Practilonga del Centro playlist, Jan 12, 2015

Carlos di Sarli
Jan 7, 1903 - Jan 12, 1960

It's great to be back from the traditional New Year's break at San Diego Tango Festival and to mingle again with the hometown tango crowd! Of course as it happens on Del Centro's Monday nights, the impromptu class at the beginning of the practilonga stretched for good 40 minutes, and I kept shifting valses and milongas down the list, and adding more Di Sarli tandas. For it's El Señor del Tango's birth month, and the 55th anniversary of his death, too. But more on Di Sarli later...
01. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "El jaguel" 1956 2:52
02. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "Don Juan (El taita del barrio)" 1951 2:47
03. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "Cara sucia" 1952 2:20
04. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "Champagne tango" 1938 2:26
05. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "El flete" 1936 2:58
06. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "La viruta" 1936 2:20
07. Carlos di Sarli - Roberto Rufino "Tristeza Marina" 1943 3:09
08. Carlos di Sarli - Roberto Rufino  "Adiós te vas" 1943 2:30
09. Carlos di Sarli - Roberto Rufino  "Otra vez carnaval (Noches de carnaval)" 1942 2:41
10. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos  "Lagrimas" 1939 2:50
11. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos  "A oscuras" 1941 2:48
12. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos "Se Va La Vida" 1936 2:39

Street cars started running in Bahia Blanca when Carlos was 3

OK, time to start Di Sarli's story now, since we reached Bahía Blanca, Carlos di Sarli's hometown and an unsurpassed tango masterpiece he composed in its honor. A town where he got an eye injury in a childhood accident in his father's gun shop, condemning Carlos di Sarli to wearing dark sunglasses for the rest of his life. A town from where he ran away to Argentina's North at 13, to play tangos in defiance of his father's wish for his son to become a classical pianist. A town where he assembled the first of his many tango orchestras, at the age of 16.
13. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "Bahía Blanca" 1957 2:52
Di Sarli kept playing tangos for 42 years, changing music styles so much that one might think that the records were done by completely different orchestras - and in a sense they were very different, but always achieved superb balance of rhythm and melody, of unwavering beat and complexity. I realize that I couldn't even attempt to cover "all Di Sarli terrain" in this playlist. So far we've got more rhythmic 1950s instrumental remixes of very old tangos in the first tanda; a classic vocal of Rufino in the 2nd; and more flowery 1950s instrumentals, withDi Sarli's own compositions. By the end of the list, we won't even have touched super-rhythmic, Juan D'Arienzo-influenced late 30s; famous vocals of Podesta and Duran; and really dramatic vocal records from the 1950s; and not a single vals of Di Sarli's here. It's just impossible to exhaust all his masterpieces!
14. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "Comme il faut" 1951 2:28
15. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "Indio manso" 1958 2:53
16. Orquesta Tipica Victor - Lita Morales "Noches de invierno" 1937 2:47
17. Orquesta Típica Víctor - Angel Vargas"Sin Rumbo Fijo (vals)" 1938 2:18
18. Orquesta Tipica Victor, M. Pomar  "Temo" 1940 2:55
19. Enrique Rodríguez - Armando Moreno "Llorar por una mujer" 1941 2:47
20. Enrique Rodríguez - Armando Moreno "Marinero" 1943 3:10
21. Enrique Rodríguez - Armando Moreno "Como has cambiado pebeta" 1942 2:37
22. Quinteto Pirincho - Instrumental "Milongon" 1952 2:29
23. Quinteto Pirincho - Instrumental "Corralera" 1956 2:05
24. Quinteto Pirincho (Francisco Canaro) "Orillera (Milonga)"  2:27
25. Ángel D'Agostino - Instrumental "Café Domínguez (palabras de Julian Centeya)" 1955 2:56
26. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas  "Tres esquinas" 1941 3:05
27. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Ahora No Me Conocés" 1941 2:35
The last of the three valses is what conjured up this tanda for me. The other day, gliding down, mile after mile, from a Uinta ski tour, I couldn't get one line of a verse from my head, "sangrar mi corazón por ti!". At first just recited without a tune, eventually it grew into a whole musical phrase and I still couldn't get what it was. At last, the previous section of the music floated up in my memory, and then it was - aha, old vals, I know you!
28. Rodolfo Biagi - Instrumental "Lagrimas Y Sonrisas (vals)" 1941 2:41
29. Rodolfo Biagi - Andrés Falgás "El ultimo adios (vals)" 1940 2:09
30. Rodolfo Biagi - Andrés Falgás "Dejame Amarte Aunque Sea un Dia (vals)" 1939 2:55
31. Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón Miguel Calo "Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón / Jamas Retornaras" 1996 2:31
32. Miguel Calo - Raul Beron  "Que te importa que te llore" 1942 2:44
33. Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón  "Corazón no le hagas caso" 1942-09-29 3:00

Di Sarli's Sextet in 1929

The first of many BsAs Di Sarli orchestras, the amazing sextet which he convened at 24, much under influence of Osvaldo Fresedo's Old Guard. But this sound surpasses most of the best of the Old Guard classics. For me, the powerful, slightly archaic Sexteto Carlos di Sarli may be the most beloved period of his music. Then the hard times of the Great Depression came and di Sarli had to quit in 1931, for 6 long years. Oldtimers remember that his competitors fanned rumors that his dark glasses were a yeta, a jynx bringing bad luck to the listeners, and even some superstitious Argentines are afraid to utter his name to this day - for them, Di Sarli can only be mentioned as El Tuerto, the One-Eyed. The superstitions never made it easier for El Tuerto to win audiences!
34. Sexteto Carlos di Sarli - Inst  "Racing Club" 1930 2:34
35. Sexteto Carlos di Sarli - Inst  "Belen" 1929 2:44
36. Sexteto Carlos di Sarli - Inst  "Pobre yo" 1929 2:12
A foxy tanda in lieu of the milongas :) Mostly Russian-themed this time, the middle tune being a great remix of a Russian Silver Age classic which I already described in this blog.
37. Enrique Rodríguez - Armando Moreno "Se ve el tren"  3:11
38. Enrique Rodríguez - Armando Moreno "No Te Apures Por Dios Postillon"  2:59
39. Enrique Rodríguez - Armando Moreno "Maruska" 1943 2:07
40. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida  "Mi noche triste" 1936 2:45
41. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Ojos negros que fascinan" 1935 2:51
42. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Invierno" 1937 3:26
43. Lucio Demare - Juan Carlos Miranda  "No te apures, Carablanca" 1942 3:29
44. Lucio Demare - Juan Carlos Miranda  "Manana zarpa un barco" 1942 3:22
45. Lucio Demare - Juan Carlos Miranda  "Malena" 1942 2:57
Second Pirincho tanda for the night. Why didn't I add Di Sarli's valses, for good measure ;) ?
46. Quinteto Pirincho (Francisco Canaro) "Desde el alma (Vals)" 1952 3:01
47. Quinteto Pirincho - Instrumental  "Maria esther (vals)" 1943 2:31
48. Quinteto Pirincho (Francisco Canaro) "Vibraciones del alma (Vals)" 1956 2:53
49. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Mano Blanca" 1944 2:43
50. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Ninguna" 1942 2:59
51. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "No Vendrá" 1945 2:30
52. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos "El Adios" 1938 3:09
53. Edgardo Donato - Romeo Gavioli y Lita Morales "Mi Serenata" 1940  3:02
54. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos, Lita Morales y Romeo Gavioli "Sinfonía De Arrabal" 1940  3:07
Di Sarli's thick, full-bodied milongas are my absolute favorites
55. Carlos Di Sarli - Roberto Rufino "La Mulateada" 1941 2:22
56. Carlos Di Sarli - Roberto Rufino "Pena Mulata" 1941 2:27
57. Carlos Di Sarli - Roberto Rufino  "Cuando un viejo se enamora" 1942 2:14
I always preferred Biagi's "Todo te nombra" but I begin to appreciate Canaro-Fama's...
58. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Fama "Yo no se porque te quiero" 1934 3:10
59. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Fama "Todo te nombra" 1939 3:07
60. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Fama "Te quiero todavia" 1939 2:54
61. Osvaldo Fresedo Roberto Ray "Nieblas del riachuelo" 1937 2:25
62. Osvaldo Fresedo Roberto Ray "No quiero verte llorar" 1937 2:42
63. Osvaldo Fresedo Roberto Ray "Sollosos" 1937 3:27
64. Alfredo De Angelis - Instrumental "Pavadita 1958"  2:53
65. Alfredo De Angelis - Instrumental "Felicia 1969"  2:48
66. Alfredo de Angelis - Instrumental  "El Tango Club" 1957 2:40
67. Osváldo Pugliese "Nochero Soy" 1943 3:32
68. Osváldo Pugliese "Rondando Tu Esquina" 1943 2:48
69. Osváldo Pugliese "Recuerdo" 1944 2:39
70. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "La cumparsita" 1951 3:49
71. Carlos Libedinsky  "Otra Luna" 2006 3:43
(71 total)