Milonga Sin Nombre del Solsticio playlist, 6/21/2014

The circumstances conspired to rob us from time needed to organize the milonga, but we still got great attendance and fairly smooth operation. We are extremely grateful to those who volunteered to help us, especially Dave, Andrey, Maria, Atakan, and Raina! It wouldn't have worked without you!
On the empanada front, the new flavor this month was my experimental peach-banana (inspired by Analia's banana empanadas from last month, and the first flavor to run out, hurray!). I checked the Internet, but most recipes asked for processed ingredients, and I really wanted to go from scratch, so I struck on my own:

One slightly under-ripe peach, finely chopped
3 bananas, cut in half-circles
Juice of half a lime
A tablespoonful of sugar
A tablespoonful of quick oats

Steam peach in a covered pot with a very small amount of water for 5 minutes, add sliced bananas, sugar, and lime juice, bring to boil, add oats and set aside to thicken (the relleno ended up a bit too juicy, perhaps one may choose to thicken more generously or to evaporate away some liquid?)

Much of the playlist ended up being added / deleted in a hurry, but I still enjoyed occasional discoveries of tango DJ's homework.
01. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "El recodo" 1941 2:20
02. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "Siete palabras" 1945 2:38
03. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "Marejada" 1941 2:32
04. Russian Folk  "Kalinka-Malinka 2 (cortina)"  0:25
05. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "El flete" 1936 2:58
06. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "Jueves" 1937 2:33
07. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "El Cencerro" 1937 2:40
08. Victor Tsoy  "Gruppa Krovi (cortina)"  0:36
I had some trouble finding the 3rd Calo's record to go with the classic two valses (which are, of course, often paired with "El vals soñador"), and ended up choosing a Donato unusual. 
09. Miguel Calo - Alberto Podesta  "Pedacito de cielo (vals)" 1942 2:21
10. Miguel Calo - Alberto Podesta  "Bajo un cielo de estrellas (vals)" 1941 2:37
11. Edgardo Donato - Hugo del Carril "El vals de los recuerdos" 1935 2:18
12. Lidiya Ruslanova  "Valenki 3 (cortina)"  0:24
13. Osvaldo Fresedo - Roberto Ray "Adios Para Siempre" 1936 3:05
14. Osvaldo Fresedo - Instrumental  "Arrabalero" 1939 2:32
15. Osvaldo Fresedo - Roberto Ray "En la huella del dolor" 1934 2:48
16. Russian Folk  "Kalinka-Malinka 2 (cortina)"  0:25
17. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno  "No te quiero mas" 1940 2:18
18. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno  "Tabernero" 1941 2:33
19. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno "Llorar por una mujer" 1941 2:51
20. Russian Elvises The Red Elvises "Cosmonaut Petrov 1 (-3dB)" 1999 0:28
The quest to find tanda mates for Saca chispas ... and of course I was drawn to Canaro's "No hay tierra como la mia" but de Caro's sounded pretty intriguing ... however, just like with many De Caro records, the sound quality came out a bit too dull
21. Julio de Caro - Hector Farrel "Saca chispas" 1938 2:32
22. Quinteto Pirincho - Instrumental "Milongón (Milonga)" 1940 2:33
23. Julio de Caro - Hector Farrel  "No hay tierra como la mia" 1939 1:58
24. Maya Kristalinskaya  "Nezhnost (Tenderness)"  0:17
25. Carlos di Sarli - Jorge Durán "La vida me engañó" 1946 3:06
26. Carlos di Sarli - Jorge Durán "Duelo criollo" 1946 2:46
27. Carlos di Sarli - Jorge Durán "Un Tango Y Nada Mas" 1945 2:46
28. Russian Folk  "Kalinka-Malinka 2 (cortina)"  0:25
29. Ricardo Tanturi - Enrique Campos "Que Nunca Me Falte"  2:42
30. Ricardo Tanturi - Alberto Castillo  "Pocas Palabras"  2:21
31. Ricardo Tanturi - Alberto Castillo  "Así Se Baila El Tango"  2:34
32. Victor Tsoy  "Gruppa Krovi (cortina)"  0:36
The first of these light-hearted valses was used as a birthday dance, so I added Fru Fru to the list for everybody to enjoy a full-length tanda

33. Enrique Rodriguez - Ricardo Herrera  "Mañana por la mañana" 1947 2:49
34. Enrique Rodriguez - Roberto Flores  "Fru Fru (vals)"  2:57
35. Enrique Rodriguez - Roberto Flores  "Tengo Mil Novias (vals)"  3:08
36. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno  "Nyanzas y malevos" 1941 2:41
37. Lidiya Ruslanova  "Valenki 3 (cortina)"  0:24
38. Rodolfo Biagi - Instrumental "La Maleva" 1939 2:35
39. Rodolfo Biagi - Instrumental "El Trece 1938"  2:28
40. Rodolfo Biagi - Instrumental "Pura Clase" 1939 2:37
41. Russian Folk  "Kalinka-Malinka 2 (cortina)"  0:25
42. Carlos Di Sarli Alberto Podesta "No esta"  2:45
43. Carlos Di Sarli Alberto Podesta "Tu!...El cielo y tu!"  2:59
44. Carlos Di Sarli Alberto Podesta "Al compas del Corazon"  3:19
45. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lago "Ella Es Asi - milonga" 1938 2:35
46. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos "De punta a punta (milonga)" 1939 2:21
47. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos "Sácale punta" 1938 2:18
48. Maya Kristalinskaya  "Nezhnost (Tenderness)"  0:17
This really must be a four-song tanda, with Carablanca!
49. Lucio Demare - Juan Carlos Miranda "Manana zarpa un barco" 1942 3:22
50. Lucio Demare - Horacio Quintan "Igual que un bandoneon" 1945 3:02
51. Lucio Demare - Raul Beron "Como se hace un tango" 1943 3:14
52. Russian Folk  "Kalinka-Malinka 2 (cortina)"  0:25
53. Juan D'Arienzo - Alberto Echagüe  "Nada más" 1994 2:43
54. Juan D'Arienzo - Alberto Echagüe  "La bruja (fast)" 1938 2:13
55. Juan D'Arienzo - Alberto Echagüe  "Pensalo bien (fast)" 1938 2:20
56. Rodolfo Biagi - Andres Falgas  "El ultimo adios (vals)" 1940 2:09
57. Rodolfo Biagi - Teofilo Ibanez  "La loca de amor (vals)" 1938 2:13
58. Rodolfo Biagi - Alberto Lago  "Amor y vals" 1942 2:48
59. Carmen Piculeata  "Egy kis cigainy dal" 2013, 2013 0:29

Saul Zhadan's handwritten score,
dedicated to "dear Celia" and entitled,
in Russian,  "Your eyes"

Gitana Rusa, a composition by Saul Zhadan, a Jewish fiddler from Uman', Ukraine, has been smuggled out by sea from Odessa as a wedding gift to his son, a Buenos Aires banker, just before Zhadan perished in the Holocaust, and eventually renamed and remixed in Argentina with a subtitle "Tango Europeo" - yet even with the sound of a BsAs ochestra, it retains one-of-a-kind musical flavor and remains hard to pair up with other records into a tanda. My solution was rather standard - to combine it with other records of the same orchestra - and alas, it gave me the weakest tanda of the night. Malerbo-Medina's Remembranza may be a more fitting choice.
60. Ricardo Malerba - Orlando Medina "Gitana Rusa" 1942 2:47
61. Ricardo Malerba - Orlando Medina "Embrujamiento" 1943 2:52
62. Ricardo Malerba - Antonio Maida "Encuentro" 1944 2:20
63. Russian Folk  "Kalinka-Malinka 2 (cortina)"  0:25
More lyrical Donato favorites:
64. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos "El Adios" 1938 3:09
65. Edgardo Donato - Romeo Gavioli y Lita Morales "Mi Serenata" 1940 3:02
66. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos, Lita Morales y Romeo Gavioli "Sinfonía De Arrabal" 1940 3:07
67. Lidiya Ruslanova  "Valenki 5 (cortina)"  0:36
68. Pedro Laurenz - Hector Farrel  "Abandono" 1937 2:32
69. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podesta  "Recien" 1943 2:43
70. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podesta  "Todo" 1943 2:37
71. Carmen Piculeata  "Egy kis cigainy dal" 2013, 2013 0:29
A solid vals tanda but at milonga's homestretch, the penultimate tanda may have had more spice, more drama and complexity in it
72. Pedro Laurenz - Juan Carlos Casas "Mascarita"  2:53
73. Pedro Láurenz - Alberto Podestá  "Paisaje" 1943 2:51
74. Pedro Láurenz - C. Bermudez y J. Linares "Mendocina" 1944 2:35
75. Lidiya Ruslanova  "Valenki 3 (cortina)"  0:24
76. Alfredo de Angelis - Carlos Dante  "Carillon de La Merced" 1957 2:50
77. Osváldo Pugliese - Jorge Maciel "Remembranzas" 1956 3:41
78. Osvaldo Pugliese - Roberto Chanel  "Rondando tu esquina" 1945 2:48
79. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "La cumparsita" 1951 3:49
80. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole  "Over The Rainbow" 2001 3:32
(80 total)

Practilonga del Centro playlist, June 8 2014

What a treat of a party! What a turnout! Thank you so much, Utah tangueros!
The practica started out as an impromptu follower technique / walk basics class (Julianne, you are amazing!)
So for the first half an hour, I kept adding sets of the more accessible, classic instrumental "tangos for walking". 
01. Osvaldo Fresedo - Instrumental  "Derecho viejo" 1941 2:31
02. Osvaldo Fresedo - Instrumental  "Poliya" 1939 2:31
03. Osvaldo Fresedo - Instrumental  "Tigre viejo" 1934 3:01
04. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental "El ingeniero" 1952 3:25
05. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "Milonguero viejo" 1940 2:21
06. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "El once (a divertirse)" 1946 2:41
07. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "Bahía Blanca" 1958 2:49
08. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "Nueve puntos" 1956 3:25
09. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "Don Juan" 1941 2:34
10. Francisco Canaro - Instrumenta  "Pampa" 1938 2:50
11. Francisco Canaro - Instrumental  "El chamuyo" 1927 2:57
12. Francisco Canaro - Instrumental "Lorenzo" 1938 2:34
13. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental "El amanecer" 1951 2:30
14. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "Indio manso" 1958 2:53
15. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "A la gran muñeca" 1954 2:43
At last, more practilonga-goers trickle in, and it's time to diversify the music, staring from the dynamic Donato's from the heydays of the Horacio Lagos - Lita Morales - Romeo Gavioli singer trio. "Soy mendigo" ("I am a beggar") in particular floated to to the focus of my attention last week, because of a poetic association with Veronica Toumanova's newly published essay which insisted that tangueros must never "beg for love", that it only brings worse suffering. "Soy mendigo" is, in my eyes, a cool counterpoint - a confident, optimistic tango story of begging for affection. With some luck, I may write a bit more about it later :)
16. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos  "Lagrimas" 1939 2:50
17. Edgardo Donato  "Yo Te Amo (Lita Morales, Romeo Gavio)" 1940 2:50
18. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos  "Soy mendigo" 1939 2:34
19. Rodolfo Biag - Jorge Ortíz "Lagrimas Y Sonrisas (vals)" 1940 2:41
20. Rodolfo Biagi - Jorge Ortíz "Por Un Beso De Amor (vals)" 1940 2:44
21. Rodolfo Biagi - Teofilo Ibanez  "Viejo porton (vals)" 1938 2:27
22. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podestá  "Recien" 1943 2:43
23. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podestá  "Garua" 1943 3:09
24. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podestá  "Todo" 1943 2:37
25. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno  "Tango argentino" 1942 2:37
26. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno "Marinero"  1943 3:10
27. Enrique Rodriguez - Fernando Reyes "Alma en pena" 1946 3:05
28. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Fama "Milonga sentimental" 1933 3:10
29. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Fama "Milonga del 900" 1933 2:55
30. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Milonga criolla" 1936 3:05
31. Ricardo Tanturi - Enrique Campos  "Oigo Tu Voz" 1943 3:07
32. RicardoTanturi - Alberto Castillo "Madame Ivonne" 1942 2:18
33. Ricardo Tanturi - Enrique Campos "Que Nunca Me Falte" 1943 2:42
34. Carlos di Sarli - Alberto Podestá  "Lloran las campanas" 1944 2:58
35. Carlos Di Sarli - Alberto Podestá  "La Capilla Blanca" 1944 2:55
36. Carlos Di Sarli - Alberto Podestá  "Junto a tu corazon" 1942 3:00
And now for a series of special waltzes, for my own birthday & for Lis and Regina's going-away dances, followed by the 4th track "for everybody to dance". 

The light-hearted "Cuando estaba enamorado" holds a special place in my personal shrine of tango music ... you may say that my path there started from Homer and Christina's dancing to Canaro's rendition of this vals in Portland in 2010.
37. Francisco Lomuto - Fernando Diaz  "Cuando estaba enamorado" 1940 2:19
A Berliner band with several tango-danceable, ethnically inspired tunes remixed and dramatically accelerated a very classic, originally very sorrowful Russian waltz which mourned the war dead of the 1905 Battle of Mukden.
38. 17 Hippies  "Time Has Left Me Ma Belle (Vals) aka Manchurian Hills" 2004 3:56
Eugen Doga's most famous movie soundtrack hit is a faux-XIXth century waltz from the "Tender and Affectionate Beast", but milonga-wise, I prefer a different waltz from a virtually unknown flick, composed nearly 15 years later:
39. Eugen Doga "Gramophone" 1992 2:28
The closing track for this special tanda of love and farewell is from the Klezmatics. "Di Goldene Pave", the Golden Peahen, is a fairy-tale flying messenger, and a metaphor for the separation from the loved ones in Yiddish poetry - truly, a metaphor for poetry itself. Chava Alberstein composed the music to a 1920s poem by Anna Margolis, then a recent immigrant from Russia to New York. 
40. The Klezmatics & Chava Albertstein "Di Goldene Pave" 2003 4:01
41. Edgardo Donato - Romeo Gavio, Lita Morales "Mi Serenata" 1940 3:02
42. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos, Lita Morales, Romeo Gavio "Sinfonia de Arrabal" 1940 3:07
43. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos "El adios" 1938 3:19
"Pa'que lagrimear" is another recording which I couldn't get out of my head in recent days. The oldtime insistence of the beat, the stretchy sound of bandoneon, the voice of the estrebillista singing only refrains but not the verses of tango lyrics, in a way which has just been recently pioneered by Canaro (Traditionally, danceable tangos didn't have any vocal at all, to keep it easy for the dancers; while tango cancion had all the verses sung. Canaro realized that if a singer stops being a featured soloist, and becomes one of the instruments of a tango orchestra, subservient to the beat like the rest of them, then the dancers might actually like it ... in small quantities. And they did, more and more so with the passage of time, but to this day almost no tango lyrics are sung in their entirety, beginning to end, in the tangos "para bailar". They do sing some verses, but skip others)
44. Adolfo Carabelli - Carlos Lafuente "Pa'que lagrimear" 1933" 2:39
45. Adolfo Carabelli - Alberto Gómez "El 13" 1932 2:37
46. Adolfo Carabelli - Carlos Lafuente  "El pensamiento" 1932 2:39
Some of the best contemporary milongas. The first one is truly outstanding.
47. Otros Aires "Los Vino"  2:41
48. Otros Aires "Un Baile De Beneficio" 2010 3:42
49. Otros Aires "Rotos en el Raval" 2005 3:53
50. Osvaldo Fresedo Roberto Ray "No quiero verte llorar" 1937 2:42
51. Osvaldo Fresedo Roberto Ray "Vida mia" 1933 3:23
52. Osvaldo Fresedo Roberto Ray "Isla de Capri" 1935 3:16
(The dance floor is absolutely full of people now but I'm reluctantly deleting lots from the draft list from this point on, in order to wrap it up no more than half an hour later than the practica's official end. Milongas, another vocal Fresedo tanda, and an occasional third-tune-in-a-set get the cut)
53. Anibal Troilo - Francisco Fiorentino "El Bulín De La Calle Ayacucho" 1941 2:31
54. Anibal Troilo - Francisco Fiorentino "Tabernero" 1941 3:20
55. Anibal Troilo - Francisco Fiorentino "Toda Mi Vida" 1941 2:58
56. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno  "Con tu mirar" 1941 2:13
57. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno  "Llora corazon" 1945 2:51
58. Enrique Rodriguez - Ricardo Herrera, Fernando Reyes  "Mecha" 1946 3:11
59. Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón "Tristezas De La Calle Corrientes" 1942 2:46
60. Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón  "Al Compas Del Corazon" 1942 2:48
61. Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón "Jamas Retornaras" 1942 2:31
62. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Recuerdos De Paris" 1937 3:12
63. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Condena (S.O.S.)" 1937 2:39
64. Alfredo De Angelis "Mi dolor" 1957 2:51
65. Alfredo De Angelis  "Pavadita 1958" 2:53
66. Alfredo De Angelis  "Felicia 1969" 2:48
67. Osváldo Pugliese "Farol" 1943 3:22
68. Osváldo Pugliese "Remembranzas" 1943 3:41
69. Osváldo Pugliese "La mariposa" 1966 3:32
70. Angel D'Agostino - Angel Vargas "La Cumparsita" 1946 3:00
Both post-Cumparsita tracks sound pretty good, but their youtube videos are even better IMO. The first one is, of course, a spoofy remix of Sholom Secunda's 1932 Yiddish operetta hit, "Bei Mir Bistu Schein", which took the world by storm and must have been performed in dozens languages (there is an Argentine version too, "Para mi eres divina" by Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno)
71. Cream Margot  "Poka igraet dzhaz"  3:16

72. Damour Vocal Band "Sway"  3:49