Tango 1953
Dag Stenvoll and Michael Lavocah · 2021-01-27 · 3:26:02
Dag Stenvoll and Michael Lavocah call 1953 a tricky year: on the surface the big four (D'Arienzo, Di Sarli, Troilo, Pugliese) are going strong, but D'Arienzo and Di Sarli have stopped developing, and Troilo is recording less since the 1951 deaths of two close friends, Homero Manzi and Enrique Santos Discépolo. Outside the dance hall, tango faces three challenges: rock and roll, mambo and above all folklore, which gets a push from a new Law of Live Music that backfires for tango because cinema owners hire cheap folk groups. The show leans on the advanced end: Elvino Vardaro's one-off all-star disc, Gobbi, Pugliese's two great Morán discs, Salgán, Lucio Demare's solo piano, and Troilo with Berón and Casal, then closes with Ranko Fujisawa singing Sur with Troilo and Grela before General Perón. A short afterparty plays other rhythms: a rumba, milongas, a folk-tango fandango and a zamba.
What this episode gave Tangopedia
Facts said in the episode, each now cited to the minute it is said.
In 1950 D'Arienzo went back to the style of the late 1930s, rejecting the 1940s, and for the rest of the 1950s there is no development in his music.
Di Sarli's music was never about development; it has a timeless quality, so standing still matters less than for D'Arienzo.
Troilo is losing force in 1953, with fewer recordings than expected; his heart has not recovered from 1951, when two close friends and big musical names, Homero Manzi and Enrique Santos Discépolo (heard 'Omar Omanzi and Di Scepolo'), died.
In the 1950s tango faces three challenges: rock and roll (strong only from about 1956), mambo (hits Argentina about 1955) and folklore, which is already having an impact.
A new law required a share of the music played in cinema and theatre intervals to be live; it backfired for tango because owners hired cheap, unknown folklore musicians, giving folklore an extra push.
Records played · 38
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
Caminito del indio / chacarera (unclear)Atahualpa Yupanqui · Atahualpa Yupanqui0:00 / 1:52
Opening warm-up: Yupanqui with guitar, a chacarera, introduced by Dag as 'Atahualpa and Chacarera' to mark folklore moving into the mainstream.
♪ Music · 1:52 ·
“That's one of the themes of the year, folklore emerging into the mainstream and becoming popular in the city.”
Good evening everyone and welcome to 1953, and that was Atahualpa and Chacarera. Michael, he's even better than you on the guitar, isn't he? Way better. And then he sings. Yeah, then he sings too. I saw a picture of him and Troilo hugging. I can't remember right where, but he was a big name, wasn't he, at the time?
He was now becoming a huge name. That's one of the themes of the year, folklore emerging into the mainstream and becoming popular in the city. So, 1953. We did a few 50s years before and talked about them, but what's special with this year?
Bit of a tricky year, 53, I would say. Bit of a tricky year. So on the outside, everything's fine, but look a bit closer and maybe not so fine. Simple orientation. Let's look at the big four. D'Arienzo, Di Sarli, Troilo, Pugliese. They're all going strong. But there are buts. If we look at what D'Arienzo was doing, his style is now constant. There is no development in the D'Arienzo Orchestra.
So in 1950, D'Arienzo and others were reinvigorated, perhaps because of censorship being ended. And Tango gets a shot in the arm, a boost. D'Arienzo changes his style a little bit. But remember, D'Arienzo went back to a simpler style, didn't he? In 1950, he went back to the style he had in the late 30s and kind of rejected the 40s. And now every year, pretty much for the rest of the 50s, there's no development in his music.
That's not good really, and we could say the same about Di Sarli, but Di Sarli's music has never really been about development. It has a timeless quality, so it's less serious, but then again not developing. Troilo and Pugliese, yes, they're developing, but Troilo is beginning to lose force, fewer recordings than we might expect, and he misses some big ones. His heart has not really recovered from the double blow in 1951, when two close friends, big musical names, passed away. Homero Manzi and Di Scepolo both died in 1951.
So that's a little bit just looking at the big four. What about if we look a bit more widely? Well, as we just hinted, the scene is bigger than just tango music, and in the 1950s tango faces three big challenges: rock and roll, mambo and folklore. Now they're all already happening, but rock and roll is not really going to become a very strong influence until, say, 56. Mambo is already happening, it's not really going to impact Argentina till 55. But for Chloré, yes, for Chloré is now impacting.
It's not really about competition. It's about the times are changing. Different musics are able to express the times or react to the times. And Tango asks, or rather, let's turn that around. Looking at this year poses the question, to what extent is Tango music able to adapt to these new times?
For Chloria adapts very well, and that's partly due to government legislation. So a new law is passed called the Law of Live Music, which stipulates that there has to be, I can't remember the percentage, maybe it's 50% of the music played in the intervals in cinemas and theatres has to be live music. Now, that ought to favor tango, shouldn't it? But it doesn't.
Chapter · 5:15
The law that helped the wrong music
Argentina tried to protect tango. It helped folklore.
The law backfires because what the cinema owners do is, because they want to pay the least amount of money possible, they get small folklore groups in, and they don't even get the good ones in. They get one or two unknown folklore musicians, and the law benefits them and promotes folklore, gives it an extra push. So it's a kind of protectionist against foreign music. It is, but it's not helpful for tango, which perhaps they thought it would have been. So that's where we are.
And we've just heard in the warm-up lots of music from around the world. A lot of it quite cheerful, isn't it? 1953 is not a year of sad music. And rock, mambo, those are cheerful movements. Those are the signs of the times. And preparing for this, I mean, the tango scene in the 50s, we talked about before, it can be a little bit heavy if you listen to it for a whole night. So it's a challenge to balance the more sort of lyrical and a bit heavy musical impulses with some lighter stuff.
Well, if you like, I'll just play light ones in the after party. Okay, good one. You have a series of them. No, no, I think I have a mix. But let's start with something a bit light. Let's start with the waltz. And this is by a trio of a bandoneón and two guitars. And then you might guess who's handling the bandoneón. It's Ciriaco Ortiz.
And we listened to him many times before, I mean, since our first program. So it's a fantastic bandoneón player and one of the influences on Troilo, as you write about in your book. And the waltz we're going to hear is something we, well, I associate with Di Sarli. It's La vuelta. Ah, yes. Because Di Sarli recorded it twice. Also this year, actually, with Serpa singing. But I wanted to play this one because you'll never hear it in Melongas, so it's more interesting to listen to.
But he's going strong still, Ortiz, at this time. Hey, he's still going strong. He'd just recently helped Rosita Caroga make a bit of a comeback in 1952, but again, he sounds exactly the same as he did before. Fantastic musician, but not doing anything new. Yeah, it's this conversando style that you write about also. So let's hear it, the world tables with the trio Ciriaco Ortiz.
A vals by Ciriaco Ortiz's trio (bandoneón and two guitars), picked because Di Sarli also recorded it that year with Serpa but nobody hears this version at milongas.
Someone wrote in the chat window, gorgeous phrasing, isn't it? It is gorgeous phrasing. Only Troilo phrases better, and that's because Ciriaco Ortiz taught him everything he knows. That's uplifting. It's very uplifting, yeah. It's nice as a 1953 track, isn't it?
Yes, and when we listen to it, of course, it's a lot clearer than very similar music from the 20s and 30s. But let's remember, in the 20s and 30s, when people were listening to it live, it sounded as fresh as that. Yeah, that's true. We forget that, the old recordings were live. Yeah, when they were live, they sounded like this. There was no scratching. And even better, I mean, in the club when you listen to it live. Imagine. Well, we'll just have to dream about that, our time machine. Keep working on it.
Let's go on to one of the great singers, Alberto Castillo. And he's been going strong as a vocalist, a soloist for some time. And I posted in the Tango by You group, or the event description was a quote from one of his recordings this year. A media luz. It's not his song. It's a Donato composition from earlier. We know it from, as dancers, we know it from Donato, I think it's from 41.
And it's an interesting lyric. It's about, I think it's about the brothel, if you could say it this way, or about, say, a luxury apartment where you can call and you can go and you can have cocktails and you can have love and you can have a good time. Tango and cocaine even, says in the lyrics. Everything. Yeah. Soft velvet furnishings and everything.
A media luz, yeah, soft low light. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, it gives the address, doesn't it, in the lyric? The first thing, yeah, it does. It's in Corrientes three four eight, and you go there and it's this nothing office building or something now. And listen, when Castillo comes in and the way he sings Corrientes, there was this phrasing, wonderful. That's a detail to look out for.
And after, I want to play a waltz called Amigos y mujeres, friends and women. It's, it's interesting lyrics about friends and women always wanting something from you, and you give them your passion, your heart and your love, and what do you get back? Treason. So it's a bitter one. I'm not sure if it's meant sarcastic or if it's serious, but we can talk about it after it maybe. Well, maybe I, Castillo, I would hold out the possibility of irony. Let's hear them, so A media luz and Amigos y mujeres. This is Alberto Castillo singing.
Castillo's version of the Donato classic about a bachelor flat at Corrientes 348; Dag points to how Castillo phrases 'Corrientes'.
A bitter vals about friends and women paying back with treason; Lavocah suspects irony. A listener hears Peruvian rhythm in it.
Michael, let's try not to end up like this, like too old, bitter and whining men. Let's do our best. Yeah. It's playful. And some Peruvian rhythm in this waltz, someone wrote. And not the only such waltz of the year. There are others.
Now, what's the Peruvian waltz that Que Nadie Sepa Me Suffrir has an epic recording in 1953, also from Alberto Castillo? Yes, which influences France even. Maybe we'll talk about that later. They will hear it in the after party. Maybe.
Right, let's keep the playful spirit for a little more and listen to a milonga. And this is a milonga you've danced to in other versions, but this is Charlo singing El llorón, the crybaby. And I think it's fun. You can hear all the lyrics also. And yeah, it's a version I've never danced to because it's not really a dance milonga.
And Charlo is also one of the really old guys who's been singing since, I mean, he was the big singer in Tango 1928 that we had two weeks ago. So this is a veteran. Yes. So it'll be interesting for us to compare the quality of his voice because very often as singers get older, their voice begins to go. However, I have an intuition that his voice 25 years on is still going to be just fine. Let's see what you think. El llorón with Charlo with orchestra.
Charlo, a veteran who was the big singer of 1928, still sings in tune; the milonga is not for dancing and still has a flute that sounds pre-1920.
♪ Music · 1:50 · The lyrics, on the song's page
That's funny, isn't it? Interesting to hear the flute. So when you hear a flute, that's saying before 1920, 1910. And the lyric is so dense with Argentinisms. Like, me diplomau haciendo cortes. I got my diploma dancing cortes. What the cortes mean?
Cortes in comparadas. The sudden stops in the dance that allowed the sensual contact, which so scandalized everyone at the end of the 19th century. So it's taking us way, way back to the past. All right. Good. And yeah, Charlo's voice still perfect. It works, doesn't it? Yeah. You can hear it's an older voice, but he hasn't lost any of his tuning or sensitivity. Not quite perhaps a little bit less sweet, that's all.
Okay, let's get serious. Let's get on to a band we have listened to before, Horacio Salgán, which is something we don't hear so often at milongas, but we really enjoyed listening to the music in his music in, uh, it's something you didn't hear much at milonga even back in the day. But, uh, the orchestra, I mean, the musicians were crazy about the musicians were crazy about him. When Salgán made his debut, the audience was packed out with musicians, including Pugliese. Yeah, and he's, uh, he's a pianist, right? He's a pianist, and you can hear the piano. It's not held shyly at the back like Pugliese, his piano. He allows himself to take a big role, and it's advanced music. This is Guardia Nueva. This is at the vanguard of the music that's being made.
“It's musicians' music, so already not so popular.”
But it's interesting when you look at the discography, you can see that it's not as popular as we might like to think. Okay, it's musicians' music, so already not so popular. But he changes record company from Victor, which is one of the big companies, to Te Ka, which is a small and relatively less important record company who cannot produce such fidelity on their records. That's not a move he'd have made voluntarily, I don't think.
And this I'm going to play a waltz, which is not so advanced maybe because it's a waltz. And, uh, it's a waltz that you write about in your Troilo book, Michael, because Troilo records it. It's Un momento, and you describe it as having one of the most beautiful and important lyrics in the whole tango canon. Those are strong. Did I say that? Yeah, you wrote it actually. I stand by it. Yeah. Do you want to elaborate?
Because, well, the stanza, let me just try and recall. I don't want the same old story to live this moment and then die. So it's someone saying, it's a man saying, I'm not want an affair, I don't want a bit of fun, I want something lasting. That's what the Un momento refers to. So this is a real maturing in the Argentine man. A breakthrough. Yeah.
And when I listen to this, I really like Salgán's piano playing. This is what stands out for me. And also the vocalist here is someone you know. It's Roberto Goyeneche. So the guy went on to sing for Troilo. And then one of the great voices of the 60s and 70s.
Yeah, it's really interesting to listen to Goyeneche's phrasing here because with Troilo, he becomes a disœur, someone who speaks the lyric rather than singing it. But I feel he's kind of learning this craft, trying to follow this crazy orchestra. I think his time with Salgán is an essential part of his development as a singer, even if he can't do with Salgán what he's able to do with Troilo. Yeah. So Horacio Salgán, Un momento, which is a waltz with Roberto Goyeneche singing.
Salgán on the small Te-Ka label with the young Goyeneche; Lavocah calls the lyric one of the most beautiful and important in the canon.
Wow, essential stuff. Isn't that interesting? Yes. So joyful. It's like right from the outset with the complexity, Salgan is throwing flower petals into the air. That's the visual impression that I get from the music. It's quite complex. It's way more complex than the Salis version, for sure.
Then Troilo's version, Troilo's is complex in another way, I guess. And then when Goyeneche comes in, he's phrasing. Wonderful. Sometimes it's really on the words, and then other times, absolutely wild and beautiful decorative piano of Salgan. That's a really special track. Sweet.
Right. Yeah, you mentioned Di Sarli. Let's move on to Di Sarli. He was one of the big four, of course, this year also. And you said he didn't evolve much during the 50s. But when it's this good, why do you need to?
Exactly. Great stuff. I mean, yeah, he came back in 51 and we listened to his 51 and 52 tracks before. And this year he has two singers, Mario Pomar and Oscar Serpa. Yes, he's got a stable vocal team right through the first part of the 1950s.
Let's hear Mario Pomar singing Duelo criollo, which is a blood-dripping song about two guys killing each other with knives. But it has great walking beat. Right from the beginning, there's a super strong rastre. And listen for the sharpness of the attack of the violins as they make the marcato. Strongest marcato in violins in tango music, this song. Yeah. Duelo criollo, Carlos Di Sarli with Mario Pomar singing.
A knife-fight song with a very strong rastra and what Lavocah calls the strongest violin marcato in tango; the open texture lets you hear the bandoneón.
♪ Music · 2:22 ·
Morir los dos, and then they both die. And all of us as well.
So spacious, isn't it, at the beginning, that the texture of the piece is very open, very little going on. You can hear all the instruments. Yeah. This is maybe also why the rastra is even more powerful, because it's so spacious, and then you get this... Yeah, that's all there is at the beginning. There's just this... Yeah.
And someone commented that you can actually hear the band on own here, and it's not so usual for the Sarli. I mean, it's more about the violins, usually, the Sarli. But here you can hear the band on own. Yes, a moaning low solo. Perhaps, Di Sarli said that the band d'Agnon should play like an organ only, no flourishes. But then maybe it's intoning a funeral oration here.
It was a very, very low solo line that it played, wasn't it? That suits his organ role idea. Let's hear an instrumental. It has a bit of the same. It's the Quejas de bandoneón, so moaning of the band d'Agnon. And I like this. Yeah.
This is, it's so interesting to me. Everyone, you all know this tango. So do you have a favourite version?
In the tango community, Quejas de bandoneón is 100% associated with Troilo. And also with Juan Carlos Copes, who passed away last week. So there's a connection with him as well, because at the end of his show, Carlos Copes would like to dance to Troilo's Quejas de bandoneón. This is one of the famous dancers you're talking about. Famous dancer of show tango. One of the people who kept show tango alive through the decades. An important figure historically, very much so.
So the Troilo Quejas de bandoneón starts its life in 1944, I think. And of course, it's a Piazzolla arrangement. What does that mean? It means it's a very, very complex arrangement, which at the time baffled the dancers. People actually walked out of Troilo gigs when they played that. Now, the Di Sarli Quejas de bandoneón, of course, is not going to be about great complexity. But despite the fact that Troilo owns Quejas de bandoneón, personally speaking, I like the Di Sarli version much more. And sorry, people, but there we are, you know, I'm here to tell you what I think and what I feel.
And when we get to the quejas of the band, the bandion really does complain. You hear the moaning low notes in the bandion, which is something, okay, it's something interpreted differently in all the different arrangements, but it's something in the sheet music in the trio section that was a novelty when Filiberto composed the piece back in 27 or whenever it was, and each band has to interpret that. But the spacious texture of Di Sarli really pushes that to the front, so it's very easy to enjoy the band in line and it has a wonderful dialogue, of course, with Di Sarli's violins.
So, and that line, it should always remind you of another tango, because that line was the counter melody line of the bandignon was used in 1943 in the tango Igual que un bandignon, that's the one that goes... Igual que un bandignon, se shows es corazón. So whenever I hear that line, in Quejas de bandoneón, I hear those words in my head, even though they weren't written until 16 years after the piece was written.
And you all can too. Just like a bandignon, you weep heart. That's what that phrase means. And Di Sarli creates this wonderful dialogue between that line in the bandignon and the violins. You hear... The violin goes... And we can follow that through. That's part of the great pleasure of listening to it.
Yeah, I totally agree. It's about halfway into the song. And it's... I'm just thinking about it. It makes me... Give me goose skin. Piel de gallina, they say. Chicken pimps. Let's listen to this. Quejas de bandoneón with Carlos Di Sarli.
Lavocah prefers it to Troilo's version, for the spacious texture that puts the moaning low bandoneón line in dialogue with the violins.
Oh, wonderful. It's a very short song. It's just over two minutes. And so was the previous one. Did you notice? Did anyone notice how short all these numbers are? Not just this one, a lot of Di Sarli pieces are.
Chapter · 38:45
Why Di Sarli's tangos are so short
Di Sarli plays slow. Why are his records so short?
So Di Sarli does something differently. What's the normal structure of a vocal tango? Instrumental, verse and chorus to introduce. Then the singer comes, sings a verse and a chorus, and an instrumental break, then the singer comes back and the finish. After 45, that starts to change a bit and the singer comes in after 30 seconds instead of a minute. But that's the general structure.
What does Di Sarli generally do? Introduction, instrumental verse and chorus. Singer comes in, verse and chorus, finish. Four blocks of music instead of six. And that's why everyone now rush to their computer. But if you look, a lot of them come in at two minutes, 20 seconds, something like that, because there are fewer of these 30 second blocks.
And Di Sarli plays slowly, right? Not fast. So that should make them longer, not shorter, which it has done. Because if you played the speed of everyone else, they'd be two-minute tangos.
All right. We have to listen to some Serpa before we finish with this early chapter. Let's hear a milonga, Con alma y vida, with Soul and Life. And this was recorded also with Doran back in 1945. So it's a popular milonga with this. I mean, this early didn't record so many milongas. So why do you think he recorded it with the same twice?
That's a very good question. It's his own composition, but maybe that's the reason. Actually, I can answer why he likes this milonga. Di Sarli is very good at cadencia, at the swinging nature of a phrase that takes you from one end to the other. Now, this milonga really has that. If you're not sure what I mean, a D'Arienzo milonga is like a horse, but with Di Sarli milongas you feel the sentences. And Alma y vida goes...
“A D'Arienzo milonga is like a horse, but with Di Sarli milongas you feel the sentences.”
So you've got these swinging phrases, the swinging nature. The Argentine's called cadencia for the way you move your body through the phrase. That's why he likes it. Every time I listen to this 50s recording, I regret that he's recording on Teca. And not, sorry, not on Teca. It's on the Music Hall label. But I really wish I could hear it in crystal clarity, because he starts off with the violins quite high and the piano quite high and I'd love to have heard that live, pure fidelity. But it's special the way the piano and the violins join at the beginning.
All right, at least not for that. Con alma y vida with Di Sarli, and this is Oscar Serpa singing.
A Di Sarli milonga (his own composition, recorded before in 1945) picked for its cadencia, the swing of a phrase.
Danced to it · 5 of 10
♪ Music · 2:18 ·
Dressed in the night and the moon. I know, it's super, super romantic. Oír la voz querida. To hear the beloved voice.
Milongas are normally not romantic, are they? That's the waltzes. Milongas are, they're upbeat and happy, but normally more entertaining. Of course a Di Sarli milonga is not going to be a typical milonga, he brings something else. And I can hear what you mean with this swing, it's much more like this wave feeling than with the D'Arienzo, for instance.
Exactly, which is what Di Sarli's music is all about. He's not going to do a milonga unless he can bring to it this sense of the wave. Beautiful. If only we had more, they probably had a few more that they performed a la parisina, spontaneously in the milongas, but didn't bother to record.
Because milongas are not range music, so he was more into the tangos, I guess, for recordings. Well, all the serious bands were, if you look at Troilo and Pugliese, very few milongas recorded, especially Pugliese, but they had more that they played, and the same with the waltzes. To give one example, we know that Pugliese was performing Desde el alma as early as 1946, but I don't think it gets recorded until 1975. And only then, once they've actually written a formal arrangement. Before that time, they were just playing at La Parisina in the milongas.
Let's move on to, let's call it the universe of D'Arienzo. Not directly to him, but to his former arranger and bandoneon player, Héctor Varela. We haven't listened so much to him in Tango by Year. Why do you think, Michael?
Again, not much development, one or two exceptional numbers that are very much beloved by the public, like for in tres años, but that's from 56, isn't it, a bit outside our range. When I review his oeuvre, the tracks that I like the most are the very, very early ones from 1950. I think we'll listen to them in the 50 program also. But there is a nice voice from 53 that I've played sometimes at milongas, mixed, because you can't really make a tanda out of this.
It's called Igual que dos palomas. So like two doves. Oh, that's sweet. And this is a duet with Rodolfo Lesica and Argentino Ledesma singing. It's a sweet thing, I think. Quite accessible, I'd say. Shall we hear it? Let's listen to it.
A duet by Varela's orchestra; a sweet piece that Lavocah says he plays mixed in at milongas.
Danced to it · 3 of 8
♪ Music · 0:44 ·
Wasn't that sweet? Yes, very sweet. La, la, la, la, la, la, la. Very nice the way the voices interact. Very often when you get two voices, they sing either in simple harmony or first one and then the other. That was more creative. I enjoyed that a lot.
There was a good question in the chat window. Why singer duets work so well in valses, but not so often in tangos? Do you have any idea?
Well, my guess is that it's to do with the subject matter because tangos are about the poor suffering man and he's on his own. He's an isolated figure. And voices blending together create sweetness and harmony and romance and that's waltz. In the Troilo orchestra, Pájaro ciego, there are two voices, aren't there, all through that 1941 period? There's a second voice in the Troilo orchestra, but he's only there to give Fiorentino a rest. At the malongas, Amadeo Mandarino, and just on one track they do a little duet thing of it which works very, very well. So I think it's to do with the character of the lyrics.
Okay, that was Varela, who was with D'Arienzo in the 40s. Let's go even further back to a D'Arienzo musician in the 30s, Juan Polito, who played piano, he took over after Biagi, and he has his own band now. I mean, he's been around for a long time. Well, he's had his own band since the whole band quit in February 1940, but they didn't do very well. They didn't get a recording contract. Echagüe went his own way. So this is not a 1940 band.
If this were the 1940 band, we would be listening to the D'Arienzo 1939 orchestra without D'Arienzo, the orchestra that recorded killer tracks like Dragón Amargo and Mandria and Por qué razón, all of those. But this is not. This is many years down the line. And what you'll hear is a bit like the Varela orchestra. It's an orchestra of elaboración intermedia, intermediate complexity. So they keep it rather simple. And once again, Polito, we know when he plays with D'Arienzo, he hits the keyboard really hard. And you can hear that here. He bangs out the beats. It's fun, but musically not really very complex.
I totally agree. It would get quite repetitive after quite a short time. Yeah. And for me, it reminds me of 1940 D'Arienzo, maybe. I mean, really simple stuff. And it doesn't sound like 53. It sounds more like early 40s. But interestingly, I mean, the thing I want to play is Una carta, which is something we know from Troilo of Fiorentino. Yes, isn't that amazing that they recorded this? Yeah, it is.
And yeah, the lyrics is about a guy who's in jail, and he sends a letter to his mom asking if it's true that his wife or girlfriend leaves him, left him for another man and put their kid in an orphanage. Yeah, it's an absolutely desperate lyric. Actually, what he actually asks her is, is it true that my woman has installed another man in our place? So she's in the same house where he lived with her, with another guy, and put the kid in an orphanage. Yeah, that's the part I don't understand. I mean, I can understand getting another man while he's in jail, but putting her kid in an orphanage sounds pretty good. Another man's, I mean, who knows? Who knows?
Yeah, but this is more about the beat and the sound. So I'm interested to hear what you think about this, Polito. The beat is very strong and insistent. Yeah, I'm also very interested too to get the feedback and reaction of the public. All right. Juan Polito, Una carta. This is Raúl Figueroa singing.
Played for historical interest: Polito, D'Arienzo's pianist after Biagi, with a simple banging-the-beat band that sounds like the early 1940s.
♪ Music · 2:31 ·
Yeah, not a lot of enthusiasm in the chat window about that one. I mean, we're spoiled, aren't we? Yeah. If that band turned up to your local Molonga, you'd all dance till your feet broke. Yeah, that's true. Like puppets on a string, but compared even to D'Arienzo, lacking something. I wanted to play it because we had the chance to hear Polito this once. So interesting in a historical perspective, just to hear what it sounded like. Very much so.
But let's move on to the real thing, D'Arienzo. But you said in the introduction that D'Arienzo, it's not so much new from him at this point. So I'm not going to dwell a long time with him, but let's hear one of his tangos, instrumental tangos from this year, Independencia, which is one I really like. Yeah, and these are super because they're being played with energy and they're being recorded in high fidelity than they ever have been before. They're on Tape Masters now, so we can hear rather a bit more of what's going on in the music. Yeah. Let's see.
An energetic instrumental, in better fidelity than before because D'Arienzo is now on tape masters; has the Puglisi one-note violin solo.
What an energy! Oh, just proving that nobody does D'Arienzo better than D'Arienzo. All the ingredients are still there, you know, the beautiful variation with the change of rhythm, from that change the one note violin solo of Cayetano Puglisi, banging up the beats on the piano, bandoneons and violins working together to make the marcato. And at this point you said they used Tape Masters. But actually, this is from Tango Tunes edition, so I'm not sure if it's based on the Tape Masters or some shellac, you know? Well, Tango Tunes will have prepared their re-edition from a shellac record. All right, yeah. So will you hear the difference, you think? Well, with the Tape Masters, well, you can hear the music from the Tape Master, and of course there's absolutely zero crackle, because it's straight from the master. And that particular track is available, I believe. Yeah. Yeah, it's still in pretty good quality on that show. Yeah, it's pretty good. And someone wrote, it's definitely better than Polito.
Anyway, let's move on to something really different because back in Tango 1933, we listened to a promising test recording by an orchestra that never got to make any records. Elvino Vardaro. Exactly. Yeah. And I was so happy when I was looking through the discography from this year and I discovered there were two recordings. He had his own band in 1953. Yes, this was an initiative of the technical director, no, the artistic director of the Columbia Record Company, which was not a big company for Argentina, Martin Daré. And he invited Elvino Vardaro to put together an orchestra and record a disc on his label. So he did that and there's only one disc that's recorded.
Chapter · 1:00:20
One disc, then nothing
The best violinist in tango got one record as a leader.
So he puts together an all-star orchestra, great musicians in the band, gets Argentino Galván to do the arrangements, a top arranger. And Columbia put it out on a disc in their C-series, which is for celebrities, it announces proudly. And you can hear all the musicianship of Elvino Vardaro and his musical idea. It's not about impressing you, it's about quality. Yeah, you don't hear it. I mean, in the beginning, it starts, yeah, you wouldn't hear it. But then he comes in on the violin a bit solo, and you can sense that it's Vardaro. Not as exciting as the 1933 recording we listened to twice in that show. I think that's the only song we've repeated on Tango by Years. Yeah, it is actually the only one. Yeah, you were super excited. I mean, we kept going like 15 minutes with that one song.
You know, I was thinking a lot about that today because I was thinking about how difficult it was for more advanced orchestras to record. And that's a theme also in 1953 because there are other new orchestras and it's the more advanced ones in 1953 that are still struggling to get recorded. And I had a new reflection, just supposing that Victor had recorded Vardaro back in 1933. Would it have sold? Would the public have bought it? We don't know, really, do we? They might not have done. They might still have not been ready, because when Laurenz starts performing music that's in that lineage in 1937, he doesn't sell many records. So, in a horrible, this is a horrible thought I had today, which I'm going to share with you, in a commercial sense, maybe Victor were right. Yeah. When they said, sorry, it's not commercial. Maybe they were right.
Yeah, maybe it was. But, I mean, it just shows that we are more advanced today in terms of quality. Today we listen to it and we go, are you out of your mind? This is the best there is. So it's fantastic that we've got these tracks. Let's see, one of them, I'm going to play Pico de Oro. Something of gold? What does it mean, the Pico? Pico de Oro? I don't know. No. It's an interesting choice because a very old composition by Agostín Bardi, I believe.
But Pugliese was also inspired. Pugliese said my ABC is Arolas for A, Bardi for B, and Cobián for C. So three very early composers inspired people over many, many, many decades, which is kind of surprising that that inspiration would continue to be relevant and fruitful. Anyway, sometime in the 80s, Pugliese wrote an arrangement for Pico de Oro and he produced it at a rehearsal and he put it on the music stands and the musicians started playing it and they went, oh wow, this is absolutely wild. They were all really excited and after a while Pugliese got up from the piano, picked up all the sheet music off the stands and went, just joking.
Chapter · 1:03:20
Pugliese's joke
Pugliese handed out a wild arrangement. Then took it back.
Fantastic story. So yeah, let's hear it. Pico de Oro with Elvino Vardaro, and listen out for the violin when it comes in.
One side of Vardaro's only disc as a leader, Argentino Galván's arrangements, issued on Columbia's celebrity C-series; Vardaro's violin goes from a line to double stopping to very fast articulated notes and still sounds like tango.
♪ Music · 2:53 ·
So sensitive, I'm speechless. It's like he's an older and more mature man and he's just taking out his feelings on this recording. I think we might have to listen to that again. There was so much to say, but before we do, I just want to pick up on the chat window and Gerardo has shared that he heard, listen, I'll just read what Gerardo's kindly shared with us. He says, I have the shellac signed by Vardaro. He gave it to me when he presented his orchestra at Radio El Mundo. My father took me as they were friends.
That's a beautiful story, Gerardo. And what a wonderful thing. If you're going to have just one shellac, I don't know, maybe you've got more, but what a shellac to own.
So wasn't that interesting? From the first moments it was very sensitive. There was so much musical color. It changed mood several times. The emotion being conveyed changed very markedly through the piece. Beautiful conversations. At one time you could hear the violin in dialogue. First, it's hard to be sure if it's a cello or a double bass. What else was there in the Vardaro's violin solo? First of all, at the technical aspect.
So he starts off with a line, then it quickly changes to double stopping, something that for us is most familiar from Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. And then it's extremely fast drunk, like that, where every note is separately articulated. So of course that's a master play. But what impresses me most of all is that it still sounds like tango violin when he does it. All this classical technique at his service.
When Francini does things like that, it sounds classical and feels classical, but this, it's clear he can do all of that but it still sounds with a tango feeling. So a huge amount to enjoy in that recording. Yeah, wow. And because of this and the story, we need to listen to the other side of this all right record. This is about the composition El cuatro. Okay, yes, so thanks for picking me up on that as well. Kobien is Pico de oro and Vardaro wrote the tango in the other space. So this is the other side of the same record. Let's listen to it again and enjoy Vardaro.
The other side of the same disc: a Bardi tango; Domingo Mancuso, the high violin from D'Arienzo's 1930s band, is fourth violin and there is a cello.
♪ Music · 2:54 ·
Advanced stuff. That's super advanced, isn't it? And once again, they put this one disc out, and we can assume it didn't sell very well, because otherwise they'd have asked him to do another one, wouldn't they? Once the song was playing, I was just checking the personnel in my notes. Domingo Mancuso, who in the D'Arienzo 1930 orchestra is the guy who plays the high violin lines, he's the fourth violin in this band. Just saying. And there is a cello in the band that one changed even faster than the previous one, didn't it? Extraordinary.
Let's get closer to what we know as dancers and listen to an instrumental tango by Alfredo Gobbi. It's called Si sos brujo. I like this one. He has a few recordings this year, also with singers, but I prefer.
Yeah, and this is one of the songs of the year, isn't it? There's also a Pugliese performance. So maybe people know it from the Pugliese version, maybe. But Gobbi is doing fine. Yes, Gobbi is doing fine. He could have done maybe even better if he'd been more organized. Was he disorganized as a person? He was a complete bohemian. Yeah, it's a miracle he made the recordings that he did. Well, let's hear it, see what you think. Si sos brujo with Gobbi, instrumental.
“It's a miracle he made the recordings that he did.”
Lavocah on Gobbi: modest violin, tempo that flexes organically, but a milonguero orchestra and still inspiring to sextets today.
Danced to it · 5 of 163
♪ Music · 3:20 ·
Yowza! Yeah. So is that Gobbi himself on the violin? He's Gobbi on violin. And isn't it interesting how he doesn't show off? He's quite modest as a player. Very modest, yeah. So doesn't really call attention to himself. Musically, it's very complete.
It took me a long time to really get into Gobbi and unusually it was talking to musicians that really helped me to appreciate him. Normally when I talk to musicians they tell me things that don't really matter to me as a dancer, but in this case it really helped. For example, you don't really notice it but it's not fixed tempo. The tempo is changing and modulating, but in a very organic way that's very pleasing, and all the different musical elements or all the expressive tools available to a tango orchestra are in there. But as an orchestra it's milonguero, it's dedicated to dancing. And when you hear sextets now playing in the Gobbi style it's super exciting, and it still inspires them and a lot of traditional tango music does not. So this is music that was extremely modern in its day but milonguero, managed to appeal to dancers and is still appealing to both dancers and musicians now. I think that's quite something. And I think it's an orchestra we're going to hear more of in the next years. Hopefully, yes.
And this song specifically, there is a version by Pugliese. But in general, I think it's easy to hear some kind of connection to Pugliese in Gobbi. There's something with the sound. They're in a similar lineage, aren't they? Yeah, some similarities, yeah.
And let's move on to Pugliese. And he has some, this is not one of his bad years. It's a really good. Not one of his bad years. It's fantastic stuff. Which years are you referring to? I mean, in the 70s. 1984 or something? No, but it's great stuff.
And I want to play first a vocal tango with Alberto Morán singing, my favorite, I think I should say my favorite Pugliese singer. And he records the Desvelo this year, the Floor on Floor. And we listened to the Troilo version back in, was it 47 or 48? And I cannot decide which one of these I like most because I just love them both to the bottom of my heart. They're fantastic tangos. Yes. At the opening, if I would choose from the first five seconds, I would choose the Troilo performance. The Pugliese one opens fairly modestly and then Morán opens his mouth and it's like pouring oil on a fire.
Now I wish I'd played the performance of Antonio Rodio from 1944 in the Lost After Party last week, but I don't think it made it onto my playlist. Something you can do later. It's sort of like a beginner's guide to Desvelo before you move on to the Himalayan slopes of the Troilo and Pugliese interpretations. Yeah. But it's a great track.
But let's hear also an instrumental, one we know from many other orchestras, Chiqué. So naturally, I was reviewing the year 1953 over the past few days, and Pugliese's Chiqué is one of the tracks that came to my attention. And I looked at what I'd written. I don't even need to go and check it because it's stuck in my mind. I'd written in the comment field on my computer, From Darkness to Light. Ooh. Why? Because it evolves in this direction. Just listen, and I think it will make sense. Interesting.
Yeah, these are two just fantastic tangos. So you might have to lie down. I'm glad I'm sitting down already. Yeah, so first is Desvelo, The Floor on Floor. Why does it have two titles, by the way? Do you know?
Yes, it's, no, it's not censorship, it's because, if I'm not mistaken, the author, a composer, is Bornesi, who is a guy from Uruguay. He was Gardel's singing teacher, so it originally had a lyric which was not very interesting, written by an Uruguayan. And then when the piece really got picked up by the Argentine tango community, they didn't like the lyrics, so they wrote a new one. But there was then a legal problem because the new song was registered with Sadiq in Argentina and the old one was registered with the other body in Montevideo. So then there was a legal tussle and the final answer was you must always include the title of both and they share the revenue, probably. From, I don't know about the terms of the deal. Let's hear it, this fellow, and then after that Chiqué, an instrumental, both Pugliese. Oh, this is just so wonderful.
Morán in a tango Troilo also recorded (which Dag heard in 47 or 48); the double title comes from the Uruguayan composer's old lyric and the Argentine one, kept after a copyright tussle between Sadaic and Montevideo.
Lavocah's note on it: 'From darkness to light'. Pugliese adds far more than the 1930 composition holds; Camarano's violin and Ruggiero's bandoneón.
Danced to it · 5 of 330
Beauty and power, you said, Michael, about Pugliese. This is mostly beauty, a little bit of power, but mostly beauty. I feel warm, I'm physically, literally warmer than I was six minutes ago. And the details: first Pugliese with the piano and then Camarano on the violin and then the Ruggiero on the band on it. So much changing and wonderful details in this track, and so much more in that track than actually there is in the composition. Yeah, which is almost nonsensical.
“He hears things that aren't in the music, but should have been.”
But let's go back and pick a version from the year that it was composed, 1930. Of course it's not going to sound the same, but Pugliese adds more. This is something that starts to happen, the Pugliese arrangement goes beyond the original composition. The supreme example of that is La Mariposa. It's something typical. Gallo Ciego. Listen to the Pugliese Gallo Ciego. Can you hear what's in that in the 1930s versions of Tantori and D'Arienzo? You can't. He hears things that aren't in the music, but should have been. Extraordinary what he does. Yeah, extraordinary.
Did it make sense? From darkness to light, there's this incredible intensity and then by the end it's joyful. That's what I meant. Yeah, especially when the violin re-enters after Ruggiero, that's when for me it turns to pure light and pure joy and the intensity is overcome. Yeah, these were these two tracks were from two different discs in May and August, I think. And then in October there's a new disc and I want to play both sides of this disc. On one side it's La última copa. Oh God, we're gonna die with Morán singing. And then let's find the second time on the B side, it's an instrumental that. Oh, can you imagine coming home from the record shop with this record? No, you die pleasure. Oh yeah.
So La última copa, it's about the last, the last glass of, is it wine or more? It's champagne. He's presumably, he's in the cabaret and he says to the waiter, waiter, pour another one, right up to the brim. So he needs it, obviously he does. Of course, I mean, he's not going to manage to forget, is he? He should know. Let's hear it, and this is again with Morán singing, you know, to my Copa, and then the instrumental Seguime si podés, follow me if you can.
An extreme interpretation: Morán sings both verses, violins at white heat, a long near-empty passage and a Biagi-style fake ending.
Danced to it · 5 of 8
The B side of the October disc, an instrumental; start time approximate (lost in a long Whisper gap).
What a rollercoaster of a tango. It takes you all over the place emotionally. Extraordinary, isn't it?
Built to a crescendo pretty quickly. It's such aggressive playing. Such aggression, especially in the violins. It's one of those tangos where you can hear the horsehair flying off the bows as they disintegrate.
And then by one minute, 30 seconds, it's produced this incredibly intense white-hot crescendo. And you think, where can they go from there? And then he takes it right back. And there's a long period where almost nothing happens, which is quite an unusual way to arrange a piece. And then there's this mad, almost Biagi-style ending, wait for it, wait for it, when's it going to be? Now!
Wonderful, the contrasts are just amazing in the songs. An extreme interpretation, and just to pick up on something a couple of people pointed out about the Morán interpretation, he sings the entire lyric, he sings both verses. So he starts at the beginning and he's singing for pretty much the whole lyric, the whole tango. Oh, where do we go after this, Michael? I don't know, Dag, perhaps you've a plan.
Yeah, well, I, my thought was to take it down a bit and just, uh, have a relax, um, good track in between if we just get around the, um, the big four. I think we're yet to hear from one of those. Yes, uh, we have Troilo left but we're not going to go directly to him. We're going to take a little detour and we're going to, we're going to listen to, um, another piano player that we know from tango, but he doesn't record with his band this year, but he has some solo recordings. It's Lucio Demare. Oh, wow. Yes, uh, just two solo, solo piano recordings from this year and, um, Dag, is one Humildad. This is the one I'm gonna play, it's a waltz. Yes, you listen to it before. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, outstanding.
When you listen to this you realize that the tango pianists, of course tango piano is completely different to any other kind of piano, but when you listen to this you suddenly hear the connection to Weimar era cabaret from the 1930s. It has exactly the same sentiment. Wow, yeah, it's extraordinary. It doesn't really come across the tango in the beginning, but, uh, but we know it's the mother, we know it's him. And that he did this, you know, why he didn't have his orchestra, it's just not commercial enough at this point, or he had other interests, I don't know. I mean, he did dissolved the orchestra in 1945 when he received an offer to return, I think, to Cuba with the Trio Argentino, which is him performing with the voices of and Fugazot. And maybe after that it was too difficult to pick it up again. Yeah, he, like a lot of musicians, he had his own bar, so maybe he was playing piano in the smoky bar. So let's, let's imagine, let's close our eyes and think we're in that bar and listening to this live in 1953.
Solo piano; Lavocah hears the link to Weimar cabaret and Chopin. Demare had dissolved his orchestra in 1945.
Something different. Listen to this, Humildad with Lucio Demare, piano solo.
Pure beauty. Now just imagine if the Demare orchestra struck up right now with, for example, the Demare Notiapurres Carablanca. Would it feel a little bit different? Not so different, because we already appreciate the special Demare feeling, but that feeling is in all his performances. He has a great feeling and we listened to some of his almost solo recordings from the early 50s, early, early 30s previously also. There's something with this touch on the piano that really touches me. Yeah, and it's not like, of course it's not really tango, but there it's a kind of waltz rhythm to this one, so but it's more Chopin than tango. I love it. I don't think we may need to make any excuse whatsoever for listening to it.
And it's a nice transition to the Troilo section, which is the last section of tonight. But we're not going directly to Troilo. We're going first to a band we haven't heard before. This is a guy who played for Troilo, or at least arranged for him, I think. Maybe you could tell us about him, Michael. It's Ismael Spitalnik. You weren't expecting that. No. I can hear that from you. You got me. Yeah, we never listened to him. And he backed Fiorentino back in 46. And he was the arranger of Troilo, I think, in the late 40s. Well, one of many arrangers. Okay, yeah, one of the many arrangers. He just did a few arrangements for the Troilo Orchestra. The Ojos Negros, for example, of Troilo, Spitalnik. So he didn't play for Troilo. No. He was just arranging, yeah.
No, but he did later play for Pugliese when Roberto Pepe died in that accident in 1953. He joined the orchestra. Yes, in this year. Gosh, how about that? He was by training, gosh, I really hope, because of course this is all unprepared. I'm just talking off the top of my head. So I really hope I'm not confusing another story. But as far as I recall, he was an industrial chemist and he quite liked that job and he didn't want to work full time in tango. But he was a communist and a card-carrying member of the Communist Party of Argentina. Like Pugliese. Like Pugliese. And the story goes that after Pepe died, the Communist Party put pressure on Spitalnik to take up a position in the Pugliese Orchestra in order to balance the numbers between the Communist Party members and the non-members. Wow. I've no idea if that's true or not, but it's a story that keeps coming up. Politics of tango.
Yeah, well, let's listen to what I think is a very nice interpretation of Será una noche with Aldo Calderón singing, and he sang for Troilo in the late or around 1950. So maybe they knew each other from this period when Spitalnik was arranging for Troilo. Yes, that could be. So Spitalnik here is, Calderón is effectively the soloist, and Spitalnik has been engaged to put together an orchestra and to back him. All right. I think that's kind of the order of events. Okay, so it's a Calderón, more like a solo recording backed by Spitalnik. Yeah, because I don't think there's any instrumentals here. Or perhaps you're going to tell me otherwise. I can't remember, but I note that this is really sensitive backing by the orchestras. This is what I like about this track. It's very soft singing and very soft backing. So let's hear it and see what you think. Yes, let's. Será una noche.
A soft recording where Spitalnik puts together an orchestra to back Calderón, a former Troilo singer; very sensitive accompaniment.
♪ Music · 2:54 · The lyrics, on the song's page
I didn't pay much attention to Calderón's voice before I heard this song. For me, this is just really, really special. Very, very sensitive voice, isn't it? Somebody typed in the chat window, pure silk. And the overall effect is very troiliano, very much like Troilo. When you listen to Calderón's voice, you can hear why it's suitable for Troilo-style music, but also why it doesn't endure in the Troilo band, because it doesn't quite have enough range. He can't really give the kill a powerful punch. He can do the sensitive part, but he can't do the bang part that you need.
But Spitalnik understands the voice that he's working with, doesn't he? Because he gives an accompaniment that doesn't go bang either, that is sensitive and nuanced. And yeah, I think that's beautiful. A little bit different to what we're used to, but lovely. And I'd happily dance to it. And the discussion goes in the chat when, no, is it danceable or not? But we don't even care, do we? Come on, people! We don't care in Tanga Baye. We're not dancing here. So let's listen to it and enjoy.
But yeah, you said the bang. Let's go to a former Troilo singer who has the bang, Edmundo Rivero. He's got the bang. He's got a bang, definitely. And I think he's one of the most, maybe the most masculine voices in tango. And the way he sings Mano a mano, extraordinary. I can't add anything to that. I agree absolutely. He maintains his quality right through the 50s. He continues to perform both with guitars and with an orchestra backing. Nowadays I think we all prefer the sound of the guitar backed ones to the orchestra ones, although they are also very, very fine. Very glad that we've got these recordings.
Yeah, and I think we only played Mano a mano once before in tango by ear, it was in 1933 with the Trio Ortiz, that was an instrumental version, but here you get the full lyrics. The lyrics are really interesting, aren't they? What I can, it's quite difficult to translate and whatever I say someone else will say something slightly different, but it, Mano a mano can be translated well literally it means hand, hand to hand, but it means something like now we're even. And the guy is singing to his ex and he's saying I'm not here to criticize you or to attack you or anything, whatever's happened, water under the bridge and now we're even. But I can see things aren't going that great for you, so if you ever need, if you ever need a friendly hand, you know where I am. I didn't look up the lyrics for this one, so if you want to, Michael, you can. I'll see if I have them handy. Yeah, maybe you have them handy. So I'll put on the track, Mano a mano, with Edmundo Rivero singing. This is with guitar backing. So it's the way we like him the most. Listen to this. Lovely.
With guitar backing, which they prefer to his orchestra recordings; Lavocah reads his own English translation of the lyric.
♪ Music · 2:55 ·
What a voice. What a lyric. Yes, what a voice. So masculine, like you say. I just want to read the little English translation that I did for the lyric. I've nothing to thank you for. We're even. I don't care what you've done or what you will do. I think I've paid you for the favours received and if I've accidentally forgotten some small debt, charge it to the account of your sucker of a boyfriend. And tomorrow when you are peeling old furniture and there's no hope left in your poor heart, if you need help, if you need advice, remember this friend who will risk his skin to help you in whatever way he can when the time comes.
Fantastic. That's an unusual one, I think. Really. Wow. Kind of a mixture of bitterness and goodness all mixed up. Very complex feelings in the protagonist there. It's not all purity of heart, is it? Yeah. Wow. We know this tango from, is it Lomuto who records this in the late 30s? We know it from Lomuto. We know it from Canaro. We know it from Gaudel. We know from everybody.
So let's move on to someone we haven't listened to before in Tango by Ear. This is a band on the own player called Anselmo Alfredo Aieta. Now Anselmo Aieta is one of these giants of the Gordi Vieja. D'Arienzo started out playing violin in one of Aieta's cinema bands. All right.
So it's kind of a miracle that he comes back, but I guess he's coming back with a guardia vieja style formation that's making music in the old fashion. Well, it's not really, it's not a studio recording. I don't know if you had his own band ever, but I found this, uh, it's a radio recording and it's, um, because he was a composer of the waltz Palomita blanca, which we know from a wonderful Troilo interpretation from the 40s, and not only that, with many other pieces. Pavadita, that's him. Alma, yeah, alma in pena, that's him. Yeah, all right. But this is a recording from a radio program, and he plays his composition, this, uh, waltz Palomita blanca on this bandoneon, accompanied by, I think, another bandoneon and a double bass, I think, but uh, you can correct me if you hear something different.
This is super, Dag, I've never heard this interpretation.
No, I was surprised if people have heard this before. And then there's some talking, there's an introduction of him also, so you can listen to this. So this is Anselmo Aieta, Palomita blanca. Something special for you.
A radio recording of the guardia vieja composer on bandoneón with a second bandoneón and double bass, introduced with 'I'll speak in the language of eternity, the bandoneón'.
♪ Music · 1:46 ·
Now what about that? Stunning. It's two bandannons, isn't it? Must be. I think it's just the very, very final passage gave it away, and you could hear two bandannons up to that point. I just wasn't sure. Something special. Really special, a voice from the past. And he said at the beginning, I'll speak in the language of eternity, the bandannon. Yes, he's asked to make an introduction, and he says he's gonna just speak, speak with this band on their own. Nice. Yeah, beautiful.
So, um, yeah, before we move on to Troilo like as we know him, let's go to the detour by Troilo Grella, the, yes, guitar and Troilo, essential, essential listening. Yeah. And we listen to a couple of the songs in the Troilo special, so if you're interested in this music, go back and listen to the SoundCloud recording from the Troilo special that we had in July.
Now I want to play a composition that we know from other bands, from Di Sarli and from Pugliese, La cachila. This is a classic. So the great pleasure of listening to the Troilo-Grela quartet is because there are so few people playing, you can hear what Troilo is doing much, much more. It remains intimate and largely introverted, but you can hear the special techniques he uses. So he uses a lot of vibrato, which means shaking the instrument. Yeah, and you hear that, if memory serves, you can hear that even in the opening chord of the bandagnon in La cachila. It's not a single, you hear this as he vibrates the instrument between his hands, very, very sensitive playing.
Troilo really loved this format because it allowed him to be intimate and introvert, which is something very important to him, and increasingly important as he got older and couldn't play as fast as he could in the 30s. And Grela, of course, is a top-notch guitarist that has his own thing.
This, so, so top-notch guitarist, great accompanist, also a classical performer. So let's hear this unusual, uh, interpretation of La cachila that you know from other versions as dancers.
Troilo-Grela quartet; you hear the vibrato, and the conversando phrasing he learned from Ciriaco Ortiz.
♪ Music · 2:52 · The lyrics, on the song's page
A lot of feeling there. Yes, a lot of feeling. But again, the ability to hear what Troilo does is super. The best example ever of what conversando is when he went muap muap muap, and you could really hear the note and the octave note blending from one to the other because he did it so slowly. That's what he learned from Ortiz. That's what he got from Ortiz. Yes, the ability to make the band and you talk in that way and the introvert feeling. Troilo is super modest when he plays with the orchestra, so you don't hear so much of his pananone playing in his regular recordings. Just like Pugliese, curiously, the two most technical advanced complex orchestras of the time that are still dance orchestras have very modest leaders.
“The two most technical advanced complex orchestras of the time that are still dance orchestras have very modest leaders.”
Well, let's move on to Troilo's band recordings. And in the Troilo special that I mentioned in July, we listened to the 1965 recording of Mensaje, message, and that was with Roberto Rufino singing, but uh this song was first recorded this year in 1953 with Berón. And you, in the Troilo special, you told the story about this lyric, so you don't have to repeat that now. I mean, people can go back and listen to the recording, but it's about, uh, the coming to Castillo in a dream, right? Yeah, just very briefly.
Chapter · 2:09:10
The dream that wrote Mensaje
A dead poet dictated this lyric in a dream.
Yes. Di Schepelo died in 1951 at the end of the year, and some pieces were left unfinished. And Tania, his partner, with whom he'd had a difficult relationship, shared some of these pieces with fellow musicians so that they could complete them. And the music for Mensaje she gave to Cátulo Castillo. He wrestled with it and couldn't come up with the lyric, and then one night the Shepard appeared to him in a dream and dictated, he dictated the lyric to him, and it's a message from the Shepard from beyond the grave to Tanya. I'll post that's and that's the meaning.
Yeah, yeah, and this is with Berón singing, and I must say that, uh, before I read your second edition of the Troilo book, Michael, Berón for me was something I listened to with Callot from the early 40s. But the Troilo Berón recordings from the early 50s are amazing. And the sound quality is not always the best, but it's really something. Troilo never made a mistake when he chose a vocalist. And Berón was in the orchestra for many years. Beautiful. Let's listen to this. Mensaje with Troilo Berón.
First recording of the song (Troilo-Rufino version is 1965); the lyric from Cátulo Castillo, said to have been dictated by Homero Manzi in a dream.
♪ Music · 3:40 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Know, like I'm checking out the lyrics, um, I'm looking things up, I'm preparing, um, but during this tango I just looked at the screen and everybody one on the screen that I was looking at was one couple dancing, everyone else was sat still, wrapped in attention and in their thoughts and emotions. You killed us with that. Isn't it a beautiful performance? I would agree that it takes a while to come to Troilo Berón.
So just with the example of Mensaje, the Rufino version is from 1965. So first of all, it's from 1965 and it's recorded in sparkling tape masters. And secondly, it's Rufino, you know, the earthquake. With his spectacular voice, much more accessible. This one requires more inner attention. It's introvert, yeah. I could see that. I could see that on the screen, just looking at the people. It's not a tango you go like this. To share. No, it's not. But it's wonderful sharing, listening to that with everybody. So thank you all for that, for your attention. Thank you.
It's beautiful to watch everyone when they're listening to the music together. It's really nice to watch everyone with the camera on. Yes, and it creates a field of attention. And even though we're separated in space, we can feel something of that.
Let's listen to an instrumental by Troilo, because I mean he has great singers, but he also has some fantastic instrumentals, and I want to play Ojos negros, black eyes. It's an old instrumental tango that's recorded by many orchestras, but I checked them, we never actually listened to this before in Tango by Year, so it's about time. Fantastic excuse to hear it. So this is Spitalnik's arrangement. He wrote the arrangement for the orchestra in 48 and it's recorded in 48, but we have also this 1953 recording, which is a little bit more expressive, let's say. Let's listen to the expressiveness of Troilo with Ojos negros.
Spitalnik's 1948 arrangement re-recorded, more expressive; first time in Tango By Year.
What's that to say about this interpretation? I've just lost all words. Yeah, it's not easy to... Tango's going downhill in 1953, these years. 1955 is kind of going to be the end for the golden age. But when you hear something like that, you don't notice, do you? Yeah, it's heartbreaking stuff. Heartbreaking, still at the very top. Yeah.
So since you seem to, you know, the participants seem to be enjoying this, let's hear two more Troilo recordings before we... Yes, had to be. Yeah. Let's hear... Got, yeah, I've got five pounds on one of these, so you know. All right, I made a bet. Well, I want to play two, one with, uh, another singer, Jorge Casal, called Una canción. Yep, this is nice. And then after that I want to play the walls with, uh, Jorge Casal and Raúl Berón singing duets. Beautiful.
Yeah, so, uh, yeah, let's listen to these two and then, uh, we're getting close to the end. But Una canción is a very long tango and I'll post the lyrics also when I listen to it. It's interesting. I think it's one of the songs, definitely one of the songs of the year in 1953, Una canción. One of the best compositions. Yeah, it starts with La Coppa de Alcohola hasta el final. Heavy stuff. So Una canción and Vuelve la serenata with Troilo.
One of the songs of the year, a very long and heavy lyric.
♪ Music · 3:36 · The lyrics, on the song's page
A vals duet; they say Troilo's 1950s singers get better the more you hear them.
Another nice duet with the waltz. Yes, and I think that Troilo's 50s voices, Berón and Casal, just get better and better the more we listen to them. And if we don't respond to them as strongly as we do to Fiorentino and Moreno, well, how much time have we spent with Fiorentino and Moreno? Hundreds of hours, and not just listening hours, dance floor hours, whereas these guys not nearly so many, but the more we listen the better they get. Yeah, right.
So, um, time to round off, but before I play the composita of the night, um, I want to play another special song that I think many of you haven't heard before, and uh I was looking for, for, uh, woman singers for tonight's program, but well, there are a few, but I didn't really find some recordings that I really liked. So that's why there haven't been any. But the last one is a special treat with a woman singer. It's someone we talked about before, the Japanese singer Ranko Fujisawa, Rankita.
Oh, no. Is this one of the live recordings? Yes, this is a live recording from... It's her rendition of Sur, where she's accompanied by Troilo and Grela, all people. And the story behind this, she came to Buenos Aires with her husband in 1953, and she was picked up at the airport at some guy at a record company who knew her, that she sang. And at some point she ended up at this live concert. It's in the Teatro de Cépolo in Buenos Aires.
And General Perón, the president, is present in this audience. So I want to play this. This is a radio recording from Radio Tokyo. You'll probably follow her on this trip.
And it starts with an introduction by Troilo, a long introduction where he greets her. And I will read a few words from that also, but I'll post it in the chat window. And then there is, sorry? If anybody listening speaks Japanese, perhaps they could tell us what the Japanese announcer says.
You know this, yeah, because it's a Japanese voiceover. He speaks over it from time to time to explain things for the Japanese audience who are listening back in Japan. Yeah.
And then Rankita, Ranko Fujisawa comes in and has a short introduction in Spanish where she greets El General Perón and talks about the great country of Argentina. And then she sings Sur, accompanied by Troilo. And I mean, can you imagine being a Japanese tango singer and coming to Buenos Aires and being invited to sing in this context, accompanied by Troilo? And not only that, but she was accepted and loved by the porteños. They liked the way she sang.
So this was a holiday, as you say. She didn't come to Buenos Aires to sing. She and her husband, who were relatively wealthy, he ran the Orchester Typico Tokyo, didn't he? They were there on holiday, and it was such a success that she came back twice more on singing engagements. So that's not easy for a Japanese singer to achieve that level. So clearly, the Argentines, who always pay more attention to feeling than they do to technique, identified and approved of her interpretation.
Yeah. And there is something, I mean, there must have been a lot of, she must have been approved to be allowed, I mean, to sing in this context in front of the president of the country. So it says something about the esteem she had as a tango singer. Well, she wasn't well known at this time, not in Argentina, but she was after this performance. Yeah, maybe just super exotic with some Japanese.
And she didn't speak Spanish, but as she said in an earlier program, she learned she was an opera singer. So she had a really good ear, I guess. So she pronounces the Spanish lyrics perfectly. It sounds to me, I mean. Yeah, her diction is really good. But as you say, she learned the majority of the songs phonetically. Yeah, fantastic.
Chapter · 2:31:00
A Japanese singer, Troilo and Perón
She came to Buenos Aires on holiday and ended up singing Sur with Troilo.
So I'll post the English translation of Troilo's greeting in the chat window. I will listen to this, and it's something special for you in the end of the '53 program. So this is Ranko Fujisawa with the Troilo and Roberto Grella accompanying her in the Teatro Di Shepalo, Buenos Aires. Sur.
Live radio recording from the Teatro Cervantes (heard as 'Teatro de Cépolo') with Troilo and Roberto Grela accompanying, Perón in the audience; Troilo's greeting precedes the song.
I start clapping even before she stops singing. That's Argentines. Gotta love them. They love her, don't they? They really love her. They take her to their hearts.
And Aldo Calderón, who's a bandone player with the Pugliese Orchestra, accepts a job to go back to Japan with her and lead an orchestra. Wow. It must be an unique thing that a foreigner comes to Buenos Aires and gets to sing with Troilo. I mean, he must have appreciated her feeling when she sings to do this. Very much.
I mean, I guess there were other odd instances, but I can't think of anything like that. Troilo was personal friends with Juan Manuel Serrat, the Spanish singer. But I don't know. Yes, there is a photograph of Serrat in flared jeans, which Troilo would not have approved of, singing with Troilo backing him. So there might be one or two other instances, but an extremely rare event, especially for a Japanese. Come on. Wow. Yeah, wow, it's amazing.
And it's a period that, I mean, it's already recording, so the sound qualities doesn't give her the full... No, but we can still appreciate her, I feel. I think everyone here did.
All right. We came to the end, Michael. It's quarter to 11 here in Norway, and we got to round off, and as the tradition is, we'll play the La cumparsita. But before I do that, let's thank everyone for attending again. It's good to see you. I mean, January is a dark month and there are good news and bad news in terms of the world situation. But it's important to keep the spirits up and think that soon we'll dance again, I think. So long as we can gather together like this. Light is coming back here in the northern hemisphere and things are going to be brighter.
But next week we have a lost after party, Michael. Do you want to tell us about it? What year? Well, we're clicking through. So we've done 41 and 44, so it's going to be 47, which is going to be a bit of a challenging year for me because there aren't that many recordings in 1947. But we certainly have the new D'Arienzo transfers. So it's possible to appreciate D'Arienzo's work. And Troilo, the Gold New Editions also from Tango Tunes. Yes. So we can appreciate those better than we've ever been able to before. So I guess those will be some of the highlights.
I'm sure it'll be a fine night next week. I look forward to preparing for that. And in two weeks for the regular program, we're going to go back, because we don't have that many years left, but we're going to go back to a classical year in tango music, 1938. That's a good year, isn't it? That'll be a storm. Yes. That'll be a lot of very danceable tangos, I think. We'll be rocking in our...
So, but yeah, so thanks for everyone for attending and thanks to our sponsors. Tango Norfolk, Tango Braco and the Marabou Nightclub or the Argentine Tango Society, I guess you should say. Yeah. Buenos Aires. Yeah. And we will have a small after party after the show, but it'll be a short one tonight. Yeah. Just a short one. Yeah.
But we have La cumparsita left and there are a few obscure recordings from this year, but there is one band that only has two recordings of La cumparsita, it's Laudan's and the first one is from 1926, and since we'll not do a tango 1926, let's listen to this one from 1953. I love your logic, and now for something completely different. Yeah, it's completely different. So it's an instrumental. So, yeah. With that, I say goodnight from me. And then if you want to hang around and listen, there will be a few more. Yeah, I'll play just a few more tonight. Thank you. La cumparsita, Pedro Laurenz.
Closing track by tradition; Laurenz has only two recordings of it (the first in 1926). A modest, introverted bandoneón in the Troilo style.
♪ Music · 3:14 · The lyrics, on the song's page
That's a very modest Laurenz, isn't it, for a band-on-one playing? There's no crazy band-on-one variacion, it's just this Troilo-style introvert playing. Well, he's older, isn't he? I guess that's it. It's very interesting to listen to the different Amorados of Pedro Laurenz. I remember the first time I heard the 1950s one. I just could not believe my ears.
And I'll remember where that happened. It was at the Remolino Festival. It's a recording that's particularly difficult to get hold of. It's only on some LPs, some obscure LPs, and I didn't have it. And I was at the Remolino Festival, and if you know the Remolina Festival. It's full of top DJs. And there was an Argentine guy there, the guy from Tucumán. I can't remember his name. Maybe Dag Can or Veronica, maybe someone. Anyway, he was playing off LPs. And this version of Amorado came on, and I was near the entrance to the wrong guy.
I remember I caught Yasmin's on, and I looked at him, and I went, Oh no. And I went, and we were going like this because we couldn't work out what it was. Because it wasn't on the list of recordings that we knew on our heads. And then Sasha, the organiser of the festival came up to us and went, it's a straw though, what's this? And then this whole posse of us went up to the desk and said, what is that? We have to know, and Alberto Jaman, that's the name of the DJ, so I spoke to him and conveyed our great appreciation for this track that he played, and he promised to transfer it from the LP and send it to me but he never did. So Alberto, if you're listening, the whole world is still waiting for that. We'll play it on the next Tango Barrier presented to you.
Yeah, yeah, it's a different feeling, I mean, a more mature feeling. Yeah, oh sorry, I meant to play some more music now, aren't I? Well, if you want to, yeah, yeah, I want to play, people still hanging around, so uh, feel free. Okay, share screen, uh, let's just press the button and see what happens. Share. Yes. I think it's working. Yes.
So just a few songs, Short After Party, as is my want, I like to play something that's not technically speaking or even at all, a tango, to give you an excuse to go to the bathroom, go make a cup of tea, whatever it is that you need to do. I'm really looking forward to playing this. This is a bit of tremendous fun, this is an Argentine Latin band called Varela, Varelita and the song is called Qué amargura, which means what bitterness, but it's not a bitter song at all. The lyric is extremely funny, I haven't ever transcribed the whole thing though, maybe someone who's really fluent can just do that, but it's a guy talking about this girl that he fancies and all the advantages that she has. And she's got the most amazing figure and lovely legs. And her dad owns a ranch and is really rich. That's perfect. Here we go.
Afterparty: an Argentine Latin band playing a rumba, with a funny lyric about a girl with a wasp waist and a rich father.
That's really cheeky, isn't it? Really cheeky. Let's make it a fun after-party, huh? Because it's January. I'm going to make it a bit of an otros ritmos after-party, I think. We'll play some different rhythms. So that was a rumba, I guess. I guess in the West we'd call that a rumba.
Now I want to play a little batch of milongas. We didn't hear many milongas tonight. Which one shall we have first? First of all, rock and rolling D'Arienzo Milonga. We were talking about the different styles of Milonga earlier on in the evening when we listened to Di Sarli's beautifully phrased Milonga Con alma y vida. That's all about Cerencia and phrasing and the other end of the spectrum would be a D'Arienzo Milonga like this one, Mucho mucho which rattles along like a racehorse.
Played as the opposite end of the milonga spectrum from Di Sarli's: it 'rattles along like a racehorse'.
Like a racehorse, isn't it? Crazy. And the piano I really liked, just listening to that now. I think the piano is quite special. Their inter had really good musicians, even if they were playing simple music.
Chapter · 2:55:36
The milonga Troilo wrote and never recorded
Troilo wrote a milonga and never recorded it.
Now, we were lamenting the lack of milongas recorded by the more sophisticated bands. Troilo, Di Sarli, Bollesi. So when I was preparing for the year, I noticed something really strange. I discovered a 1953 milonga written by Troilo. The thing is, Troilo didn't record it. So we can assume that this particular milonga was, of course, in the Troilo playbook and something they would have brought out whenever they were playing for dances on Saturday nights, but that Troilo didn't consider it himself interesting enough to record. We don't know who wrote the arrangement for the Troilo band, but it must have been in their repertoire.
But the person who recorded it is Canaro. So I've surprised myself. I'm going to play you a Canaro Milonga with the voice of Alberto Arenas from 1953. It's real fun. The title is Compadre, ¿qué le va a hacer? Which means something like, you know, brother, what are you going to do about it?
A Troilo-written milonga from 1953 that Troilo never recorded; Canaro did.
♪ Music · 3:10 ·
Okay, not sophisticated, but it's a bit of fun. Moving swiftly onwards, I want to play you one track, another milonga, from the orchestra of Lorenzo Barbero, which is an orchestra that we haven't heard tonight, or indeed, I think, ever, on Tango by Year. Now Lorenzo Barbero's orchestra, and this is something you're going to hear in this Milonga, is an orchestra that's benefiting from the current government policy, current meaning 1953, in Argentina, which is to promote native music. So it's a band that is kind of a mix between folk style and tango style. They performed with a drummer for example, playing not Western drums but an African drum. So it doesn't fit neatly into our categories but it's a lot of fun. It's a sign of the times. See what you think. I find it extremely joyful. This is called Fandango.
A band mixing folk and tango with an African drum, benefiting from the government's push for native music.
So that's a piece with three kinds of influences. On the one hand it's a tango band, it's an orchestra typically that's performing, but you can hear two other influences. With the drum there's the Candombé African Afro-Argentine influence but there's also a folk kind of influence which you heard particularly at the beginning with the long notes in the introduction. Now Rachel asks a really interesting question. Isn't Fandango a flamenco rhythm dance? Why is this crazy piece called Fandango? Now if you'd asked me this a year ago I wouldn't have known the answer but I suddenly realized that I do know the answer because I spent a lot of time earlier this year researching the black origins of tango and the influence on the music.
And it turns out that in Brazil, one of the dancers of the Afro-Brazilian community, the slave community in Brazil, was called a fandango. I don't know which region of Africa it's related to. Slaves from different regions ended up in different parts of South America. That I can't tell you. But that's the reason. It's not just the Spanish thing. It's connected to the Brazilian slave dance.
So as we introduce the folk theme, I'm going to play for the first time ever, I think, on Tango by Year, a folklore number. Because 1953 is the year that a band called Los Chalchaleros made their first EP. Now, Los Chalchaleros are a legend in Argentine folk music. They performed for over 50 years without very many changes in line-up. They're particularly important for Zamba. It's the go-to band for Zamba, which is the romantic courtship dance, the dance of love in the folklore world.
And oh maybe there's something silly about it but I really have an affection for old music so I really like listening to the 1953 recordings of Los Chalchaleros or it's more than I like listening to their 1980s recordings. I don't know why, maybe because partly it's new and fresh for them and you hear the youthful energy of that. This is, let me just have a look which one I've selected for us. This is a Zamba called Lloraré. I will cry. I'm not going to type in the chat window, I'll just speak it to you now. Lloraré, Lloraré, Lloraré toda mi vida, I will weep for my whole life if the one that I love doesn't love me. That's what the lyric's about.
A zamba from the folk group's first EP; the first folklore track on the show.
♪ Music · 3:30 ·
Isn't that beautiful? Absolutely wonderful. I really approve. Well, I mean, it's not for me to approve or not, but just personally, I'm so happy to see folklore becoming more popular in our communities all around the world, but especially here in Europe. And I feel it makes a really good pair to tango because of its innocent quality, which is a quality that's difficult sometimes to find in tango music. Right.
Dag earlier played a Salgán Goyeneche number, and it was really very interesting listening to Goyeneche's phrasing, so I'd really love to play another one for you so we can have another chance to explore Goyeneche's phrasing and maybe get an idea of how it's related to Salgán's crazy music. Here, perhaps it's a bit unexpected to belong to Goyeneche's repertoire. It's Margarita Gauthier, which, for everybody listening, is indelibly associated with Casal and Berón, a super romantic tango. Here is a very different interpretation.
A different take on a song linked to Caló and Berón; not dance music but 'the tango version of jazz'.
It's not dance music, but I wish it was. It's so interesting, captivating. It's in a way like jazz, isn't it? It's the tango version of jazz. What could we do if we just want to make it really interesting and give as much freedom as possible to all the players? Right then, what else do we have for you, Dag? You played a beautiful piano solo from Lucio Demare, Humildad, and you told us that there were two songs recorded by the other one. I'm going to play the other one because it's so exceptional. Now the other one almost as beautiful, a very very beautiful interpretation, but more interesting because it enables us to orient ourselves as it's a familiar composition. It's La casita de mis viejos of Juan Carlos Cobian, a tango well known in the community and with many many different versions. Let's have a listen.
The second of Demare's two 1953 solo piano recordings, of a Cobián tango.
You're killing us, Michael. It's so sensitive. So sensitive. Not really in the spirit of the age, if I think about the spirit of the age. But that's what appeals to me.
So it's time to wrap up, folks. The last tango of the night is going to be another Troilo number. A quite challenging arrangement. This is El monito. Now, El monito is a huge Julio de Caro composition. And Troilo finally gives it an interpretation. And this is fascinating. Some really interesting discords as well in this piece. Have a listen and see what you think.
Last record: Julio De Caro's composition, finally interpreted by Troilo, with some striking discords.
♪ Music · 2:51 ·
Thank you so much, everyone. It's been a joy to be with you. Good night.
Tango By Year is Dag Stenvoll and Michael Lavocah's, published here with their permission. The audio plays from SoundCloud.