San Diego Decir Tango playlist, September 2018

Many thanks to the amazing Patricia Becker for inviting me to DJ at Practica Tinto Chocolate in San Diego! So great to meet So Ca friends again! It's not even two hours of music, but a wonderful memory...
01. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos y Lita Morales "Sinsabor" 1939 2:53
02. Edgardo Donato - Lita Morales, Romeo Gavioli "Yo Te Amo" 1940 2:50
03. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos, Lita Morales, Romeo Gavioli "Triqui trá" 1940 2:34
04. Gilda  "No Me Arrepiento de Éste Amor cortina long"  0:40
05. Juan  D'Arienzo - Instrumental "El Internado" 1938 2:31
06. Juan  D'Arienzo - Instrumental "Ataniche" , 1936 2:32
07. Juan  D'Arienzo - Instrumental "El Cencerro" 1937 2:40
08. Tatyana Kabanova  "Mama, ya zhulika lyublyu cortina"  0:21
09. Carlos Di Sarli - Roberto Rufino "Pena Mulata" 1841 2:27
10. Carlos Di Sarli - Roberto Rufino "La Mulateada" 1941 2:22

Podesta with Alex Krebs orchestra!

September is a month to celebrate one of the most-played tango singers, Alberto Podestá. He was born Alejandro Washington Alé in San Juan on September 22, 1924 and lived to the age of 91 - even touring the US in his late 80s and famously performing with Alex Krebs's tango band in Baltimore! Given that Alberto Podestá started singing on stage at the age of 13, earning himself a nickname "Gardelito", after his father died and his family was left destitute, it means over 75 years on stage! By the age 15, of Alberto Podestá already moved to Buenos Aires to sing there, and at 16, recorded his first ageless hits with Miguel Caló, such as vals "Bajo un cielo de estrellas" (still under a different stage name - it was Carlos Di Sarli who gave him the now-famous scenic name of Alberto Podestá the following year). The milonga "Entre pitada y pitada" ("Between one whiff and another") was their first recording, said to have been commissioned as a jingle for a tobacco company:
11. Carlos Di Sarli - Alberto Podestá "Entre pitada y pitada" 1942 2:32
12. Los Iracundos  "Puerto Montt rock" 1971 0:27
I just featured Jorge Ortiz, born on September 18, 1912, in three tandas the night before. There is only time for two tonight, showcasing the singer short but very productive stint with Calo, and long collaboration with Biagi.
13. Miguel Calo - Jorge Ortiz  "A las siete en el cafe" 1943 3:07
14. Miguel Calo - Jorge Ortiz  "Barrio De Tango" 1943 3:06
15. Miguel Calo - Jorge Ortiz "Pa'que seguir" 1943 2:13
16. Soda Stereo  "Corazon elator"  0:28
17. Rodolfo Biagi - Jorge Ortiz  "Todo te 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. Gilda  "No Me Arrepiento de Éste Amor cortina long"  0:40

OTV in the 1920s

Adolfo Carabelli, an incredibly talented and very underappreciated jazz and tango musician, has been born almost exactly 125 years ago to date; I only had a chance to plane a lone track of his the previous tonight, but will make up for it tonight with two full tandas. Carabelli formally trained as a composer in Europe; having returned home for a summer break in 1914, he ended up stuck in Argentina due to WWI. By the early 1920s, he's built himself a name in jazz - and then Victor Argentina gave him a job of the musical director, which put Carabelli in charge of tango programming and Victor's house bound, the famous OTV, Orquesta Típica Victor. The OTV's talent pool and the zeal to innovate were just amazing; many musicians from Carabelli's jazz band took part, and soon, the band also started recording tangos under the name of Orquesta Típica Carabelli. But then, buoyed by Carabelli's achievements, Victor made a business decision to organize a whole array of house tango orchestras, undercutting the success of its flagship OTV on the radio. Just as importantly, the OTV musicians worked in the studio and slept at night, instead of working the night clubs and the milonga halls. further limiting its appeal to the dancing public. As the D'Arienzo Revolution unfolded in the second half of the 1930s, and as the dance scene of tango exploded again, Carabelli found himself on the sidelines, then lost his orchestra director job just as the Golden Age of Tango of the 1940s came into bloom. He died in oblivion 7 years later. 
21. Orquesta Típica Victor (dir. A. Carabelli) - Lita Morales "Noches de invierno" 1937 2:47
22. Orquesta Típica Víctor (dir. A. Carabelli) - Ángel Vargas "Sin Rumbo Fijo" 1938 2:18
23. Orquesta Típica Victor (dir. A. Carabelli) - Mario Pomar  "Temo" 1940 2:55
24. Soda Stereo  "En la ciudad de furia"  0:24
25. Orquesta Típica Victor (dir. A. Carabelli)  "Nino bien" 1928 2:43
26. Orquesta Típica Victor (dir. A. Carabelli)  "Che, papusa, oi" 1927 2:37
27. Orquesta Típica Victor  (dir. A. Carabelli)  "Coqueta" 1929 2:47
28. Eruption  "One way ticket cortina long"  0:31
Tango historians argue, without ever agreeing, who created the paradigm of the Singer of the Orchestra which defined the vocal tango of the Golden Age, after the earlier orchestras carefully experimented with adding little vocal snippets into tango for dancing (as opposed to tango for listening, where vocal soloists were the norm ever since Gardel sang "Mi niche triste" in 1918). Both Ángel Vargas, in D'Agostino's orchestra, and Francisco Fiorentino, in Troilo's orchestra, demonstrated this equal partnership between the vocalist and the band by 1941. Tonight, we shall celebrate the great "Fiore", born September 23, 1905.
29. Aníbal Troilo - Francisco Fiorentino "Maragata" 1941 2:45
30. Aníbal Troilo - Francisco Fiorentino "El Bulín De La Calle Ayacucho" 1941 2:29
31. Aníbal Troilo - Francisco Fiorentino "Te aconsejo que me olvides" 1941 2:58
32. Tatyana Kabanova  "Mama, ya zhulika lyublyu cortina"  0:21

Alberto Podesta with Laurenz's orchestra at Radio Belgrano
from tangosalbardo blog

Alberto Podestá has the fondest memories of the orchestra of Pedro Láurenz, especially remembering their super-fancy, same-style, same tailor shop suits. The night before, I played their dramatic tango classics. Let's turn to a couple of their excellent milongas tonight!
33. Pedro Láurenz - Alberto Podestá "Yo soy de San Telmo" 1943 2:31
34. Pedro Láurenz - Alberto Podestá "Maldonado" 1943 2:04
35. Pedro Láurenz - Martín Podestá "La Vida Es Una Milonga" 1941 2:25
36. Sandro de America  "Yo Te Amo cortina" 1968 0:23
The Uruguayan band of Donato Racciatti is, alas, better known in Japan than in the West. Their pianist - whose name I don't even know, because Uruguayan tango is so much less studied - is totally awesome. But to me, Racciatti greatest strengths are his own compositions (eagerly picked by the leading orchestras of Buenos Aires),and, especially, his stunning female vocals. A signature example is "Hasta siempre amor", recorded in September 1958. Shall we mark the occasion tonight?

37. Donato Racciatti - Olga Delgrossi "Hasta siempre amor" 1958 2:57
38. Donato Racciatti - Olga Delgrossi "Sus Ojos Se Cerraron" 1956 2:47
39. Donato Racciatti - Olga Delgrossi "Queriendote" 1955 2:49
40. Russian Folk  "Gypsy Girl (cortina)"  0:22
Jorge Maciel was born on September 17 ,1920. It's impossible to pay tribute to him without playing "Remembranzas", a song which first propelled him to fame when he sang it with Gobbi's orchestra in 1948. Yet later, with Pugliese, Maciel outdid himself!
41. Osvaldo Pugliese - Jorge Maciel "Esta Noche De Luna" 1955 3:45
42. Osvaldo Pugliese - Jorge Maciel "Cascabelito" 1955 2:41
43. Osvaldo Pugliese - Jorge Maciel "Remembranzas" 1956 3:41
44. Los Naufragos  "Zapatos Rotos rock"  0:34

Salamanca and his orchestra - Todotango photo

I already featured Salamanca, one of tango's most talented pianists and arrangers, who unfortunately left us too few records because of political blacklisting, in the previous post. Please read it. The guy was really amazing ... directed his first tango band at 14 and continued into his 70s ... 17 years with the King of the Beat, 380 D'Arienzo recordings featuring Salamanco on the piano!... One thing I may have to add is how masterfully Salamanca captured the new technical possibilities of the improving recording technology in the mid-1950s, adding signature flowing, higher-pitch sound of the violin into the arrangement. A truly unique tonal and emotional treasure.
45. Fulvio Salamanca - Armando Guerrico "Adios Corazon" 1957 2:40
46. Fulvio Salamanca - Armando Guerrico "Todo Es Amor" 1958 2:47
47. Fulvio Salamanca - Armando Guerrico "Bombomcito" 1958 3:22
48. Juan D Arienzo "La cumparsita" 1955 4:03

Dia del Tango playlist 2015

A grand celebration commemorating Gardel's birthday - how else to begin it but with Gardel's famous song which injected set-verse poetry into tango for the first time in 1917, and ushered in the new, beautiful era of nostalgic and sad tango songs? Here's how Gardel sung it to the accompaniment of guitars a decade later:
001. Carlos Gardél  "Mi Noche Triste" 1930 3:20
002. Francisco Canaro - Instrumental "El cabure" 1936 2:37
003. Francisco Canaro - Instrumental "El Chamuyo" 1933 3:09
004. Francisco Canaro - Instrumental "Inspiración" 1951 3:33
A new set of Russian-themed cortinas is actually heavily Caribbean-flavored, while the music borrows from old Turkish folk:
005. Boney M  "Rasputin cortina 1 " 0:22
006. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "Yapeyu" 1951 2:26
007. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "El irresistible (clean)" 1954 2:31
008. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental  "El Internado" 1954 2:34
009. The Beatles  "Obladi-Oblada cortina1" 0:19

Playing from foobar, planning ahead in MediaPlayer,
& feeling stressed in a dark corner behind the coat rack

DJing a holiday night with its lots of assorted specials and a heavy turnout of the inexperienced dancers always promises to be messy. But tonight it will morph into my hardest-ever DJing assignment, because nothing is following the schedule. Which called for a block of back-to-back perfomances punctuated by single tandas of recorded music - which would have to be all-tango, high-drive, high-accessibility sets. But nobody is ready to perform on time, so need to keep adding vals and milonga genres and more lyrical moods and juggling the performers' requests on the fly.
010. Aníbal Troilo - Instrumental "Un Placer (Vals)" 1942 2:19
011. Aníbal Troilo - Floreal Ruiz "Flor de Lino" 1947 2:51
012. Aníbal Troilo - Francisco Fiorentino "Tu Diagnóstico" 1941 2:09
One of my most Argentine cortinas, a beautiful intro from a super-hit of the inaugural decade of "Rock en Castellano" (and thank you Lucia for your help!!)
013. Sandro de America  "Yo Te Amo cortina" 1968 0:23
014.  Announcements break 0:31
015. Orquesta Típica Víctor - Angel Vargas "Adios Buenos Aires"  2:36
016. Orquesta Típica Víctor - Alberto Gomez "Carillon de La Merced" 1931  3:16
017. Orquesta Típica Víctor - Ortega del Cerro "Una Vez" 1943 3:22
018. Sandro de America  "Yo Te Amo cortina" 1968 0:23
019. Carlos Di Sarli - Instrumental "Shusheta" 1940 2:24
020. Carlos Di Sarli - Instrumental "Catamarca" 1940 2:24
021. Carlos Di Sarli - Instrumental "La Trilla" 1940 2:19
022. The Beatles  "Obladi-Oblada cortina1" 0:19
023. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos "Sacale punta" 1938 2:16
024. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos "De Punta A Punta" 1939 2:20
025. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos "Ella Es Asi" 1938 2:35
026. Sandro de America  "Yo Te Amo cortina" 1968 0:23
027. Juan D'Arienzo - Alberto Echagüe "Que Dios Te Ayude" 1939 2:21
028. Juan D'Arienzo - Alberto Echagüe "Que Importa" 1939 2:08
029. Juan D'Arienzo - Alberto Echagüe "Ansíedád" 1938 2:32
030. Alla Pugacheva "Million Scarlet Roses" 1982 0:19
031.  silence 0:31 Finally Florencia and Rodolfo and the bombo drummers are ready for the chacarera!

032. "Chacarera del violin"  2:12

033.  silence  0:06 Call for everyone to join the next chacarera!

034. "Chacarera del Rancho"  2:21
035.   silence  0:06 And to the sound of the drums adding their voice to the recorded music, our wonderful folk dancers come to the floor again - followed by more bombo.
036. "Escondido"  3:44

037.  silence  0:06
038. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Adiós Arrabal" 1941 3:10
039. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas  "Mano Blanca" 1944 2:42
040. Ángel D'Agostino - Ángel Vargas "Ninguna" 1942 2:59
041. The Beatles  "Obladi-Oblada cortina1"  0:19
042.  silence  0:31 Call for a birthday vals for the lucky man who happened to be born on the same December day as Gardel and Julio de Caro - and by the way, speaking of birthdays: the tango cake is ready :)

043. Miguel Caló - Raul Berón "El Vals Soñador" 1942 3:28

Alberto Podestá performing at 82
(totango website)

044.  silence 0:06 Now it's time for everyone to join for the remainder of the vals tanda - and it also marks the first of many times the voice of Alberto Podestá will sound tonight! I already wrote about his 7+ decades of singing tango. The great vocalist passed away at the age of 91 two days earlier, on December 9, 2015. May his voice energize the nights of tango forever!
045. Miguel Caló - Alberto Podestá  "Bajo un cielo de estrellas (vals)" 1941 2:37
046. Miguel Caló - Alberto Podestá  "Pedacito de cielo (vals)" 1942 2:21
047. Sandro de America  "Yo Te Amo cortina" 1968 0:23
048. silence  0:31 Great Daniel Diaz, who played bandoneon in theaters and cafes of Argentina since childhood, makes a multimedia presentation about tango and its history!
049. Boney M  "Rasputin cortina 1 " 0:22
050. Ricardo Tanturi - Instrumental "Una Noche de Garufa" 1941 2:31
051. Ricardo Tanturi - Alberto Castillo  "Pocas Palabras" 1941 2:21
052. Ricardo Tanturi - Instrumental  "Comparsa Criolla" 1941 2:53
053. Sandro de America  "Yo Te Amo cortina" 1968 0:23
2nd Podesta tanda
054. Pedro Láurenz - Alberto Podestá  "Que nunca me falte" 1943 2:49
055. Pedro Láurenz - Alberto Podestá  "Nunca tuvo novio" 1943 3:14
056. Pedro Láurenz - Alberto Podestá "Alma de bohemio" 1943 2:43
057. Beatles The Beatles "All you Need is Love cortina"  0:19

058.  silence 0:06 Tango demos time! Nicholas and Emily perform to Donato, and Yves and Barbara, to D'Arienzo's Cumparsita (the first of this night's three (!) Cumparsitas! )
059. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos y Lita Morales "Sinsabor" 1939 2:53
060. Juan D Arienzo - Instrumental "La cumparsita" 1955 4:03
061. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos "El Adiós" 1938 3:09
062. Edgardo Donato - Romeo Gavioli "Sinfonía De Arrabal" 1940 3:07
063. Edgardo Donato - Lita Morales - Romeo Gavio  "Mi Serenata" 1940 3:02
064. The Beatles  "Obladi-Oblada cortina1" 0:19
065. Orquesta Típica Víctor - Ángel Vargas "Sin Rumbo Fijo (vals)" 1938 2:18
066. Orquesta Tipica Victor - Lita Morales "Noches de invierno" 1937 2:47
067. Orquesta Tipica Victor - Mario Pomar  "Temo" 1940 2:55
068. Sandro de America  "Yo Te Amo cortina" 1968 0:23
069.  silence30 0:31 And it's time for the final - and the greatest  - of the night's specials, live music by Daniel Diaz (bandoneon) and Brian Salisbury (violin) and vocal by Lucho!
070. Boney M  "Rasputin cortina 2" 0:16
071. Anibal Troilo - Francisco Fiorentino "El Bulin de La Calle Ayacucho" 1941 2:29
072. Anibal Troilo - Francisco Fiorentino "En Esta Tarde Gris (Fiorentino)" 1941 3:14
073. Aníbal Troilo - Francisco Fiorentino  "Te aconsejo que me olvides" 1941 3:00
074. Boney M  "Rasputin cortina 3" 0:17
This Podestá milonga tanda combined two orchestras and I loved all of these tracks, but after playing the set I got a feeling that Laurenz's pieces lose in comparison?
075. Carlos Di Sarli - Alberto Podestá "Entre Pitada Y Pitada" 1942 2:33
076. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podestá "Maldonado" 1943 2:07
077. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podestá "Yo Soy De San Telmo" 1943 2:32
078. Sandro de America  "Yo Te Amo cortina" 1968 0:23
079. Carlos Di Sarli - Oscar Serpa "Verdemar" 1955 3:02
080. Carlos Di Sarli - Mario Pomar "Duelo Criollo" 1952 2:30
081. Carlos Di Sarli - Argentino Ledesma "Fumando Espero" 1956 4:04
082. Boney M  "Rasputin cortina 4" 0:22
083. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "La torcacita" 1971 2:31
084. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "Zorro gris" 1973 2:03
085. Juan D'Arienzo - Instrumental "Este Es El Rey" 1971 3:12
086. The Beatles  "Obladi-Oblada cortina1"  0:19
087. Rodolfo Biagi - Instrumental "Lágrimas y sonrisas" 1941 2:41
088. Rodolfo Biagi - Alberto Amor "Manana por la manana (vals)" 1946 2:28
089. Rodolfo Biagi - Alberto Amor "Paloma" 1945 2:28
090. The Beatles "All you Need is Love cortina" 0:19
091. Carlos Di Sarli - Alberto Podestá "La Capilla Blanca" 1944 2:55
092. Carlos Di Sarli - Alberto Podestá "Junto a tu corazón (Hoy como ayer)" 1942 3:00
093. Carlos Di Sarli - Alberto Podestá "Tú, el cielo y tú" 1942 2:59
094. Boney M  "Rasputin cortina 4" 0:22

A special request to play a tribute song to BsAs, a Gardel's composition originally. But I'm not familiar with Galan's vocal tangos and have to figure out how to continue this tanda even as the first song plays..
095. Francisco Canaro - Carlos Galán  "Mi Buenos Aires querido" 1934 3:20
096. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Famá  "No me pregunten porque" 1939 2:51
097. Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Famá  "Te quiero todavia" 1939 2:54
098. Russian folk  "Murka"  0:20
099. Donato Racciatti - Olga Delgrossi  "Hasta siempre amor" 1958 2:57
100. Donato Racciatti - Olga Delgrossi "Sus Ojos Se Cerraron" 1956 2:47
101. Donato Racciatti - Olga Delgrossi  "Queriéndote" 1955 2:49
102. Boney M  "Rasputin cortina 3" 0:17
103. Osváldo Pugliese "Recuerdo" 1944 2:39
104. Osváldo Pugliese - Roberto Chanel "Farol" 1943 3:22
105. Osváldo Pugliese - Roberto Chanel "Rondando Tu Esquina" 1945 2:49
106. Zhanna Aguzarova "Old Hotel" 1987 0:22
The closing tanda is the 5th set of Alberto Podestá...
107. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podestá  "Todo" 1943 2:37
108. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podestá "Como el hornero" 1944 2:47
109. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podestá  "Recien" 1943 2:43
110. Carlos Di Sarli "La Cumparsita" 1955 3:18

Stanley Black

After a Cumparsita to weep, here comes another one to revel and to smile tonight. A rumba remix of La Cumparsita by Harry Roy Orchestra (best known for their 1931 hit, "My girl's pussy"). Harry Roy, nee Lipman, a British clarinetist and a bandleader, had an unusual journey into the Argentine music. He happened to record Latin-style dance tunes for a 1935 Hollywood comedy, "In Caliente", which soon took Latin America by storm. So in 1937 Harry Roy scored an invite for a South American gig, and his new lead pianist and arranger, 24 years old Stanley Black, fell in love with the Argentine rhythms. Soon, Stanley created jazz arrangements of tangos, first recorded in London by Parlophone label, and reissued by Argentina's Odeon. Stanley Black (whose birth name was Solomon Schwartz) would go on to remix great many tangos, but most of his later work lacks the exuberant naivete of the Roy's Cumparsita. 
111. Harry Roy "La cumparsita [rumba] Odeon 194888" 1938 2:58

and what a better way to bookend the night's list if not by playing Otros's "Percanta" which mixes in the same Gardel's song which opened the night?
112. Otros Aires  "Percanta" 2005 5:01
113. Leonard Cohen  "Dance Me To The End Of Love (Live)" 2002 6:06
(113 total)

Practica Del Centro playlist, 5/12/14

With the parallel - but earlier in the evening - Heritage Center practica, Del Centro now comes to live only about a dozen tracks down the playlist, after the tangueros from the University join in. So for the after-class warm-up, I started with the instrumental favorites - the more rhythmical pieces of Di Sarli and Fresedo & I still don't know how this selection would have worked with a larger, more varied crowd. 
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. Osvaldo Fresedo - Instrumental  "Arrabalero" 1939 2:32
05. Osvaldo Fresedo - Instrumental  "Pimienta" 1939 2:52
06. Osvaldo Fresedo - Instrumental  "Derecho viejo" 1941 2:31
07. Rodolfo Biag Jorge Ortíz "Lagrimas Y Sonrisas (vals)"  2:41
08. Rodolfo Biagi Jorge Ortíz "Pajaro Herido (vals)" 1999 2:18
09. Rodolfo Biagi - Jorge Ortiz  "Cuatro palabras (vals)" 1941 2:20
10. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno  "Tango argentino" 1942 2:37
11. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno  "El encopao" 1942 2:34
12. Enrique Rodríguez "Como has cambiado pebeta" 2:37

Quinteto Don Pancho (from todotango site where
I could no longer find it after the site overhaul...)

Canaro's Quintets existed alongside with his main, large Orquesta Tipica (and, occasionally, a couple more "Canaro orchestras" led by Francisco's brothers). Unlike the Tipica's, the Quintets never played live for the dancers - they worked for recording studios and for the radio. Very talented musicians, very slick, shiny quality of the music, it feels strangely modern, perhaps because modern classic tango bands usually have few musicians too? But these records are all from the 1930s! 

El Pirincho (Guira guira)

Quinteto Don Pancho was the first of the two Canaro Quintets (after 1940, followed by Quinteto Pirincho). Both bands were sort of named after their creator, but without spelling out "Francisco Canaro" ("Don Pancho" would have been a nickname for Francisco in Spain, and "Pirincho" was Francisco Canaro's actual nickname in Uruguay and Argentina, given to him at birth by a midwife who was amused by the newborn's cute little tuft of hair, and compared it to a crest of feathers of a local bird, el pirincho). Quinteto Pirincho recorded a lot more than the earlier, and lesser known, Quinteto Don Pancho; in fact two of the three tracks below were mis-attributed to Quinteto Pirincho in the files' metadata.
13. Quinteto Don Pancho - Francisco Canaro "Champagne tango" 1938 2:30
14. Quinteto Don Pancho - Francisco Canaro "El garron" 1938 2:27
15. Quinteto Don Pancho - "El flete" 1939 2:55
Another shot at a milonga tanda with "Ella Es Asi":
16. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos  "Sacale punta" 1938 2:16
17. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos  "De punta a punta (milonga)" 1939 2:21
18. Edgardo Donato  "Ella Es Asi - milonga" 2005 2:35
19. Ricardo Tanturi - Alberto Castillo  "Así Se Baila El Tango"  2:34
20. Ricardo Tanturi  "Que Nunca Me Falte"  2:42
21. "Ricardo Tanturi - Enrique Campos / Oigo Tu Voz" 3:07
22. Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón  "Corazón no le hagas caso" 1942 3:00
23. "Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón / Jamas Retornaras" 2:31
24. Miguel Calo - Raul Beron  "Que te importa que te llore" 1942 2:44
25. Angel D'Agostino - Angel Vargas "Esquinas porteñas 1942 (Vals)" 2:51
26. D'Agostino, A. Vargas "Tristeza Criolla" 1945 2:28
27. Angel D'Agostino - Angel Vargas  "Que me pasara (vals)" 1941 2:29
Now it was time for Irina's melodic, dramatic favs, and I didn't realize until later that the two sets below, classic Di Sarli and classic Laurenz, were united by the same vocalist, Alberto Podestá :) Alberto Podestá started singing tango with the famous Golden Age orchestras as a teenager, first with Caló and then with Di Sarli and Laurenz (It was Carlos Di Sarli who gave him his artistic name, and predicted to him a long singing career). Di Sarli was right, Alberto still sings in Buenos Aires at the age of 89. Two years ago he even visited Tango Element Festival in Baltimore and sang there with the band of Alex Krebs!
28. Carlos Di Sarli Alberto Podestá  "Junto a tu corazon"  3:00
29. Carlos Di Sarli Alberto Podestá "Nada"  2:45
30. Carlos Di Sarli - Alberto Podestá  "Lloran las campanas" 1944 2:58
31. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podestá  "Garua" 1943 3:09
32. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podestá  "Todo" 1943 2:37
33. Pedro Laurenz - Alberto Podestá  "Recien" 1943 2:43
34. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida  "Larga las penas" 1935 3:09
35. Francisco Canaro - Instrumental  "Milonga de mis amores" 1937-05-26 3:03
36. Francisco Canaro - Roberto Maida  "Milonga brava" 1938-06-20 2:37
These three Krebs records turned out to be a DJ's disappointment. I got excited by their super-grounded, almost underworld-ish vibe, but I forgot about strange noisy sections at the end of these tracks. Alas!
37. New York Tango Jam Session  "Duelo Criollo -- old school" 2010 2:29
38. New York Tango Jam Session  "Triste Destino -- old school" 2010 3:31
39. New York Tango Jam Session  "Ventarron -- old school" 2010 2:49
I haven't played from Donato's earlier, playfu and rhythmic period before. Liked the first two out of this trio, but the last one sounded weaker...:
40. Edgardo Donato  "El Acomodo" 2:27
41. Edgardo Donato - Horacio Lagos  "Gato" 1937 2:42
42. Edgardo Donato  "Tierrita" 3:19
Alberto Podestá again, now with the orchestra he started his career with at 16, and to which he kept returning for over 30 years. "Bajo un cielo de estrellas" was his very first record (and the one Podestá counted among his best hits). The young singer performed then under an assumed name of Juan Carlos Morel - he would become Alberto Podestá only a year later, rather unimaginatively rechristened by Di Sarli (Podestá was his mother's family name so the young singer's real full official name was Alejandro Washington Podestá Alé; he mentioned to Carlos Di Sarli that there are already renowned musicians by the same name, such as a tango singer Martín Podestá, but was told not to worry, that he'll eclipse them all :) ).
43. Miguel Calo - Alberto Podesta  "Bajo un cielo de estrellas (vals)" 1941 2:37
44. Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón  "El vals soñador" 1942 3:32
45. Miguel Calo - Alberto Podesta  "Pedacito de cielo (vals)" 1942 2:21
Another Quintet, and a more complex but again, classic and at the same time intriguingly modern sound. It dates to the 1960s "dark years" of Argentine Tango, and owes its existence to the continued love of tango among some of its most talented musicians (and to the continued infatuation of Japan with the Argentine Tango, because it was the tours of Japan which helped the tango musicians survive the 1960s) . The tango titans such as Pedro Láurenz, Horacio Salgán, Enrique Francini performed together as Quinteto Real and, later, Láurenz convened his own quintet (which included Jose Colangelo, piano, and Eduardo Walczak, violin). The following tracks are from their 1969 album, "Pedro Láurenz interpreta a Pedro Láurenz"
46. Pedro Láurenz - Instrumental  "De puro guapo" 1966 2:48
47. Pedro Láurenz - Instrumental  "Orgullo criollo" 1966 2:57
48. Pedro Láurenz - Instrumental  "Mal de amores" 1966 3:16
Aces de Candombe tanda! You may remember how, a couple months ago, I wrote how hard it might be to put together an Enrique Rodriguez milonga tanda (and I got away, then, by playing a tanda of tangofox). Here is a different idea: Rodriguez recorded one of the most memorable milonga candombes of all times, the 1943 Tucu-Tun. It's one of those records which are so good and so special, it may be hard to find them a proper match in a tanda. Rodriguez recorded another notable candombe milonga, "La rumbita candombé";  Bernhard Gehberger suggested adding late Rodriguez records, Tamboriles & Color Punzo, while Tangology 101 suggests Demare's Carnavalito and Troilo's "Papá Baltasar";  for my set, I add two more records by different orchestras (I thought of Canaro's "Candombe criollo", too, but nothing makes a truly satisfying match. Any better thoughts?)
49. Enrique Rodriguez - Armando Moreno  "El tucu-tun" 1943 2:34
50. Osvaldo Fresedo - Oscar Serpa  "La rumbita candombé" 1943 2:34
51. Miguel Caló - Raúl Berón  "Azabache" 1942 3:05
And now the time is running out & the sets are getting shorter and shorter :)
52. Donato, Edgardo Various Artists "La Melodía Del Corazón" 1940 3:18
53. Donato, Edgardo  "El Adios" 1938 3:09
54. Alfredo de Angelis - Instrumental  "Mi dolor" 1957 2:51
55. Alfredo De Angelis  "Felicia 1969"  2:48
56. Osváldo Pugliese Osvaldo Pugliese "Farol" 1943 3:22
57. Osváldo Pugliese "Rondando Tu Esquina" 1945 2:49

The Cumparsita is a different kind of Pedro Laurenz, one of his earliest surviving records, of a bandoneon duet with the legendary Pedro Maffia. "The lad from Flores" Maffia played bandoneon like no one else - he truly revolutionized not just bandoneon playing, but the tango music in general. Pedro Maffia, famed for the rich, complex, dark voice of his instrument, became, in 1924, the first bandoneonist of Julio De Caro's Sextet,  and one of the leaders of the Decaroist movement in tango music, which transformed tango beyond the simplicity and boastfulness of the original Old Guard. Pedro Láurenz joined De Caro's orchestra the following year, in 1925, and over the next couple years, the two great bandoneon players also recorded about a dozens tangos in a duet. The tango records of the mid-1920s tend to be affected by poor record quality ( the first electric records appeared in Argentina only after 1926). This Cumparsita may be a great exception.
58. Pedro Láurenz y Pedro Maffia  "La cumparsita" 1926 3:01
Both post-Cumparsita tracks are Russian, from two very different epochs. "Nau", as they were called, were the pioneers of the Russian rock bloom of the 1980s. "Good-buy America", a bossa nova-tinged 1985 composition originally titled "The last letter" but better known for the line of its refrain, has become a sort of a generational anthem song. Although back in the 80s, few us could have thought that its theme of disillusionment about American culture would fit so well to Russia's 2010's... Danceability of "Good-buy America" is a source of perennial contention among Russian tangueros, but you know my opinion on this matter, right?
59. Nautilus Pompilius - V. Butusov "Good-buy America" 1988 3:38
Eddie Rosner's is one of the many tragic stories of Russian tango. The best jazz trumpet player of all Europe in his teens and early twenties, he fled Berlin, his birthplace, in 1933 to his Jewish parents' homeland of Poland, and discarded his birth name, Adolph, for Eddie. In 1939, escape from the Nazi bombing raids lead him from Warsaw to Belostok, which was soon absorbed into the USSR as a part of Western Belorussia. Eddie Rosner hardly spoke any Russian, but the circumstances made him one of the leaders of Russian jazz and swing. After the war, he attempted to return to Poland but was stopped and sent to Gulag for this "subversive act of attempted emigration". In the dreaded labor camps of Kolyma, Rosner survived as a prison band musician, eventually loosing his teeth to scurvy and re-learning to play trumpet with dentures. In 1954, he was set "free" and organized the Big Band of his dreams, but he was never allowed to go to Poland - or to the US to visit those relatives who survived the Holocaust. As the chill of the Cold War thickened, Eddie was blacklisted again, and confined to a provincial town in Belarus, until the authorities finally allowed him to return to (Western) Berlin to die. 
To record this tango, his best known, Rosner's largely Polish and Jewish band was assigned a great Russian singer, "lest Polish accent seeps into the sound of Russian tango music"; Eddie is said to have been really happy to work with a jazz-singer of such talent.
60. Eddie Rosner - Georgy Vinogradov "Zachem" 1944 3:11