Junando Practica playlist, December 2018

It feels so good to see the friends and fool around with the music :)

01. Paco Mendoza & DJ Vadim  "Los Ejes De Mi Carreta" 2013 3:23
D'Arienzo's birthday is December 14, and with his decades at the helm of orchestras, evolving styles, and never-wavering dedication to the rhythm, he's a great guy to celebrate in a playlist! And we start with the formative years of his orchestra, when his fresh, exuberant, youthful music exploded the atmosphere at El Chatecler and before his crazy pianist Rodolfo Biago left to convene his own band. 
02. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "La viruta" 1936 2:20
03. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "Champagne tango" 1938 2:26
04.  Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "Ataniche" 1936 2:32
05. Zhanna Aguzarova  "Zvezda (The Star)" 1984 0:28
06. Carlos Di Sarli - Instrumental "La Trilla" 1940 2:21
07. Carlos Di Sarli - Instrumental "Shusheta" 1940 2:22
08. Carlos Di Sarli - Instrumental "Nobleza De Arrabal" 1940 2:07
09. Carlitos Rolan  "Cuarteto2"  0:19
Same eye-opener era of D'Arienzo Revolution. Unbelievable valses.
10. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "Pasion" 1937 2:37
11. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "Corazon De Artista" 1936 2:19
12. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "Mentias" 1937 2:19
13. Soda Stereo  "En la ciudad de furia"  0:24

December 11th also marks Carlos Gardel's birthday - and the Day of Tango celebration. Of course Gardel's isn't quite the tango we dance to ... but I am ready to celebrate his with a super-hit which started his tango career in 1917. The song which marked the birth of the genre of tango cancion, of the fusion of poetry and music like never existed in tango before - "Mi noche triste". Let's dance to Canaro's excellent cover!
14. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Mi Noche Triste" 1936 2:44
and the second song of this Canaro-Maida tanda shall be Russian-inspired "Ojos negros", a traveling musical motif to which I devoted too many hours of research :)
15. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Ojos negros que fascinan" 1935 2:51
16. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Condena (S.O.S.)" 1937 2:39
17. Rodrigo  "Cuarteto"  0:29
Rhythmic yet complex, the songs of D'Arienzo's mature period are among my top favorites:
18. Juan D'Arienzo - Hector Maure "Enamorado (Metido)" 1943 2:33
19. Juan D'Arienzo - Hector Maure "Infamia" 1941 3:05
20. Juan D'Arienzo - Hector Maure "El olivo (El olvido)" 1941 2:51
21. Alla Pugacheva  "Etot mir"  0:33
We are only 3 weeks past the 115th anniversary of birth of Sebastian Piana, the composer who stubbornly created the whole genre of milongas for dancing, and who just wouldn't let the society reject the newborn milongas. Let's celebrate with Piana's earliest, slowest milonga compositions!
22. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Famá "Milonga Sentimental" 1933, 1933 3:10
23. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Famá "Milonga Del 900" 1933 2:54
24. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida "Milonga criolla" 1936 3:00
25. Tatyana Kabanova  "Mama, ya zhulika lyublyu cortina"  0:21
26. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos "El Adios" 1938 3:09
27. Edgardo Donato - Romeo Gavioli y Lita Morales "Mi Serenata" 1940 3:02
28. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos, Lita Morales y Romeo Gavio "Sinfonia de Arrabal" 1940 3:09
29. Soda Stereo  "En la ciudad de furia"  0:24
I started a tanda of instrumental music of early D'Arienzo and quickly realized that it's a bit out of place for the middle of the evening ... just a tad too straightforward at a time in the energy wave when something more complexly rhythmic would make a better fit. OK, fixing it mid-tanda then.
30. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "Joaquina" 1935 3:01
31. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos  "A oscuras" 1941 2:48
32. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos  "Lagrimas" 1939 2:50
33. Carlitos Rolan  "Cuarteto2"  0:19

Get prepared to listen to Troilo's beautiful vals, "Flor de lino", "The flower of flax", often :) The beautiful celestial blue flower has become the mascot of our spring festival of tango. Let's all get excited about SLTF 2019 and welcome old friends of our community, Rod Relucio and Jenny Teters from Chicago, and first-time comers to Salt Lake Valley, Erin Malley and Doruk Golcu!!!
34. Anibal Troilo - Floreal Ruiz "Flor De Lino" 1947 2:49
35. Anibal Troilo - Floreal Ruiz "Romance De Barrio" 1947 2:35
36. Anibal Troilo - Alberto Marino y Floreal Ruiz "Palomita Blanca" 1944 3:20
37. Zhanna Aguzarova  "Zvezda (The Star)" 1984 0:28

Roberto Ray, 1935.
From tangos al bardo blog

On December 21, we celebrate the birthday of Roberto Ray, one of the truly indispensable voices of the formative years of vocal tango. In the 1920s, the dancing public believed that vocal tangos were only good for listening, and that a voice of a singer only distracted the dancers; at most, a few lines of a refrain were permitted to be sung. Then, together with such amazing talents as Francisco Fiorentino and Angel Vargas, Roberto Ray helped transformed the early, mostly instrumental danceable tango songs into a seamless union of the vocalist and the orchestra. Having started with Fresedo's orchestra in 1931, Roberto Ray was the first to blaze this path. The Argentines tend to believe that Ray didn't go far enough, that his singing retained too much of the operatic, Italian kind of a sweet flavor, and that only Fiorentino and Vargas mastered the rougher, more national vibe of singing. Still it was Roberto Ray's work which prepared the fertile ground for their success. Let's not forget that very few Argentine orchestras survived the disruptions of the Great Depression and continued to record through the mid-1930s. And in those trying times, Fresedo's remained the most elegant of the surviving bands!
Ray was born Roberto Raimondo on December 21, 1912, and he already had strong experience as an estribillista (refrain-singer) when he joined Fresedo's orchestra at the age of 19 in 1931. The times were very tough for the tango musicians, but the sweet, European voice of Ray (which never betrayed his barrio roots) helped Fresedo win the gigs with the rich and famous of the day. They stayed together for 8 years straight, and then Roberto Ray returned to Osvaldo Fresedo two more times. For tonight, I'm going to play the hits of the late 1930s, when Fresedo fully mastered inclusion of harp into the orchestra. It's just so breathtakingly beautiful!
38. Osvaldo Fresedo - Roberto Ray "Angustia" 1938 2:
39. Osvaldo Fresedo - Roberto Ray "No Quiero Verte Llorar" 1937 2:42
40. Osvaldo Fresedo - Roberto Ray "Nieblas del riachuelo" 1937 2:25
41. Aya RL  "Skora"  0:33
Hugo Duval was born on December 13, 1928. This December "birthday kid" was still a little child, indeed, when tango went through the height of its Golden Years. Duval started singing professionally at 17, and at 21, he joined Biagi's orchestra - and stayed with Don Rodolfo until the great pianist's death. Biagi's quarter century at the help of the orchestra had many amazing high points of evolving styles, and Duval's late-1950s hits, tragic and rhythmic at the same time, are definitively among the must-play Biagi recordings.
42. Rodolfo Biagi - Hugo Duval "Solamente dios y yo" 1958 2:33
43. Rodolfo Biagi - Hugo Duval  "Alguien" 1956 3:14
44. Rodolfo Biagi - Hugo Duval  "Esperame en el cielo" 1958 2:52
45. Harry Roy  "South American Joe cortina 1"  0:26
I haven't played candombe milongas for too long! (And thank you Laura for a great tanda!)
46. Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón  "Azabache" 1942 3:03
47. Alberto Castillo  "El Gatito en el Tejado" 1957 2:37
48. Romeo Gavioli "Tamboriles" 1956 2:56
49. Adam Aston  "Nikodem"  0:20
50. Francisco Lomuto - Jorge Omar "Madreselva" 1938 2:39
51. Francisco Lomuto - Jorge Omar "Por La Vuelta" 1939 2:34
52. Francisco Lomuto - Jorge Omar "Mano a mano" 1936 3:16
53. Soda Stereo  "En la ciudad de furia"  0:24
54. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno "Tango argentino" 1942 2:37
55. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno "El encopao" 1942 2:34
56. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno "Danza maligna" 1940 2:25
57. Alla Pugacheva  "Etot mir"  0:33
December is also the birthday month of Manuel Buzón (December 18, 1904 – July 14, 1954). A singer, pianist, and orchestra director, he's been involved with tango professionally since the age of 11, in Argentina and abroad, but his band has left only a handful of quality records, and so it's largely forgotten today. Tonight, I selected just one vals to commemorate this great musician. Let it be a mixed tanda of ever-more-energizing valses! Bailemos?
58. Manuel  Buzón - Osvaldo Moreno  "Pichon enamorado" 1942 2:18
59. Alberto Castillo  "Idilio Trunco" 1946 2:06
60. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos, Lita Morales, Romeo Gavioli  "La shunca" 1941 2:35
61. Zhanna Aguzarova  "Zvezda (The Star)" 1984 0:28
And of course Osvaldo Pugliese is also to be celebrated in December! Born December 2, 1905, he grew to symbolize the greatness of tango and the freedom against oppression. One really can't give tribute to Pugliese's genius in one short paragraph! Perhaps you can follow the blog label to read what I have written about Saint Pugliese before ... and of course just one tanda can't do him justice. 
62. Osvaldo Pugliese - Roberto Chanel "Rondando Tu Esquina" 1945 2:49
63. Osvaldo Pugliese - Roberto Chanel "Corrientes Y Esmeralda" 1944 2:49
64. Osvaldo Pugliese - Roberto Chanel "La Abandone Y No Sabia" 1944 3:12
65. Lyube  "Bat'ka Makhno cortina 1"  0:18

Carlos Lazzari leading D'Arienzo memorial orchestra

We are finishing the night with the rhythmic madness and Pugliese-inspired suspense of very late D'Arienzo (and I must admit that I've been fooled by a mistaken annotation of one of the tracks in my collection, and played one recording of a band of D'Arienzo aficionados instead of the original ... although this band was anointed by King of the Beat himself in 1972 ... and its director, bandoneonist Carlos Lazzari, has been born in December too, on Dec. 9 1925, so it's only fair to celebrate him tonight) 
66. Los Solistas de D'Arienzo "El huracan" 1984 2:17
67. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "Zorro gris" 1973 2:03
68. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "Este Es El Rey" 1971 3:12
69. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "La Cumparsita" 1955 3:44