Unusual and experimental tandas

Back in January, I wrote that I have already introduced all the important musicians in tango's history in the comments to my playlists on this blog, and it's a good enough reason to stop publishing playlists altogether (not to mention the obvious fact that most of the new tandas look very familiar after so many years of DJing :) ) Still, occasionally I find a thread of history worth writing about, or try a new orchestra or an unusual era of a better-known orchestra, or start "reinventing the bicycle" of the tandas which feel far too familiar. Here I'm going through the 10 playlists I added since the decision to stop set-blogging, to pick the few tandas worth writing about.

Julio Sosa with his DKW-Sissore, a German-designed
sports car with an Italian body manufactured at a
short-lived small car factory in the Argentinian province
of Santa Fe in the 1960s. The singer didn't survive a
crash of this beauty. He was 38. 

For Julio Sosas's February birthday, I went through tons of his recording and ended up building just one mixed tanda with a lone Sosa track for the Junando practica. We don't hear much Julio Sosa at our milongas, obviously, but it could have been very different, had El Varon del Tango not died so early, at 38! Julio Sosa was born on February 2, 1926, in the poverty-stricken outskirts of Montevideo in Uruguay. One of his many early jobs was with a provincial orchestras there, but it paid too little to make ends meet, and at 23, Julio quit it to sing in the cafes of BsAs. Soon, he was noticed, and got a succession of jobs with the 2nd tier tango bands, and finally, in 1960, convened his own orchestra. By all accounts, it was a wrong time to start a tango band. The government support for the national music of tango disappeared with the violent overthrow of Peron's populist regime, and the new happy-and-patronizing music of La Nueva Ola was all the rage. Even the master records of the Golden Age tango orchestras ended up destroyed to make room for more Nueva Ola studios! I wrote about the Dark Ages of Tango on this blog before, but I failed to mention that for a while, Julio Sosa held the lines against the onslaught of the new commercial music. Tall, masculine, young and charismatic, Sosa continued to attract the youth to tango - and not just to listen, but also to dance like himself. His disc sales rivaled those of La Nueva Ola! It all ended on November 26, 1964, when Julio crashed his Argentine-built sports car into a traffic light, the third speed car he totaled in quick succession, only this time it was fatal. With the death of its last iconic singer, tango never stood a chance...
The verdict: it is a passable vals tanda, good for a charged crowd later at night. But only Angelica really stands out...
Francini-Pontier - Alberto Podestá y Julio Sosa "El Hijo Triste" 1949 3:49
Alfredo de Angelis - Juan Carlos Godoy  "Angélica" 1961 2:41
Héctor Varela - Argentino Ledesma y Rodolfo Lesica "Igual Que Dos Palomas" 1953 2:36

The most legendary tango dancer of the pre-Golden Age fame, Ovidio José "Benito" Bianquet, better known as El Cachafaz ("The Troublesome" / "The Outrageous" as the lunfardo word may be translated) was born Feb 14, 1885). El Cachafaz is celebrated in the lyrics of "Adiós, Arrabal", and that's why I decided to play the following relatively standard D'Agostino tanda during the same practica. Follow El Cachafaz label to read more about this awesome dancer who conquered the affections of the Parisians and triumphantly returned hone, only to lose it all in the post-Great Depression chaos. Who then rebuilt a show dancer's career from scratch when tango started to return to life, but died at 56 without witnessing the full bloom of tango's Golden Age.

Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Ahora No Me Conocés" 1940 2:35
Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Adios Arrabal" 1941 3:08
Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Ninguna" 1942 2:59

In March, I tried a really experimental - and not really recommended - tanda of super-late Calo instrumentals which are all the rage in Europe (it went OK really late at night though):
Miguel Caló - Instrumental  "Luna del viejo castillo" 1964 2:37
Miguel Caló - Instrumental  "Elegante papirusa" 1966
Miguel Caló - Instrumental  "Para Osmar Maderna" 1963


You may know that I am not a big Troilo fan, and I usually stick to the few most reliable tracks of his, but in April I wasin the mood to experiment:
Anibal Troilo - Francisco Fiorentino  "Pa Que Bailen Los Muchachos" 1942 2:49
Anibal Troilo - Francisco Fiorentino  "No Le Digas Que La Quiero" 1941 2:51
Anibal Troilo - Francisco Fiorentino  "Una Carta" 1941 2:48

The month of May is always a good reason to play more, and more varied, Fresedo than usual, since Osvaldo Fresedo was born on May 5, 1887. A son of a wealthy family, Fresedo created elegant music for the upper crust throughout his 60+ years-long tango career. In 1920, Fresedo has become the first tango bandoneonist ever to record in the United States when RCA Victor sent him to New York (they didn't yet have an up-to-date recording studio in South America then; the US-made record's, in Victor's typical anonymous house band fashion, went for sale in Latin America as "Orquesta Tipica Select"). Before the Great Depression, Fresedo's success was so great that he simultaneously maintained 5 "Fresedo orchestras" in Buenos Aires! One of these bands was directed by 24 years old Carlos Di Sarli, an admitted disciple of Osvaldo Fresedo who, in time, far surpassed his teacher. The economic collapse in Argentina put a stop to this exuberance, but Fresedo kept on playing, largely for the upper-class functions. He wouldn't play live for the dancers again, missing the tango dancing boom of the Golden Era, and he remains kind of shunned by the BsAs tangueros for this reason, although he recorded tangos through the 1980s. But nothing could be more mellifluous than Fresedo's 1930s and the early 1940s! This May, one of my Fresedo tandas was with the voice of Ruiz rather than with the "usual" Roberto Ray
Osvaldo Fresedo - Ricardo Ruiz  "Y no puede ser" 1939 2:26
Osvaldo Fresedo - Ricardo Ruiz  "Plegaria" 1940 2:24
Osvaldo Fresedo - Ricardo Ruiz  "Buscándote" 1941 2:49

In June at Junando practica, it was time to return to De Angelis's Angelica which I already mentioned on this page:
Rodolfo Biagi - Hugo Duval y Carlos Heredia "Adoracion" 1951 2:52
Francisco Rotundo - Enrique Campos y Floreal Ruiz "El viejo vals" 1951 2:56
Alfredo De Angelis - Juan Carlos Godoy "Angélica (Vals)" 1961 2:43


There, I also put to test a fiery vals tanda with the voice of Alberto Castillo:
1. Ricardo Tanturi - Alberto Castillo "La Serenata (Mi Amor)" 1941 2:29
2. Alberto Castillo  "Idilio Trunco" 1946 2:08
3. Alberto Castillo  "Violetas" 1948 2:38
(3 total)

To start the playlists of September, I tried a more or less regular tanda but in an unusual place - as an opening tanda of Milonga sin nombre:
1. Orquesta Tipica Victor (dir. A. Carabelli) - Alberto Gomez "Ventarron" 1933 3:03
2. Orquesta Tipica Victor (dir. A. Carabelli) - Instrumental  "Nino bien" 1928 2:43
3. Orquesta Tipica Victor (dir. A. Carabelli) - Instrumental "El chamuyo" 1930 2:46

September is a good time to remember the great singer Alberto Podesta (b. Sep. 22, 1924), who contributed so much to the success of the orchestras of Di Sarli, Calo, and Laurenz. And what would be a better fit to the themes of Podesta and September than his "Roses of Autumn"? Alas, I always had a hard time building a good tanda of Di Sarli's valses with this great hit. Trying to fix it now with a mixed-ochestra set:
1. Angel D'Agostino - Angel Vargas "Que Me Pasara" 1941 2:30
2. Manuel Buzon - Osvaldo Moreno "Pichon enamorado" 1942 2:18
3. Carlos Di Sarli - Alberto Podesta "Rosas De Otono" 1942 2:17


I also returned to the valses with the vocals of Castillo, then an ObGyn by day but a veritable mob lord voice by night.
1. Ricardo Tanturi - Alberto Castillo "Marisabel" 1942 2:23
2. Ricardo Tanturi - Alberto Castillo "Recuerdo" 1942 2:22
3. Ricardo Tanturi - Alberto Castillo "Mi Romance" 1941 2:16

Racciatti's tracks with the voice of Nina Miranda are a kind of a flashback to me. I first danced to Racciatti's when a Japanese DJ played a tanda with Nina Miranda's vocals, fell in love with her "Gloria" and "Tu corazon", and played them myself - good 5 years ago. But the quality of these 1952-1953 records in my hands then was substandard, and I started playing later-years Racciatti's tango with the voice of Olga Delgrossi instead. With a better recordings now, I return to Nina Miranda's hits. And what a pianist they had, by the way!
1. Donato Racciatti - Nina Miranda "Tu corazón" 1953 2:32
2. Donato Racciatti - Nina Miranda "Vencida" 1953 2:47
3. Donato Racciatti - Nina Miranda "No quiero ni acordarme" 1953 2:25


Then at Mestizos I returned to the valses of D'Agostino - one of which I tried a few days earlier in a mixed tanda above - and also to mid-paced Canaro's.
1. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Fama "El Vals Del Estudiante"1939  3:01
2. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Fama y Mirna Mores "Tormenta En El Alma" 1940 2:33
3. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Fama "Noche De Estrellas" 1939 2:29

1. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Que Me Pasara" 1941 2:30
2. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas  "Tristeza criolla" 1945 2:27
3. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas  "El Espejo De Tus Ojos" 1944 2:49

And lastly, at Two Flames practica, I asked tangueros for suggestions, and one of them was for the OTV valses. The challenge is that only want to play the same three beloved valses of Victor (Noches de invierno, Sin rumbo fijo, and Temo) and I already played it a bit too often :) So I set out to build mixed-orchestra tandas with OTV - and ended up playing not just one tanda but two:
1. Francisco Lomuto - Fernando Diaz  "Cuando estaba enamorado" 1940 2:19
2. Enrique Rodriguez - Roberto Flores  "Salud, Dinero Y Amor" 1939 2:39
3. Orquesta Típica Víctor - Ángel Vargas "Sin Rumbo Fijo" 1938 2:18

1. Cuarteto Roberto Firpo - Instrumental "El Aeroplano" 1936 2:14
2. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno "En el Volga yo te espero" 1943 2:40
3. Orquesta Tipica Victor - Mario Pomar  "Temo" 1940 2:55