Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Practica Del Centro Playlist, 4/21/2014

Totally squeezed for time, between a major spring cleanup / kids moving in after the semester and a Canada trip. But I still found an hour to try different tunes, measure them up, roll them together, & it was fun!
01. Juan D'Arienzo - Alberto Echagüe  "Nada más" 2:43
02. Juan D'Arienzo - Alberto Echagüe  "No mientas" 1938 2:39
03. Juan D'Arienzo - Alberto Echagüe  "Qué importa" 1939 2:10
I suspect that I played far too little D'Agostino lately :)
04. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "A Quién Le Puede Importar" 3:14
05. Ángel D'Agostino  - Ángel Vargas "El Yacaré" 3:09
06. Ángel D'Agostino  - Ángel Vargas "Adiós Arrabal" 3:10
"Tangon" was supposed to be a new all-rage genre of 1935, when the grand orchestras were locked in fierce competition for novelty, and Sebastian Piana's original reborn slow milonga, then fast milonga, and then milonga candombeanda all already debuted. But the new would-be hit rhythmic trend fizzled with just this one track, and Canaro moved on. "Tangon" remained one of tango's one-of-a-kind, hard-to-match unusuals.
07. Francisco Canaro  - Roberto Maida "Milonga Brava" 2:35
08. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Milonga criolla" 1936 3:05
09. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Tangon" 1935 3:17
Can't have enough Rodriguez!
10. Enrique Rodríguez "Como has cambiado pebeta" 2:37
11. Enrique Rodriguez "En la buena y en la mala" 1940 2:26
12. Enrique Rodriguez "Danza Maligna" 1940 2:27
"Gitana Rusa", a self-described "Tango Europeo" originally composed by Saul Zhadan, a Jewish fiddler in Ukraine just before his death in the Holocaust, is another hard-to-match unique sound of Argentine tango, and I don't think I did good service to it by combining it with two different-quality Malerba records...
13. Ricardo Malerba -"Embrujamiento"  2:52
14. Ricardo Malerba - Antonio Maida "Encuentro" 2:20
15. Ricardo Malerba & Garcia "Gitana Rusa" 2:47
The 2nd of the three D'Arienzo's valses may have been a hasty choice here...
16. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "Corazon de artista (2) vals" 1936 2:22
17. Juan D'Arienzo - Alberto Echagüe  "En tu corazon (2) vals" 1938 2:46
18. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "Pabellon de las rosas" 1935 2:50
We were talking with a friend in Ukraine about Uruguayan tango music, a topic precipitated by my quest for Lita Morales biography (see below), and I mentioned Nina Miranda (the most famous female voice of Uruguay of her time, who sang with tango orchestras of Racciatti and Pellejero). In fact I just pointed my own attention to Donato Racciatti and Nina Miranda for the first time a couple months ago, when my much-loved teachers from Tokyo, Akiyoshi and Noriko, performed to "Tu corazón" at a festival in Honolulu. Racciatti almost missed the Golden Age of tango; an Italian immigrant to Uruguay, he put together his orchestra in 1948, but didn't really reach fame until the mid-1950s. The success came to Raciatti with the amazing voices of his two female singers, Nina Miranda and later on, Olga Delgrossi.
19. Donato Racciatti - Nina Miranda "Tu corazón" 2:32
20. Donato Racciatti - Nina Miranda "Gloria" 1952 2:47
21. Donato Racciatti - Nina Miranda "Sin estrellas" 1953 2:46
So many amazing records Laurenz records, so little time in the playlist!
22. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podesta  "Todo" 1943 2:37
23. Pedro Láurenz - Instrumental  "Amurado" 1952 2:58
24. Pedro Laurenz - Juan Carlos Casas  "Al Verla Pasar"  3:23
An admission to make: I always think of "Ella Es Asi", "That's the Way She Is", as a song about my beloved dancing half. "A ray of light, a beautiful flower, you're filled with kindness - and candor". But do I have enough Donato materiel to mix this perfect milonga track into a tanda?
25. Edgardo Donato  "Ella Es Asi - milonga" 2:35
26. Edgardo Donato  "La Milonga Que Faltaba" 2:24
27. Edgardo Donato  "El Torito - 1939" 2:19
Could "Así Se Baila El Tango" - sometimes boastful, more often ironic and mildly self-deprecating title meaning "This is how Tango is danced!" -  be a perfect practica track ;) ? Kind of like, "look what I can do ... or can I, really? Let's give it a shot!". 
28. Ricardo Tanturi - Alberto Castillo  "Así Se Baila El Tango"  2:34
29. Ricardo Tanturi  "Que Nunca Me Falte"  2:42
30. Ricardo Tanturi - Enrique Campos "Oigo Tu Voz" 3:07
Only one Fresedo track for the night? Only three songs of sheer sweetness to accentuate the bitters of tango?
31. Osvaldo Fresedo - Roberto Ray "Isla de Capri" 1935 3:16
32. Osvaldo Fresedo - Roberto Ray "Canto de amor" 1934 3:25
33. Osvaldo Fresedo - Roberto Ray "Vida mia" 1933 3:23
34. Rodolfo Biagi - Alberto Lago  "Amor y vals" 1942 2:48
35. Rodolfo Biagi - Andrés Falgás "El Ultimo Adios (vals)" 2:08
36. Rodolfo Biagi - Teofilo Ibanez  "Viejo porton (vals)" 1938 2:27
Donato, as I already mentioned, is, in a way, an Urugayan musician, although Argentine-born. He and his band were only invited to play in BsAs after years of increasing success in Montevideo, and many of his later BsAs team members came from Uruguay. But Lita Morales? The most captivating female voice of tango, like, ever? The one whose song lyrics were so often first-person that one just won't dare to separate the singer from the character: "I'm this little girl who kept on repeating how life is like a sea with a bright bue boat", "I love you, my heart, I love you for your gift of passion" ... ?
From RCA poster
 Well, we don't know anything about Lita Morales. Not even when or where she was born, or died. Hardly more than a couple faded pictures exist.
Lita Morales briefly sang for OTV in 1937 and then joined Donato with her husband, Horacio Lagos (Stigliani), forming a wonderful duet. In 1939, an Uruguayan violinist and singer Romeo Gavioli joined the ochestra. People suggest that over time, the vocalist trio may have become a triangle, and finally, late in 1942, Edgardo Donato (famed for his absent-mindedness, as if living on the Moon), decided to terminate them all. Soon, the whole world of what has been Donato's orchestra fell apart. The band itself didn't survive much longer, with his pianist brother Osvaldo leaving first, and most of the rest of the musicians leaving to join Osvaldo soon after. Gavioli returned to Uruguay in 1943 and formed his own orchestra, recording some remarkable candombes. But, overcome with depression, he plunged his car into the sea off Montevideo embankment, killing himself at the age of 44. Maruja Pacheco, who wrote tango lyrics specially for Lita, left tango and embraced religion. But what happened to Lita and Horacio is simply unknown. According to a Todotango commenter, they had a son named Daniel Stigliani, and Lita died in about 1994. Discographies tell that she recorded a handful of tangos with Vieri Findazini more than a decade later, in 1955; the voice in those recordings is considerably more coarse but perhaps recognizable. Tango "is" full of sadness, there is no denying that; but how can we tangueros totally consign to oblivion one of tango's  most inspiring voices? It is depressing. Should we listen to her voice, full of sparkling laughter, and try to forget the injustice? I start from one of the happiest tangos ever, Carnaval de Mi Barrio.
37. Edgardo Donato  "Carnaval De Mi Barrio" 2:25
38. Edgardo Donato  "Yo Te Amo (Lita Morales)" 2:50
39. Edgardo Donato "La Melodía Del Corazón" 1940 3:18
40. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida  "Ciego" 1935 2:57
41. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Solo una novia" 1935 3:23
42. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Condena (S.O.S.)" 1937 2:39
Milongas with abandon!
43. "Orquesta Tipica Victor - Milonga De Los Fortines - Mariano Balcarce" 19372:52
44. Orquesta Tipica Victor  "Cacareando"  2:45
45. "Emilio Pellejero - Mi Vieja Linda - Enalmar De Maria - 1941" 2:26
And finally, for the close, dramatic late De Angelis and of course Pugliese, topped by a couple post-Cumparsita cleanup-and-last-hugs tracks.
46. Alfredo de Angelis - Instrumental  "Mi dolor" 1957 2:51
47. Alfredo De Angelis  "Felicia 1969" 2:48
48. Alfredo De Angelis  "Pavadita 1958" 2:53
49. Osvaldo Pugliese "La Abandone Y No Sabia" 1944 3:12
50. Osváldo Pugliese "Farol" 1943 3:22
51. Osvaldo Pugliese - Roberto Chanel  "Rondando tu esquina" 1945 2:48
52. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "La cumparsita" 1951 3:49
53.  Goan Bregovic & Kayah "Tabakiera"  4:15
54. Carlos Libedinsky  "Otra Luna" 2006 3:43
(54 total)

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Milonga BuenOnda playlist, 4/11/2014

Since this month's date of Buen'Onda fell on the eve of the International Space Flight Day, I added the Cosmonaut theme to the cortinas :)
The warm-up / after-class tanda is Canaro's instrumentals for a change:
01. Francisco Canaro - Instrumental "La melodia de nuestro adios" 1938 3:03
02. Francisco Canaro - Instrumental  "Pampa" 1938 2:50
03. Francisco Canaro - Instrumental  "El chamuyo" 1933 3:11
The signature track from Red Elvises 1999 "Russian Bellydance" album (they are a Russian American band from LA who famously sang "Cosmonaut Petrov" at a Red Square benefit concert in 2006). You're right, I wouldn't have known about it without the kids :)
04. Russian Elvises  "Cosmonaut Petrov 1 (-3dB)"  0:28
05. Juan d'Arienzo "El Cencerro" 1937 2:40
06. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "Ataniche" 1936 2:31
07. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental Soundtrack "El flete" 1936 2:58
Maya Kristalinskaya's bio in Russian
The 1966 Nezhnost' (Tenderness) is Maya Kristalinskaya's most famous of many famous hit songs, its star appeal only magnified when the song was included in the 1967 cult-following movie classic, "Three Poplars on Plyuschikha Street" (trust me, in Russian "Plyuschikha" sounds very mellifluous and old-Muscovite charming, but I realize that when Americans struggle to pronounce it, it comes out sorta Klingon harsh ;) ). Soon afterwards, Maya's Jewish roots got her blacklisted, and for the last 10 years of her very short life she was restricted to performing in small-town clubs, off TV and radio waves.  Maya's grave at Moscow's de facto Jewish cemetery, the beautiful and quaint Donskoe, is right next to the Pruss family plot. Her headstone reads, "You aren't gone, you just stepped out, you'll be back with a song". And yes, "Tenderness" is a space flight era song - it's about the void left when the dear one leaves Planet Earth.
08. Maya Kristalinskaya  "Nezhnost (Tenderness)"  0:17
09. Alfredo De Angelis - Carlos Dante - Julio Martel  "Pobre flor (1946)"  2:43
10. Alfredo de Angelis - Floreal Ruiz  "Mi novia de ayer" 1944-04-28 2:38
11. Alfredo de Angelis - Carlos Dante, Julio Martel  "Soñar y nada más" 1944-08-29 3:08
Trava u Doma (Grass Near the House) - the highlight of the 1982 Space Day celebration has been officially anointed as the anthem of Russian Space Agency in 2009. A long road for a song which started from a nostalgic ballad about the parents' house in a faraway village, the sad eyes of their cow, and, yes, grass near the house - with the space theme added, and the cow hastily deleted, just before the first performance. The 1982 version was still a mellow, nostalgic tune; but the following year, Zemlyane (The Earthlings Band) "rockified" it and powered it up, and the rest is history.
12. Zemlyane  "Trava u Doma 1"  0:19
13. Carlos Di Sarli Alberto Podesta "Junto a tu corazon"  3:00
14. Carlos Di Sarli Alberto Podesta "Nido Gaucho"  3:22
15. Carlos Di Sarli Alberto Podesta "Nada"  2:45
16. Zemlyane  "Trava u Doma 2"  0:17
17. Miguel Calo  "Corazon No Le Hagas Caso"  3:00
18. Miguel Calo  "Tristezas De La Calle Corrientes"  2:46
19. Miguel Calo  "Al Compas Del Corazon"  2:48
"Bravo" group was one of the pioneers of Russian rock revival of the 1980s (drawing much inspiration from the American 1950s), reaching nation-wide fame even before the Soviet powers-that-be finally allowed it to sell records (and their first post-black market disk sold 5,000,000 copies). Ahh, those were the days. The "Space Rock-n-Roll" is a later period record though, from the times when the group may have lost its trailblazer appeal - but remained faithful to its early-years sound. It must be added that April 12th, the Space Day, is also the unofficial birthday of Rock-n-Roll: the Comets recorded "Rock around the Clock" on this date in 1954.
20. Bravo "Space Rock-n-Roll" 1993 0:12
21. "Orquesta Tipica Victor - Milonga De Los Fortines - Mariano Balcarce" 1937,2:52
22. Orquesta Tipica Victor  "Cacareando"  2:45
23. "Emilio Pellejero - Mi Vieja Linda - Enalmar De Maria - 1941" 2:26
24. Zemlyane  "Trava u Doma 3"  0:27
25. Edgardo Donato  "Carnaval De Mi Barrio" 2:25
26. Donato, Edgardo "La Melodía Del Corazón" 1940 3:18
27. Edgardo Donato - Lita Morales - Romeo Gavio  "Mi Serenata" 1940 3:02
"I am Mother Earth" is a song from a 1963 movie about a heroic rescue of a marooned alien spaceship - as it happens, a rather unremarkable movie launched to fame several quite remarkable songs. 
28. Olga Voronets  "Ya - Zemlya (I am Mother Earth)" 0:18
29. Rodriguez, Enrique Enrique Rodriguez "En la buena y en la mala" 1940 2:26
30. Rodriguez, Enrique Enrique Rodriguez "llorar por una mujer" 1941 2:51
31. Rodriguez, Enrique Enrique Rodriguez "Danza Maligna" 1940 2:27
32. Maya Kristalinskaya  "Nezhnost (Tenderness)"  0:17
33. Edgardo Donato  "Quien Sera - vals" 2:15
34. Edgardo Donato  "Estrellita Mia - vals" 2:36
35. Edgardo Donato  "La Tapera - vals" 2:54
36. Zemlyane  "Trava u Doma 1"  0:19
I planned for a 2nd, even more powerful Laurenz tanda, but alas, run out of time for it...
37. Pedro Laurenz Juan Carlos Casas "No me extrana"  2:44
38. Pedro Láurenz - Juan Carlos Casas  "Vieja Amiga" 1938-05-12 3:12
39. Pedro Láurenz - Juan Carlos Casas  "Amurado" 1940-07-29 2:30
40. Olga Voronets  "Ya - Zemlya (I am Mother Earth)" 0:18
I had most reservations about my second Calo tanda for the night, beautiful and poetic but not energizing due to its brooding, melancholic quality. Still wanted to play "April Rains" (Lluvia de Abril) to conjure up some more precipitation ;) To my relief, the tanda played well in the energy flow. And the rain is to come on Sunday?
41. Miguel Caló - Raúl Iriarte  "La vi llegar" 1944 3:24
42. Miguel Calo - Raul Iriarte  "Lluvia de abril" 1945 2:42
43. Miguel Caló - Raúl Iriarte  "Cada día te extraño más" 1943 2:35
44. Russian Elvises  "Cosmonaut Petrov 1 (-3dB)"  0:28
45. Francisco Canaro - Instrumental  "Milonga de mis amores" 1937 3:03
46. Francisco Canaro "La Milonga de Bs As (Milonga)"  2:48
47. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Milonga criolla" 1936 3:05
48. Maya Kristalinskaya  "Nezhnost (Tenderness)"  0:17
49. Osvaldo Fresedo Roberto Ray "En la huella del dolor" 1934 2:48
50. Osvaldo Fresedo Roberto Ray "Sollosos" 1937 3:27
51. Osvaldo Fresedo Roberto Ray "Recuerdo de bohemia" 1935 2:36
52. Zemlyane  "Trava u Doma 3"  0:27
A mix of energetic, laughter-filled valses from three orchestras - we used the first track from the birthday dance for Jenna, so the tanda grew to 4 valses for everybody to join.
53. Enrique Rodriguez - Roberto Flores  "Salud Dinero Y Amor (vals)"  2:39
54. Francisco Lomuto - Fernando Diaz  "Cuando estaba enamorado" 1940 2:19
55. Orquesta Típica Víctor Orquesta Tipica Victor "Sin Rumbo Fijo (vals)" 2:18
56. Enrique Rodriguez - Roberto Flores  "Fru Fru (vals)"  2:57
57. Bravo - "Space Rock-n-Roll" 1993 0:12
58. Biagi, Rodolfo  "Humiliacion" 1941 2:42
59. Rodolfo Biagi Andrés Falgás "La Chacarera " 2:24
60. Rodolfo Biagi Andrés Falgás "Son Cosas del Bandoneon " 2:44
61. Zemlyane  "Trava u Doma 1"  0:19
62. Francisco Canaro Roberto Maida "Condena (S.O.S.)" 1937 2:39
63. Francisco Canaro  "Recuerdos De Paris - Roberto Maida - 1937" 3:12
64. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida  "Solo una novia" 1935 3:23
65. Russian Elvises  "Cosmonaut Petrov 2 (-2 dB)"  0:20
66. Carlos Di Sarli Roberto Rufino "La Mulateada"  2:22
67. Carlos di Sarli - Roberto Rufino  "Cuando un viejo se enamora" 1942 2:14
68. Carlos Di Sarli Roberto Rufino "Pena Mulata" 2:27
69. Maya Kristalinskaya  "Nezhnost (Tenderness)"  0:17
70. Alfredo de Angelis - Instrumental  "Mi dolor" 1957 2:51
71. Alfredo de Angelis - Carlos Dante  "Carillon de La Merced" 1957 2:50
72. Alfredo De Angelis  "Pavadita 1958" 1999 2:53
73. Russian Elvises  "Cosmonaut Petrov 1 (-3dB)"  0:28
74. Osvaldo Pugliese - Instrumental  "Gallo ciego" 1959-07-23 3:33
75. Osváldo Pugliese "Farol" 1943 3:22
76. Osvaldo Pugliese "Malandraca" 1949 2:52
77. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "La cumparsita" 1951 3:49
78. Arabesque  "Midnight Dancer"  3:42
79. Red Elvises "Cosmonaut Petrov" 1999 3:10
(79 total)