Cecilia Gonzalez Workshop Practica playlist, Nov 18, 2017

As an organizer of Cecilia Gonzalez workshop, I definitely have my hands full, but I blithely agree to host and DJ a short after-class practica on the last day of the workshop, which is also supposed to substitute our regular Sunday practica. Yet in a classic "assignment creep", this little thing morphs into a 2 (or perhaps even 2.5) hour playlist.
We begin from as unhurried and grounded tangos as only the Old Guard can be:
01. Orquesta Tipica Victor (dir. A. Carabelli) - Instrumental "Coqueta" 1929 2:45
02. Edgardo Donato - Luis Diaz "Adelina" 1930 2:58
03. Orquesta de Roberto Firpo - Instrumental "Una Noche En La Milonga" 1929 2:56
and on to the D'Arienzo Revolution and beyond!
04. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "Ataniche" 1936 2:31
05. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "El flete" 1936 2:58
06. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "El Cencerro" 1937 2:40
07. Zhanna Aguzarova  "Old Hotel cortina long"  0:38
08. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Ahora No Me Conocés" 1941 2:35
09. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Solo compasion" 1941 2:58
10. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Ninguna" 1942 2:59
11. Soda Stereo  "Profugos"  0:33
Eugene Doga, a contemporary Moldovan-Russian romantic composer, is famous for his waltzes, and "Gramophone" may be the highest rated of them (in some lists, it has even been ranked as one of the top 10 classic waltzes of all times!). There is a potential problem here, though. It seems that essentially the same tune appeared on a soundtrack of a Greek movie, "The beekeper", 6 years before Doga recorded it. The composer was Eleni Karaindrou. I understand that one of the two composers must have been there first; for sure, the earlier recording belonged to Karaindrou, but ... who knows? So I even asked the keepers of Doga's fansite if they could check the dates with him. But they were adamant that the maestro composed it in the early 1990s. 

12. Evgeny Doga "Gramophone" 1992 2:28
13. Klezmatics  "Di Goldene Pave" 2000 4:01
14. Yann Tiersen  "La valse d'Amélie (Version originale)" 2006 2:16
15. Soda Stereo  "En la ciudad de furia"  0:24
16. Eendo  "Eshgh e Aasemaani" 2011 3:31
17. Goran Bregovic  "Maki Maki" 2009 3:33
18. Kevin Johansen Kevin Johansen + the Nada "Sur o No Sur" 2002 4:53
19. Soda Stereo  "Profugos"  0:33
20. Jem  "Come On Closer" 2004 3:47
21. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole  "Over The Rainbow" 2001 3:32
22. Fool's Garden  "Lemon Tree" 1999 3:09
23. Sandro de America  "Yo Te Amo cortina" 1968 0:23

Am I playing "Perro Viejo" for Jasmine
the old dog, who just tured 15 and 1/4 ?

24. Orquesta Tipica Victor (dir. A. Carabelli) - Instrumental "Nino bien" 1928 2:43
25. Orquesta Tipica Victor (dir. A. Carabelli) - Instrumental "Che, papusa, oi" 1927 2:37
November 6 marks birthday of the 2nd leader of Orquesta Tipica Victor, great Uruguayan-born bandoneonist Federico Scorticati. I will try playing some of his great valses later, too...
26. Orquesta Tipica Victor (dir. F. Scorticati) - Ángel Vargas "Adios Buenos Aires" 1938 2:36
27. Zhanna Aguzarova "Cats" 1987 0:21
28. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental "Shusheta" 1940 2:22
29. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental "Catamarca" 1940 2:23
30. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental "La trilla" 1940 2:21
31. Soda Stereo  "En la ciudad de furia"  0:24
32. Otros Aires - Miguel Di Genova "Rotos En El Raval" 2005 3:53
33. Otros Aires - Miguel Di Genova "Los Vino" 2010 2:41
34. Otros Aires - Miguel Di Genova "Perro Viejo" 2016 3:21
35. Folk  "Shumel Kamysh "  0:23

Carlos Acuña (born Carlos Ernesto Di Loreto on November 4, 1915) recorded just one piece with Di Sarli before moving on to join Biagi, but it was a truly seminal song and I'm happy to play it today to mark Acuña's birthday. In 1940-1941, the recording companies were still dead-set to replicate the commercial success of El Rey del Compas. No song would be accepted if it didn't feature the madly pulsating beat. But with "Cuando El Amor Muere", recorded in August 1941, Di Sarli and Acuña demonstrated that there is room for the more lyrical song, and set the new trend for the tango of the subsequent years.
36. Carlos di Sarli - Carlos Acuña "Cuando El Amor Muere" 1941 2:48
37. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental "El amanecer" 1942 2:24
38. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental "Ensueños" 1943 2:40
39. Viktor Tsoy  "Red-Yellow Days cortina long 3"  0:33
40. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Famá "Te quiero todavia" 1939 2:54
41. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Famá "Abandonada" 1939 2:54
42. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Famá "No me pregunten porque" 1939 2:51
43. Viktor Tsoy  "Good morning, last Hero cortina long" 1989 0:35
Best of Scorticati's OTV valses!
44. Orquesta Tipica Victor - Lita Morales "Noches de invierno" 1937 2:47
45. Orquesta Típica Víctor - Ángel Vargas "Sin Rumbo Fijo" 1938 2:18
46. Orquesta Tipica Victor - Mario Pomar  "Temo" 1940 2:55
47. Soda Stereo  "Corazon elator"  0:28
48. Goran Bregovic - Iggy Pop "This Is a Film" 1999 4:14
(and I pass the reigns to DJ Brian).

Mestizos Practica Playlist,Nov 5, 2017

My first turn DJing a popular Sunday matinee practica at Mestizos Coffeehouse, an oasis of community and alt-culture on the struggling West Side. Many locals are gone for the weekend to a workshop in Boise, and it's my turn to fill in. I show up at un-tango-ishly early 10:45 am, fearing that with so many absentees, we may never get traction. But just a couple tandas later, the floor starts to come alive...
01. Quinteto Don Pancho - Instrumental "El garron" 1938 2:27
02. Quinteto Don Pancho - Instrumental "Alma en pena" 1938 2:46
03. Quinteto Don Pancho - Instrumental "Champagne tango" 1938 2:30
04. Maya Kristalinskaya  "A za oknom"  0:16
05. Osvaldo Fresedo - Instrumental  "Pimienta" 1939 2:52
06. Osvaldo Fresedo - Instrumental  "Derecho viejo" 1941 2:31
07. Osvaldo Fresedo - Instrumental  "Arrabalero" 1939 2:32
08. Soda Stereo  "En la ciudad de furia"  0:24
Adolfo Carabelli is one of my favorite "tango underdogs", underappreciated yet truly wonderful orchestra leaders - except he lead not just one orchestra but two, at essentially the same time. A classical and jazz pianist and composer with extensive European education, Carabelli ended up stuck in his birth country, Argentina, when WWI broke out. At the age of 32, the jazz musician was thrust into the world of tango almost by chance. An ascendant recording label, Victor, hired Carabelli as an artistic director in 1925, with an assignment to best the rival networks' house-brand orchestras in jazz - and also in tango. And Adolfo Carabelli achieved a truly spectacular success with Orquesta Tipica Victor (OTV), attracting top talent to the label - and to his own jazz band, which also started recording excellent tangos from 1931 on (for the tango records, they would call themselves an Orquesta Tipica rather than a Jazz Band, just like many other Argentine orchestras did in the hardscrabble post-Great Depression years). 

Adolfo Carabelli
September 8, 1893 - January 25, 1947

A great innovator and bandleader of the difficult years which preceded Tango's Golden Age, Carabelli ended up excluded from the world of tango music just as it took off again. Carabelli's own success at Victor was partly to blame, as the label sought to replicate his success and formed many additional house bands in the 1930s, undercutting its flagship OTV. Intrigue and romantic suffering took its toll on the musician. In 1936, Carabelli lost the helm of OTV to his star bandoneonist,  Federico Scorticati. Later on, as the best musicians found a real explosion of opportunities in the newly-formed tango orchestras of the late 1930s, and Carabelli's depression deepened, his own orchestra folded too, recording its last piece in 1940. Carabelli died in 1947 in complete obscurity. 
09. Adolfo Carabelli - Alberto Gómez "Alma" 1932 2:56
10. Adolfo Carabelli - Alberto Gómez "Inspiración" 1932 3:23
11. Orquesta Tipica Victor (dir. A. Carabelli) - Luis Diaz "Secreto" 1932 2:45
12.  "Hagedel Sheli"  0:28
It's just a few weeks past Pedro Laurenz's 115th anniversary, and I'm going to celebrate it by generously sprinkling tandas of the great bandoneonist and bandleader. First, the intensely rhythmic tangos of Laurenz's eary orchestra period:
13. Pedro Laurenz - Juan Carlos Casas "Vieja amiga" 1938 3:13
14. Pedro Laurenz - Juan Carlos Casas "Desconsuelo" 1940 2:29
15. Pedro Laurenz - Juan Carlos Casas "No me extrana" 1940 2:44
16. Marek Jackowski   "Oprócz blekitnego nieba"  0:23
17. Haris Alexiou  "To Tango Tis Nefelis" 1998 4:07
18. Jem  "Come On Closer"  2004 3:47
19. Fool's Garden "Lemon Tree" 1999 3:09
20. Lyube  "Bat'ka Makhno cortina 1"  0:18
Miguel Caló's 110th anniversary was also just a few days ago, on October 28th. Let me start celebrating Calo with a milonga tanda I seldom play:
21. Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón "Milonga que peina canas" 1942 2:20
22. Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón "Milonga Antigua" 1942 2:25
23. Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón "Azabache" 1942 3:03
A cortina which begs dancing to? I need to take a closer look at Viktor Tsoy's dark classic ... it's nearly 7 minutes long, but perhaps a reasonable-length track can be cut?

24. Viktor Tsoy  "Kukushka cortina long 2"  0:37
As tango grows more melodic and dramatic in the 1940s, Laurenz records these timeless masterpieces:
25. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podesta "Alma de bohemio" 1943 2:43
26. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podesta "Todo" 1943 2:37
27. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podesta "Recien" 1943 2:43
28. Viktor Tsoy  "Konchitsya leto (summers end) cortina long 2"  0:40
Recently, we were excited to redicsover the only LP of Argentine tango ever recorded in Russia, by Cuarteto Buenos Aires of Alberto Besprosvan a.k.a. Tito Bespros. Someone already dared to play a selection from the album at a milonga. I couldn't resist too. I think it may actually work sometimes; my biggest gripe is that the volume of the music gets impossibly law when the vocalist sings...
29. Tito Bespros - Siro San Roman "Media Luz" 1968 2:32
30. Tito Bespros - Siro San Roman "Al Compas Del Corazon" 1968 2:40
31. Tito Bespros - Siro San Roman "El Choclo" 1968 2:17
Calo's classic valses:
32. Miguel Caló - Raul Berón "El Vals Soñador" 1942 3:29
33. Miguel Caló - Alberto Podestá  "Bajo un cielo de estrellas (vals)" 1941 2:37
34. Miguel Caló - Alberto Podestá  "Pedacito de cielo (vals)" 1942 2:21
35. Vitas  "7, the element cortina" 2012, 2012 0:23
36. Damour Vocal Band  "Sway"  3:49
37. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole  "Over The Rainbow" 2001 3:32
38. Souad Massi  "Ghir Enta" 2008 5:06
39. Pink Floyd  "Goodbye Blue Sky cortina long 2"  0:29
Some of my favorite and oft-played tangos of Calo's - but I will play his unusuals later, too.
41. Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón  "Corazón no le hagas caso" 1942 3:00
42. Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón  "Jamás retornarás" 1942 2:28
43. Miguel Calo - Raul Beron  "Tristezas de la calle Corrientes" 1942 2:46
44. Endless Boogie  "High Drag cortina" 2016 0:22
I was exploring D'Arienzo's tangos with the voice of Hector Maure recently, enjoying their bitter tinge. These are the most brooding pieces of D'Arienzo than I ever played. Beautiful and sad. Especially the opening track... 
45. Juan D'Arienzo - Héctor Mauré "Uno" 1943 3:17
46. Juan D'Arienzo - Héctor Mauré "Enamorado (Metido)" 1943 2:33
47. Juan D'Arienzo - Alberto Echagüe "No Nos Veremos Nunca" 1944 3:33
48. Johnny Cash  "I walk the line cortina long" 2000 0:40
People sometimes complain that Laurenz's trio of valses, Mendocina / Mascarita / Paisaje, is overplayed?
49. Pedro Láurenz - Alberto Podestá  "Paisaje" 1943 2:51
50. Pedro Láurenz - Carlos Bermudez y Jorge Linares "Mendocina" 1944 2:35
51. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "Corazon De Artista" 1936 2:18
52. Stas Borsov  "Anyuta cortina" 2000 0:21
Turn for interesting Calo records which I haven't played before ... and I was so excited about the closing track that I didn't realize that I played the same theme by a different orchestra in the beginning of the practica...
53. Miguel Calo - Instrumental "La guinada" 1948 2:47
54. Miguel Calo - Instrumental "Saludos" 1944 2:23
55. Miguel Calo - Instrumental "Inspiracion" 1943 2:47
56. Leonid Bykov  "Smuglyanka cortina long"  0:33
57. Ricardo Tanturi - Alberto Castillo "Decile Que Vuelva" 1942 2:33
58. Ricardo Tanturi - Alberto Castillo  "Así Se Baila El Tango" 1942 2:36
59. Ricardo Tanturi - Alberto Castillo  "La vida es corta" 1941 2:25
60. Alexey Kudryavtsev  "The heart breaks cortina 1"  0:22
Less than a week from now, we are going to accompany Tango West Orchestra on stage, and I get a request to play some of the temas of the planned performance (Silueta porteña, Desde el alma, Romance the barrio) for the practice. And since the remaining vals and milonga tandas were planned as non-traditional, I am incorporating non-traditional versions of these venerable titles into the list:
61. Trio Garufa  "Silueta Porteña (Electro Milonga)" 2008 2:35
62. The Alex Krebs Tango Sextet  "Negrito" 2011 1:53
63. Otros Aires  "Perro Viejo" 2016 3:21
64. Alla Pugacheva  "Million Scarlet Roses (cortina long)"  0:39
65. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Ahora No Me Conocés" 1941 2:35
66. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Solo compasion" 1941 2:58
67. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Ninguna" 1942 2:59
68. Sandro de America  "Yo te amo cortina long"  0:44
69. Miguel Calo - Raul Iriarte  "La vi llegar" 1944 3:24
70. Miguel Calo - Raul Iriarte  "Lluvia de abril" 1945 2:42
71. Miguel Calo - Raul Iriarte  "Cada dia te extrano mas" 1943 2:35
72. Jennifer Gasoi  "Happy happy me (cortina 1)" 2012, 2012 0:21
73. Los Cosos De Al Lao  "Romance De Barrio" 2003 2:48
74. Los Tubatango  "Francia (Vals)" 1994 3:03
75. Osvaldo Pugliese - Instrumental "Desde El Alma" 2:58
76. Beatles The Beatles "All you Need is Love cortina" 2006, 2006 0:19
77. Lhasa De Sela Blue Suenos "La Cara de la Pared" 2005 4:23
78. Carlos Libedinsky  "Vi Luz y Subí" 2005 3:18
79. Cirque du Soleil Cirque Du Soleil "Querer" 1994 4:34
and finally a gulp of drama with the parting tanda of Calo...
80. Miguel Calo - Lucho Gatica  "Percal" 1965 2:58
81. Miguel Calo - Lucho Gatica  "Cada dia te extrano mas" 1965 2:32
82. Miguel Calo - Lucho Gatica  "La copa del olvido" 1965 2:47

Cantando en ruso @ Buena Vista Social Bar

A milonga with all the classic Argentine songs being sung ... in translation from Castellano? Well, consider our last month's joint project with a fellow tango translator Natalia Orlova a proof of principle. We got 5 real tandas, plus a little primer on tango poetry and its history, and people listened and danced and we had an awesome experience - and then left the stage to a regular milonga DJ with a sweet feeling of satisfaction and knowing that a lot more can be done and there is plenty of room for development.

Natalia Orlova started translating tangos into Russian (as well as Ukrainian and English!) almost a decade ago, just as I was discovering the rhythmical beauty of the Spanish ballad which informs the compas and the phrasing of all genres of tango music, and the lively slang of the port city songs, and the crazy quilt of topics sung about in tango - profound and profane, melancholic and merry, spanning from the eternal themes of love and loss and nostalgia to sports, fights, card games, booze, politics, and much, much humble country living. Natalia has become my mentor as I also started trying to make Argentine songs ring in my beautiful native language. And I swear I wouldn't have fallen in love with tango without this experience!
But now, fast-forward to 2017. I was going to Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine for a family-roots search expedition, but of course I packed lots of tango into the trip plans ... and I also decided to give multimedia presentations on tango poetry, in the mold of "Chamuyo de gotán: time travel through tango history with the lyrics of its songs", but in Russian. I hasten to add that, alas, I can't sing :) so for my first gig in Tyumen, Siberia I settled on just reciting the snippets of the translations. But Natalia isn't shy about singing. I knew that she occasionally sang her tango translations, accompanied by her guitar. What if...?

Chamuyando en Siberia....

Brainstorming the plan, we decided to use real orchestra music (a combination of instrumental pieces, vocal tangos with sufficiently long instrumental-only segments, and vocalist backing tracks which I spliced together from the classic vocal recordings). We boldly decided to go for a real tanda format, with alternating T / V / M sets, and some talk-through in pauses. In reality, my beautiful co-conspirator and vocalist has been delayed by a stuck elevator snafu and atrocious traffic, so I had to start from improvising alone. I played a few warm-up tandas , then shifted much of the talk to the beginning of the presentation, and we ended up completing the whole plan exactly on time, Whew!
01. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental "Shusheta" 1940 2:22
02. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental  "Catamarca" 1940 2:23
03. Carlos di Sarli - Instrumental "La trilla" 1940 2:21
04. Viktor Tsoy  "Kukushka cortina long"  0:55
05. Juan  D'Arienzo - Instrumental "Joaquina" 1935 3:01
06. Juan  D'Arienzo - Instrumental "El Internado" 1938 2:31
07. Juan  D'Arienzo - Instrumental "Ataniche" 1936 2:32
08. Mammas and the Papas  "California Dreaming cortina long"  0:40
09. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos "Quien Sera" 1941 2:15
10. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos, Lita Morales y Romeo Gavio "Estrellita Mia" 1940 2:36
11. Edgardo Donato - Félix Gutierrez "La Tapera" 1936 2:54
12.  Time to start! Introducing the first tango with recorded score, the 1880s' Mendisabal's "Entrerriano", which signaled the transition from tangos played by ear to the written, and printed, compositions.
13. D'Arienzo, Juan  "El Entrerriano" 1963 2:39

14.  However, unlike the musical scores, the lyrics - and sometimes the very titles - of the tangos remained un-printed - and largely unprintable - for the decades to come. Case in point: "La c...ara de la l...una", one of the liveliest tangos of all times, composed by an Uruguayan police telegrapher Campoamor in 1901 as a hymn to a whore's vagina (hence the conspicuous ellipses in its bowdlerized official title).
15. Quinteto Pirincho - Instrumental "La C...ara De La L...una" 1951 2:53
16.  At last, exactly 100 years ago, the poets take up the case of tango. The great Pascual Contursi writes lyrics of "My sad night", "Mi noche triste", and the great Carlos Gardel performs it from the stage! The first tango poem bears all the hallmarks of the future tango, highlighting the despair of a lost love in thick Lunfardo slang. Listening to Gardel's voice in a later, better quality recording - and then in a XXI century remix!
17. Carlos Gardel (con guitarras)  "Mi Noche Triste" 1930 3:19
18. Otros Aires  "Percanta" 2005 5:01
19. Finally, Natalia Orlova at the mike! We start from the epoch when the vocal tangos entered, gingerly, into the milonga (for the first decade after the debut of "Mi noche triste", the vocal tangos remained solely a listening music, but then singers known as estrebellistas started singing for the dancers, at first just the few lines of the bridge known as estribillo ... then perhaps a bridge and one stanza... and then even more...). All the vocals en ruso and the specially-cut backing tracks are available on Google drive. (UPD: open sharing of the raw vocal recordings, with my and Natalia's backstage conversations captured in the tracks, have been voted down for now :) Eventually, these recordings will be remixed back with the original backing tracks, and released one by one. At the moment, only "Milonga del 900 en ruso" is ready for prime time. The custom backing "minus" tracks are still available below.). The translations can be found at the sister blog, "Letras de tango en ruso". Please don't judge us too harshly, remember that it's intended as a proof-of-principle only :)
20. Quinteto Pirincho - Instrumental "La payanca" 1964 3:00
21. Sexteto Carlos di Sarli - Ernesto Famá "Chau pinela" 1930 2:36
22. Adolfo Carabelli - vocalist backing version "Pa' que lagrimear minus2" 1933 2:37
23. Leonid Utesov  "S Odesskogo kichmana (cortina)" 1935 0:22
24.  Introducing the Milonga Portena, the rebirth of an ancient song genre as a song for the dancers. The 2nd and 3rd milongas are Natalia's translations!
25. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Famá (backing track)   "Milonga del 900 minus acc6" 1933 2:59
(This is the one song with an "official" Russian track at the moment - Listen here )
26. Quinteto Pirincho - Instrumental "Se dice de mi" 1954 2:52 Youtube here

27. Lucio Demare - Raul Beron (backing track) "Carnavalito minus extended" 1943 4:34
28. Soda Stereo  "Corazon elator"  0:28
29. The Great Depression and the near-death of tango. Survival in exile, memories of the harsh times, triumphant return in the late 1930s...
30. Edgardo Donato - vocalist backing track version "Triqui-tra minus" 1940 2:32
31. Orquesta Típica Víctor (dir. Adolfo Carabelli) - Ernesto Famá  "Carrillón de la Merced" 1931
32. The vals tanda has a special, sentimental quality. These are some of our earliest translations, and I believe that it was the humorous and playful "Cuando estaba enamorado" which opened the way into tango for myself - and Natalia Orlova's translation of "Corazon De Oro, my inspiration. In turn, Natalia says she still chokes back tears when she sings "Barrio de Belgrano, caseron de tejas...". While for me, this great vals and her translation introduced me to a great blogger Tamas Sajo who later mentored my first steps in blogging and set me on the path of studying tango history - and my own family history.
33. Francisco Canaro - Francisco Amor "Cuando Estaba Enamorado" 1940 2:46
34. Silencio Tango Orchestra - Instrumental "Caseron de Tejas" 2009 2:36
35. Francisco Canaro - chorus "Corazon De Oro" 1938 3:23
36. Soda Stereo  "Profugos"  0:33

And I finally get to dance - to the "Loca"!

37. Mature, melodic, sad tango takes hold in the 1940s, and Malena, beautifully translated by Natalia Orlova, is the harbinger of this epoch. The remaining 2 songs of the set are among my darkest, most brooding translations.
38. Octeto Tibidabo - Instrumental "Malena" 1991 2:39
39. Octeto Tibidabo - Instrumental "Garua" 1991 2:38
40. Carlos Di Sarli - Roberto Rufino "Verdemar" 1943 2:54
41. Sandro de America  "Yo te amo cortina long"  0:44
And for the closing track, before theregular milonga starts, Natalia chooses her signature "Loca". I prepared a backing track based on D'Arienzo's famous 1946 recording, but at the last moment we settled on Canaro's version which is only a touch less extreme.
42. Quinteto Don Pancho - Instrumental "Loca" 1938 2:57