After the August madness of the Mountain Milonga Retreat, it's time to settle back into the normal tango routine. And so I get my first DJing stint after missing the whole previous month. Always love Sage's Wednesday night practicas ... ever since their inception, they draw a great crowd. Just wish we could keep on dancing a bit longer than the allowed two-hours-and-a-change.
We start from the old standby, Francisco Canaro's quintet's instrumentals
01. Quinteto Don Pancho - Instrumental "El garron" 1938 2:27
02. Quinteto Don Pancho - Instrumental "El choclo" 1937 2:46
03. Quinteto Don Pancho - Instrumental "Derecho viejo" 1938 2:28
This month marks the 35th anniversary of my university graduation; there have been virtual reunions and much remembering in the social networks, and one of the things we discussed was the music of the 1970s Moscow. I'll use a selection of disco cortinas from the school crowd faves of the epoch, get ready :)
04. Eruption "One way ticket cortina slow" 0:18
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| Reynal singing with D'Arienzo orchestra. From tangosalbardo blog. |
When The King of the Beat re-assembled this orchestra after the painful split with the pianist Juan Polito and singer Alberto Echagüe, he picked Alberto Reynal as his principal vocalist. The frantic madness, and the rough dictatorial style, of D'Arienzo were literally wearing the musicians off, but it may have been the hardest for the singers. Reynal got sick and quit performing after just over a year, and died a few years later. He was only 38 (2 Sep 1908 - 27 Feb 1947). We are left with too few records to showcase his voice. The more prolific great voices of D'Arienzo's orchestra, Echague and Maure, always get the upper hand. The songs with the voice of Alberto Reynal belong to the transition period, and they are marked by the King's trademark rhythmic exuberance but the plaintive violins already make their strong mark. Since September marks Reynal birthday, I planned to showcase this period in a never-before-tested tanda. The impressions are decidedly mixed. The music seems more complex and varied than what I should have picked for the 2nd tanda of the night? But I think it should work great mid-milonga...
05. Juan D'Arienzo - Alberto Reynal "Almanaque De Ilusion" 1941 3:00
06. Juan D'Arienzo - Alberto Reynal "Chirusa" 1940 2:49
07. Juan D'Arienzo - Alberto Reynal "El Corazon Me Engano" 1940 2:22
08. Boney M "Daddy Cool cortina" 0:21
Singer Jorge Ortiz has been born in September as well (18 Sep 1912 - 18 Feb 1989). I started off by picking 3 very different tandas with his voice, and now I see that I later put all 3 of them back to back: valses and tangos of Biagi and Calo orchestras. Ortiz stayed with Biagi for 3 years and his name became almost synonymous with the greatest times of Biagi's orchestra. The singer's tenure with Calo lasted only his 6 months, and they recorded mere 7 songs, but these are amazing hits, too!
09. Rodolfo Biagi - Instrumental "Lagrimas y sonrisas" 1941 2:41
10. Rodolfo Biagi - Jorge Ortiz "Cuatro palabras" 1941 2:20
11. Rodolfo Biagi - Jorge Ortiz "Por un beso de amor" 1940 2:46
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| Biagi and Ortiz - from the Tango Archive project |
12. Desireless "Voyage Voyage cortina" 0:31
13. Miguel Calo - Jorge Ortiz "Pa'que seguir" 1943 2:13
14. Miguel Calo - Jorge Ortiz "Barrio De Tango" 1943 3:06
15. Miguel Calo - Jorge Ortiz "A las siete en el cafe" 1943 3:07
16. Los Iracundos "Puerto Montt rock" 1971 0:27
17. Rodolfo Biagi - Jorge Ortiz "Todo de Nombra" 1940 3:33
18. Rodolfo Biagi - Jorge Ortiz "Carrillón De La Merced" 1941 2:31
19. Rodolfo Biagi - Jorge Ortiz "Quiero Verte Una Vez Más" 1940 2:58
20. Tatyana Kabanova "Mama, ya zhulika lyublyu cortina" 0:21
21. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Silueta porteña" 1936 3:01
22. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Tangon" 1935 3:03
23. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Milonga criolla" 1936 3:05
24. Eruption "One way ticket cortina slow" 0:18
25. Pedro Láurenz - Alberto Podestá "Recien" 1943 2:43
26. Pedro Láurenz - Alberto Podestá "Todo" 1943 2:37
27. Pedro Láurenz - Alberto Podestá "Garua" 1943 3:11
28. Boney M "Daddy Cool cortina" 0:21
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| Fiorentino and Piazzolla, two of the most influential members of Troilo team. From tangosalbardo blog |
The great singer Francisco Fiorentino, whose seamless integration into Troilo's orchestra set the high standard for vocal tango, is also a September birth boy. I mark this occasion by playing two Troilo tandas, one more relentlessly rhythmic, another more lyrical and complex. Born on September 23 1905, Fiorentino was already in his 30s when he joined the debut of Troilo's orchestra; his experience included playing bandoneon and singing as an estribillista for many tango bands. But it was his 7 years with Troilo which still fill the tango aficionados with awe.
29. Anibal Troilo & F Fiorentino "El cuarteador" 1941 2:48
30. Anibal Troilo & F Fiorentino "Toda mi vida" 1941 2:56
31. Anibal Troilo & F Fiorentino "Te aconsejo que me olvides" 1941 2:58
32. Russian folk "Murka" 0:20
33. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno "Mariquita no mires al puerto (vals)" 1945 3:01
34. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno "Isabelita" 1940 2:56
35. Enrique Rodriguez - El "Chato" Flores "Salud, Dinero Y Amor (Vals)" 1939 2:39
36. Gypsy folk "Na poslednyuyu pyaterochku (Last 5 rubles)" 0:26
A mixed pre-Golden age tanda of favorites, with its of farm life and rough young years. Many orchestras played the final song, "El carrerito", but I think only Fresedo gave us the authentic voice of a tired cowboy imploring the last few of his stubborn cows to cross a ravine. Tango isn't all about the big city living!
37. Sexteto Carlos di Sarli - Ernesto Fama "La estancia" 1930 3:17
(and the middle song of the tanda celebrates one of my fav early tango bandleaders, Adolfo Carabelli, who was born on September 8, 1893)
38. Adolfo Carabelli - Carlos Lafuente "Pa' Que Lagrimear" 1933 2:37
39. Osvaldo Fresedo - Ernesto Fama "El carrerito" 1928 3:09
40. Desireless "Voyage Voyage cortina" 0:31
41. Donato Racciatti - Olga Delgrossi "Hasta siempre amor" 1958 2:57
42. Donato Racciatti - Olga Delgrossi "Sus Ojos Se Cerraron" 1956 2:47
43. Donato Racciatti - Olga Delgrossi "Queriendote" 1955 2:49
44. Eruption "One way ticket cortina long" 0:31
In the last few days, I couldn't get "Y todavia te quiero" from my head. A superhit of 1956 has been recorded by nearly all major orchestras over the course of just a few months. Pugliese and Di Sarli, De Angelis and Varela, Basso and Federico ... D'Arienzo was one of the last bandleaders to turn to this dramatic song - and it's become one of just two records of his orchestra with an amazing voice of Libertad Lamarque. Tonight I featuring this recording in a tanda of late, dramatic, suspenseful D'Arienzo hits:
45. Juan D'Arienzo - Libertad Lamarque "Y Todavia Te Quiero" 1956 2:57
46. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "Zorro gris" 1973 2:03
47. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "El Huracán" 1944 2:23
48. The Blues Brothers "Theme From Rawhide 1" 1980 0:21
49. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno "El tucu-tun" 1943 2:34
50. Alberto Castillo "El Gatito en el Tejado" 1957 2:37
51. Romeo Gavioli y su orquesta típica "Tamboriles" 1956 2:56
Jorge Maciel, born September 17 ,1920, came to the tango fame late. He sang for Gobbi's orchestra in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, but it was his work with Pugliese in 1954 - 1967 which gave us some of the most indispensable must-play tangos.
52. Osvaldo Pugliese - Jorge Maciel "Esta Noche De Luna" 1955 3:45
53. Osvaldo Pugliese - Jorge Maciel "Cascabelito" 1955 2:41
54. Osvaldo Pugliese - Jorge Maciel "Remembranzas" 1956 3:41
55. Eruption "One way ticket cortina long" 0:31
Fulvio Salamanca, born August 19, 1921 in a tiny town in the province of Santa Fe, may formally be the previous month's Birthday Man, but we shall celebrate him - likely the most talented of tango pianists - a couple weeks late. Fulvio convened his first tango orchestra at 14, and soon met Juan D'Arienzo when the King of the Beat was touring a neighboring province. After D'Arienzo's stellar pianists left - first Biagi, then Polito - he offered the job to a 19 years old Fulvio Salamanca. Few musicians survived the extreme pressure of working with D'Arienzo for long, but Salamanca stayed put for 17 years! They recorded 380 compositions together, some arranged by Fulvio himself. The years of Salamanca and D'Arienzo's work together were marked by an introduction of a more romantic style, when the fiery orchestra rhythm and the rule of the piano has become supplemented by the melodic voice of the violins. In those years, Salamanca has been repeatedly jailed for his membership in the Communist Party, but D'Arienzo kept rescuing him from behind the bars.
Fulvio Salamanca knew the whole repertoire of D'Arienzo by memory, never looking into the score during performances. Nobody could imagine that, after so many years with the same orchestra, the pianist is capable of mastering any other style. But Fulvio had different ideas. Together with a bandoneonist Eduardo Corti they "conspired" to form a radio orchestra to play extremely dramatic tango music, to match the hottest trends of the year 1957. They didn't find their own distinctive style right away. A chance helped them. At a party, they overheard Armando Guerrico informally singing a new and totally unknown tango from neighboring Uruguay, titled "Adios, corazon". They decided to join forces and to play it together - and, after seeing Salamanca's arrangement, one of tango's greatest violinists, Elvino Vardaro, also decided to join them! It was a breakthrough. What a constellation of talents! Alas, because of the politics, Salamanca had fewer opportunities to record tangos, even though he continued to play and to lead bands till old age. But there are enough recorded hits for one good dramatic tanda!
56. Fulvio Salamanca - Armando Guerrico "Adios Corazon" 1957 2:40
57. Fulvio Salamanca - Armando Guerrico "Todo Es Amor" 1958 2:47
58. Fulvio Salamanca - Armando Guerrico "Bombomcito" 1958 3:22
59. Juan D Arienzo - Instrumental "La cumparsita" 1955 4:03
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