TBY Lost Afterparty II - 1944
Dag Stenvoll and Michael Lavocah · 20 Jan 2021 · 3:12:11
This is the recovered after-show talk from the second-ever Tango By Year episode, 1944, led by Michael Lavocah rather than Dag Stenvoll. Lavocah recaps what Stenvoll played in the original broadcast (Laurenz, Di Sarli, Tanturi, Caló, D'Agostino, D'Arienzo and Troilo) and then plays roughly forty more 1944 recordings the main show never had time for, with Stenvoll joining partway through. The talk circles back to Osvaldo Pugliese, whose orchestra is 'bursting onto the scene' in 1944 even though recording quotas kept him from cutting some of his best compositions, and to Alberto Echagüe, whose more nuanced singing with D'Arienzo this year strikes both hosts as a real discovery. Along the way they place 1944 tango against wartime popular music in the United States, explain the Cuban pregón form behind a flower-seller's tango, and close by setting 1953 as the next year on the show.
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Tango 1953Episode 29 · 27 Jan 2021 · 3:26:02What this episode gave Tangopedia
Facts said in the episode, each now cited to the minute it is said.
With most young men at the front, the record-buying public was largely female, which pushed Frank Sinatra's romantic ballads to popularity over Tommy Dorsey's swing numbers and reportedly annoyed Dorsey.
Argentine tango's 1944 lyrics run between the same emotional poles as American wartime pop, soft romance against darker, heavier material, but tango's dark songs go further into gloom than anything from the Northern Hemisphere that year.
Doris Day's 'Sentimental Journey', recorded in the last days of 1944, only became a million-selling hit in 1945, after the war ended and people made their own journeys home.
Echagüe's 1944 singing with D'Arienzo shows a new nuance that both hosts call the discovery of the night, in tune with the times rather than looking back to the 1930s the way D'Arienzo's own band later would.
By 1944 Varela was arranging and effectively running D'Arienzo's orchestra.
Opened the second half of 1944 recordings the main show skipped, with a bright De Angelis number.
♪ Music · 2:36 ·
Played to showcase a violin solo by Francisco San Martino inside the Malerba sound.
♪ Music · 2:50 ·
Watch it danced · 1
A D'Agostino-Vargas number to round out the pairing's 1944 showing, already represented once in the main show.
♪ Music · 3:23 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Watch it danced · 2
A second D'Agostino-Vargas title, back to back with the first.
The lyrics, on the song's page
Watch it danced · 2
Chosen to hear violinist Raúl Kaplún's playing inside the Demare orchestra.
♪ Music · 2:19 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Watch it danced · 107
A Laurenz title with Bermúdez singing, filling out the orchestra's 1944 recordings.
♪ Music · 2:23 ·
Played because Lavocah rates Laurenz's version of this song even more beautiful than Troilo's, which introduced it.
♪ Music · 2:22 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Watch it danced · 2
A D'Arienzo-Mauré side chosen to hear pianist Fulvio Salamanca solo.
♪ Music · 3:08 ·
Watch it danced · 16
Part of building the case that Echagüe sings with new nuance in 1944.
♪ Music · 3:15 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Watch it danced · 73
Chapter · 49:05
Echagüe's secret 1944 upgrade
The singer everyone thinks they know still had a surprise left in 1944.
Chosen partly to hear Héctor Varela's bandoneón counter-melody under Echagüe.
♪ Music · 1:45 ·
Watch it danced · 54
First of a pair of Típica Víctor waltzes played together.
A Lomuto waltz played before moving into his tangos.
♪ Music · 2:08 ·
A Lomuto-Rivera tango added to the main show's single Lomuto pick.
Only in the episode
♪ Music · 2:07 ·
A second Lomuto tango, this time with Galarza singing.
♪ Music · 2:12 ·
First of several extra Di Sarli sides to balance the single Podestá track from the main show.
♪ Music · 3:03 · The lyrics, on the song's page
An instrumental Di Sarli pick, despite the milonga-sounding title actually a tango.
♪ Music · 2:00 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Watch it danced · 2
A second Di Sarli-Podestá vocal to go with the instrumentals.
Only in the episode
♪ Music · 2:47 ·
Closed out the run of extra Di Sarli recordings with another instrumental.
♪ Music · 2:30 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Watch it danced · 2
A carnival-themed Troilo-Marino tango, added to the one Troilo side the main show had time for.
Only in the episode
♪ Music · 3:14 ·
Troilo and Marino's version of Homero Manzi's lyric, played before the night's surprise alternate take.
♪ Music · 3:16 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Watch it danced · 6
Chapter · 1:36:53
A heartbreak hiding in a love song
The night's surprise wasn't a new tango, it was who sang it.
A second, radio-era take of the same song sung solo by Nelly Omar, the woman Manzi wrote it about; billed as the surprise of the night.
Only in the episode
♪ Music · 2:58 · The lyrics, on the song's page
A Troilo-Marino milonga, a change of pace after two tangos.
Only in the episode
♪ Music · 0:30 ·
A candombé-flavoured Caló milonga played right after Troilo's.
Only in the episode
Watch it danced · 2
Framed as one of two very different, equally delicious versions of this tango, the other being Troilo's from the main show.
♪ Music · 3:16 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Watch it danced · 37
A rich, complex, poorly-recorded De Caro side, a surprise pick and a treat for his fans.
Only in the episode
♪ Music · 2:36 ·
Chapter · 1:57:01
The song Pugliese wasn't allowed to record
Osvaldo Pugliese wrote one of his best tangos in 1944 and still couldn't put it on record.
Played to imagine what Pugliese's 'Recién' would have sounded like in 1944, even though recording quotas stopped him cutting it that year; he had asked Lucio Demare, on the same label, for permission to record it himself.
♪ Music · 0:06 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Watch it danced · 33
An underplayed, still-transitional Pugliese instrumental, picked as one of the less intense tracks before the finish.
♪ Music · 2:30 ·
Watch it danced · 18
Chapter · 2:10:53
The bass you could hear from the street
Before amplification, one bass player's sound carried out the door of a 300-person milonga.
An older De Caro-era tango getting the heavier 1944 Pugliese treatment, with a near double-bass solo.
♪ Music · 3:00 ·
Watch it danced · 18
A tango usually associated with Laurenz, who wrote it, played here in Pugliese's version.
♪ Music · 1:10 ·
Watch it danced · 38
Chapter · 2:19:48
The tango at the end of the universe
One held bandoneón note, and the whole room stops.
The closing, most intense Pugliese track of the night, built around a long held bandoneón note from Osvaldo Ruggiero.
♪ Music · 2:29 ·
Watch it danced · 21
A De Angelis waltz from early in the year with Floreal Ruiz, before he moved on to sing for Troilo.
♪ Music · 2:05 ·
Watch it danced · 101
Played partly because the music may be an early composition by Horacio Salgán, before his own band succeeded.
Only in the episode
♪ Music · 1:51 ·
A rarer Tanturi waltz with Campos rather than Castillo, in good Tango Tunes transfer quality.
♪ Music · 2:14 ·
Watch it danced · 2
A sad-lyric Caló waltz with Iriarte and a chorus, traced back to a Peruvian original.
♪ Music · 1:57 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Watch it danced · 6
A very slow waltz mostly known from Di Sarli, played here in Biagi's version with a famously odd ending.
♪ Music · 2:37 · The lyrics, on the song's page
Watch it danced · 3
Chapter · 2:50:01
The flower seller's trumpet
Why does this milonga just sing 'tarí tarí' over and over?
A Laurenz-Podestá milonga, picked over a better-known 1937 vocal version to play something different.
♪ Music · 1:42 ·
Watch it danced · 1
Introduced as one of two lighter, less intense D'Arienzo-Echagüe milongas from 1944, less played than the orchestra's 1930s milongas.
♪ Music · 3:29 ·
Watch it danced · 7
Chapter · 3:02:57
From Gardel's backing band to his own orchestra
A violin virtuoso who once played behind Carlos Gardel got his own band, and it barely survived.
Picked to introduce Antonio Rodio, a violin virtuoso who once backed Gardel and later led his own short-lived orchestra.
Only in the episode
♪ Music · 1:51 ·
Closed the night with a female singer not yet heard, on a song several orchestras recorded that year.
Only in the episode
♪ Music · 4:17 · The lyrics, on the song's page
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Tango By Year is Dag Stenvoll and Michael Lavocah's, published here with their permission. The audio plays from SoundCloud.