilo milonga. For some reason Troilo milongas don't get played too often. I don't know why. Now what we're going to hear now is Mano brava, which he recorded of course back in the 40s. So we hear this one even less, because if you do play it then they play the 40s version. Let's listen to it and you can tell me if you like it more or less or just differently compared to the more familiar version.
A Troilo milonga re-recording that rarely gets aired because the famous 1940s original is usually preferred; Michael, after hearing it, still prefers the 1940s version.
♪ Music · 1:30 ·
What do you think? I think I still prefer the 40s one, but I'm glad I played it. Now, I'll play one more Troilo number. I'm going to play a few more things, and then we're going to play a lot of Di Sarli, I think. It's going to be Di Sarli afterparty, but I want to play one more Troilo number. This is Contratiempo, written by Piezola, and one of the more advanced and interesting numbers that the Troilo band is performing in the early 50s. Not overdone, not something that's played very often, you may never have heard this before. Troilo 52, Contratiempo. Contratiempo, counter time, counter point musical.
Written by Astor Piazzolla for Troilo's early-50s band; Michael likes that it is one of Piazzolla's less overdone arrangements for the orchestra.
Danced to it · 2 of 10
Okay, it's Di Sarli time. I hope you like Contratiempo. I really like it. I think it's not overly complex, which a lot of Pietzella stuff often is. So now we're going to have some Di Sarli. And there's so much good Di Sarli in 1952 that we haven't even played yet. It's shocking. So I'm going to play them in the order it's recorded, because then I don't have to think about what the right order is anymore.
First one, this is one of my favorites, with the voice of Pomar. So not so many songs with Pomar, although for a long time we played Pomar rather than Serpa. Serpa's only finally got his recognition in the last few years. Maybe Pomar's a bit more like Di Sarli. He's a little bit proper and straight. Serpa maybe makes more contrast to the sound of the orchestra. This is Domani, which is Italian for tomorrow. And after that, we'll immediately play the 1952 recording of Siete palabras, which is stronger and more vigorous, of course, than the 1945. So first Domani with Pomar and then Siete palabras.
Italian for "tomorrow"; one of Michael's favorites, with Pomar's more proper, straight voice contrasted against Serpa's style elsewhere in the night.
A 1952 re-recording the hosts call stronger and more vigorous than Di Sarli's original 1945 version.
Right, let's crack straight on with the strongest arrastre ever recorded in tango music. This is the arrastre in the 1952 Carasusia of Carlos Di Sarli. And if you pay attention to the double bass, who's playing very simply, just mostly on the first beat of the bar, you can hear the strings, the hairs of the bow biting into the strings of the double bass. Maybe a bit easier to hear the bass sounds if you've got headphones on, but it's pretty loud, so providing you're not just listening through tinny computer speakers, you should be able to hear it, and it really gives the most growling feeling, really strong. You can hear the hairs flying off the bow. So.
But to all the people who just thought or said, what a shame that was used in every beginner's tango class, it wasn't. That recording is not the one that was played in the tango classes. The one that's played is the later recording on RCA Victor, which gives the arrangement is the same, but there's more violins in the orchestra and it's recorded differently. So you don't hear the rhythm part so strongly and you hear more floaty violins and a slightly echoey, reverberating sound. Maybe if we played this version, we'd all be dancing differently. The one they play in the classes, it's better recording fidelity, more elegant, a little bit of reverb, less bass. This one, a bit more raw, a bit more...
Let's crack straight on. Oh, yeah, and did you notice the crazy polyrhythm in the piano? Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Fantastic stuff. Let's listen to the 1952 El Ingeniero.
Dag calls this the strongest arrastre (dragging bass pull) ever recorded in tango, growling and raw, compared to the smoother, more reverberant later RCA Victor remake used in beginner tango classes.
Sending goosebumps all over my skin. Fantastic stuff. So a special Tango Geek bonus question. Tango Geeks at the ready. What has that song got in common with one of the D'Arienzo songs that Dag played earlier tonight?
Okay, specifically, what? Everyone's going, what? What's it got in common with El Puntazo?
Wow, I've beaten the group. Yes, they're both composed by the same guy. I gave it away in the chat window. Both composed, yes, Mark, by Alejandro Giusti. Um, extra extra special bonus point. What is his third super famous composition? And there is a 1952 version from Dante Puricelli, but I'm not going to play it. It's el recodo, he sadly recorded in 51. So this guy from a bandagnon playing family, I think, composed very few pieces, but they're all top hits. Let's crack on with another number, and it's time to hear one more from Oscar Serpa, Por el camino.
One more Serpa vocal, closing out his 1952 appearances in the episode.
♪ Music · 2:24 ·
Okay, so I've played one of Pomar, let's play, and we've had one of Serpa. Now back to a couple of instrumentals and then the finishing touch. I want to play Mi refugio, which I don't hear often enough. It's got a very, very beautiful melody, which really carries the piece, and it makes sense when we learn that the melody is written by Juan Carlos Cobian, a personal friend of Di Sarli's, a pianist. They knew each other back in Bahia Blanca and he's the guy who wrote Nostalgias, which was a focus of a recent programme. So somebody with a really strong sense of melody. Let's listen then to Di Sarli, Mi refugio.
A melody by pianist Juan Carlos Cobián, a personal friend of Di Sarli's from their shared Bahía Blanca days, that Michael says doesn't get played often enough.
Danced to it · 5 of 13
♪ Music · 2:01 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Wildly beautiful. Lovely dialogue between the piano and the violins, which we don't get very much with Di Sarli, thinking about it, do we? Not dialogue. Often he just makes the little fill at the end of the phrase. So one more Di Sarli, then the remate, the finishing touch. I want to play the Di Sarli La viruta.
Now, listen closely to this, because there's some wild stuff going on in La viruta. So first of all, on the piano you get these big slides, glissando, glissandi in the plural, but it's easy to miss because the first phrase is a very vigorous phrase. Yeah, the first phrase of La viruta, and it's in that last bit, the dada, that he makes a slide, and he doesn't just make a single slide, he makes a double slide. He slides from the bass notes up to the top, waits for a moment, and then slides all the way back down again. So that's the first thing we have to listen out for.
Then in the middle of the piece, the piano plays some really uncomfortable discords. That's not new. That's something that Pugliese's been doing since the 40s, and Troilo was doing already in some of the songs we heard earlier tonight, but you can really hear it. And then a beautiful violin solo. So Teresa, maybe this can make like a trio of songs which become transformed in the Di Sarli interpretation, along with Carasusia and Don Juan. Have a listen to this, 1952, La viruta.
Chapter · 3:18:35
The Shavings Under Your Feet
This tango's title isn't what it sounds like.
Michael flags a double piano glissando in the first phrase and mid-piece discords before a violin solo; together with Carasucia and Don Juan he calls it a trio of older songs transformed by Di Sarli's own interpretation.
♪ Music · 2:30 ·
Wow! If you like... Oh, so the meaning of La viruta, it's not sawdust, but it's if you scrape a piece of wood so hard, like wood shavings. That's La viruta. Yeah. And on the sheet music, one of the early sheet musics of La viruta, they kind of draw this. So there's a black and white cartoon pencil sketch of a couple dancing. And then the artist has added something in colour where their feet is to show that their steps as they walk are scraping bits of wood off the floor.
“The meaning of la viruta, it's not sawdust, it's if you scrape a piece of wood so hard, like wood shavings.”
Right, time for La Tupungatina. We can't leave 1952 without hearing La Tupungatina. So 1952 is the year that Odeón introduced tape recording, tape masters. And Pugliese went into the studio and recorded eight tracks, all of which I think, no, seven, seven of the eight he'd already recorded, producing a great deal of confusion among collectors and geeks about whether they really were new versions or not. But they were. The slight disappointment about them is you can hear that the recording engineer gets overexcited and he turns the volume up too high, which causes saturation in the top, so it sounds a little bit compressed like a commercial radio station, which is a pity because the arrangements are a little bit different.
You notice that very especially on the 1952 recording of la jumba. Yeah, it's compressed, it's just a little bit unpleasant, and it's not the way the band played it, it's the way it was recorded. Do listen to the 1952 mala junta, I'm not going to play it now for the same reason, but it's a different arrangement, really interesting and special arrangements. And by the same token there's two versions of La Tupungatina.
Now, Tupungato is a mountain in the Andes, I believe. And Tupungatina is a woman from Tupungato. And it was a Zamba originally. And when Pugliese was courting his first wife, they listened to this music together. And years later, many, many years later, Pugliese asked Roberto Pepe, who joined the band as a bandoneonist, to make an arrangement of it, so that's what we hear. It has its origins as a Zamba. Now you hear immediately this is something different, a different feeling, not really a city feeling. And that's the reason, it's a countryside theme to start off with, and that will be the last track from tonight.
It's always very touching to spend time with you listening to music. Thank you so much to Dag once again for creating this possibility. And we'll see you again in 1933.
So, yeah. Thanks to you too, Michael. So it's, yeah, I can't say. I get so much from doing this, really. Fills my heart. So, La Tupungatina.
Closing the night: originally a zamba Pugliese and his first wife listened to while courting, later arranged for orchestra at his request by newly joined bandoneonist Roberto Pepe, which Michael says gives it a countryside rather than city feeling.
♪ Music · 4:35 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Tango By Year is Dag Stenvoll and Michael Lavocah's, published here with their permission. The audio plays from SoundCloud.