Centro Region Leonesa

Centro Region Leonesa, located at Humberto Primo 1462 in Constitución, was built in 1916, and it has been a dance venue for many decades.   Luis Calvo and Gaby Artaza started their milonga “Niño Bien” on Thursday nights in 1998, when the five peso entrada included a glass of champagne.  Many refer to the place as “Niño Bien.” 

A saxophone quartet was performing the night I took this photo (November 1998).  Salon Leonesa has one of the best dance floors in Buenos Aires.  The ballroom was redecorated a couple years ago and improved with air-conditioning and an elevator.  I recall the hot summer nights dancing there before A/C was installed and the ceiling fans kept the air circulating without much relief.

The first apartment I rented was located three blocks from Leonesa.  I go there regularly for either Atilio Verón’s milonga “Mi Refugio” on Monday, or Luis Trapasso’s milonga “Entre Tango y Tango” on Wednesday and Friday or  Enrique Rosich’s “Milonga de los Consagrados” on Saturday afternoon.  It’s a convenient 25-minute walk for me.   Enrique started seating women on the east side of the room and men on the west side–the other organizers have followed his lead. 

Centro Region Leonesa is one of only a handful of milonga venues with a stage for live orchestra.  You occasionally might notice strange sounds coming from the downstairs room where bagpipers rehearse.  At least their piercing sounds don’t reach the milonga upstairs.

Villa Malcolm

This is Club Social y Deportivo Villa Malcolm founded in 1928 and located at Avenida Cordoba 5064 in Palermo Viejo.  The large salon with stage was a venue for tango during many decades past.  In 1998, Jose Hernandez organized a milonga there with Carlos Lafflito, deejay.  I celebrated my 50th birthday with them.   Today Villa Malcolm  is the temple of the tango nuevo movement.

Lafflito & Hernandez

Jose Alberto Scapafino

I searched the tango magazines for a photo since I don’t have one,  and I found this in El Tangauta.  He is another milonguero who has disappeared from the milongas.  I remember dancing with him in Italia Unita and Lo de Celia.  I have seconds of his dancing on video at Club Caribean where Laura Grinbank and Elisa Fardella ran their milonga Las Mireyas. 

Beto Ayala once told me that Jose Alberto was known as Pepino in the milongas.  He was short and plump, but how he danced to Troilo!

Italia Unita

This magnificent structure, located at Tte. Gral. Juan D. Peron 2543 in the wholesale shopping district of El Once, was built in 1878.  I went to dance there on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons in 1999 where Ruben Harymbat, Enrique Rosich, and Enrique Ferreira started Milonga de los Consagrados.  Felix Picherna was the deejay in those days.  I recall dancing there with so many wonderful dancers.  The milonga lasted only a few months because of problems with management.  The building was eventually closed for renovation in October 2000 and was returned to its original splendor.  It was the last place where Juan D’Arienzo performed in the 1970s.  Today it is known as Sabor a Tango, where a nightly dinner tango show is presented in the Palazzo Rossini (named after the Italian composer).  Salon Italia Unita and Salon Agusteo (Sarmiento 1374) were two milongas during the 1950s for 35-50 year-old dancers according to milonguero Miguel Angel Balbi.

photo: www.saboratango.com.ar/en/index.htm

 

Milonga de los Consagrados in Italia Unita (November 1999) photo by Lisa Penninger

Guillermo Eduardo Mourinio

Guillermo is another milonguero who has disappeared from the milongas.  I have footage of him dancing in Caribean on Rivadavia years ago when Laura Grinbank and Elisa Fardella hosted a Friday afternoon milonga there.  I danced with Guillermo at El Arranque in Salon Nuevo La Argentina and at Buenos Aires Tango (Milonguero) in Mundo Latino in 2001, when I took this photo of him.

Two months ago I asked Juan Carlos La Falce of El Arranque if he knew anything about Guillermo.  He suggested I talk with Mimi Santapa, since they are cousins.  I found Mimi one day after class in El Arranque and asked about Guillermo.  She told me that he has problems with his hip and can no longer dance.  He has disconnected his telephone so that his friends from the milonga aren’t able to call him.  Mimi couldn’t give me his address because she doesn’t know where he lives.

I don’t know anything about him other than he is a milonguero with whom I enjoyed dancing.

Quien tiene tu amor

This is a tango  by Leopoldo Díaz Vélez.  I discovered it on the Todo Tango site while reading about Juan Carlos Godoy, a tango singer who recorded with Alfredo De Angelis and Ricardo Tanturi.  A friend called to tell me that Godoy (86) will be performing at La Casa del Tango on January 24.  His 1958 interpretation of Quien tiene tu amor  is so beautiful that I had to translate the lyrics.  This is an example of the poetic richness of tangos and how they mean more to us when we understand them.

Who has your love

I had received your note
where you tell me goodbye, without soul…
I ask myself how I can
continue living if you don’t love me…

Who has your love
now that I don’t have it?
Tell me who it is
and who has carried off your kisses
Where will I rule
the sweet look that I now can’t feel?
I don’t know
because I lost you without wanting it.
Today I have before my eyes
a photo where you are
smiling at me, the last alms that you gave me
Who has your love
now that I don’t have it?
Tell me whose it is
your life that yesterday was mine.

Among other things your good-byes insist
on reminding me of your distant love
I ask myself if this doesn’t exist
why do you pledge so much hurt?

Mario Calarota

January 16, 1936 —

I recorded Mario in July 2000, speaking briefly about how he began dancing tango.  Today I found that video to review for writing this post.  He was so nervous in front of the camera and  wanted to talk for only a few minutes.  His friends were arriving for lunch at Miguel Angel Balbi’s apartment in Almagro during the filming.

Mario was born in the neighborhood of Pompeya.  Across the street from the family house was a club where he practiced tango with the boys when he was 16-18 years old from 1952.  They went dancing at a club in Parque Patricios.  On Saturdays he went to Club Premiere, a neighborhood sports club in Caballito that had dances with orchestras on the outdoor soccer court.  During the week he went to the confiterias downtown–Novel, Monte Carlo, Piccadilly and Domino–to dance to the recordings of Carlos Di Sarli, Anibal Troilo and Juan D’Arienzo.   Mario’s five minute interview is followed by more than an hour of very loud discussion by a group of eight milongueros because there is rarely a moment when one person is talking while everyone else listens.  It would be nice to hear what each is saying, but that doesn’t happen with this group of milongueros who have known one another since the 1950s.  

Ernesto Delgado, Mario Calarota, Jose Francisco Pantano, and Hector Delgado at the milonga "Buenos Aires Tango (Milonguero)" (Sept 2001)

Jose Luis Aceto

January 12, 1935 —

We share the same nickname Pichi in the milongas (although I stopped using it four years ago).  We were introduced several years ago when Club Juvenil was the place where the milongueros danced on Saturday nights.  I danced with him in Lo de Celia where he went regularly.    

Pichi can be found on Sundays in Salon Canning with his friend Jorge Orellana, but he is no longer able to dance.  That has been the case for about two years.  We can’t imagine how painful it is for a milonguero to be listening to tango and unable to dance.

Jose Luis Aceto, Nestor Leon, Pedro Sanchez & Horacio in Club Caribean (July 2001)

Carlos Di Sarli

January 7, 1903 — January 12, 1960

Carlos Di Sarli is called “Lord of Tango” for good reason.  He was a pianist, composer, and orchestra leader who left a rich legacy.

I used a cassette tape of Di Sarli recordings for my tango classes in Chicago, but it wasn’t until I heard more of his recordings in the milongas of Buenos Aires that I learned to appreciate the greatness of his artistry.  The deejay at my favorite milonga knows that I wait patiently for the Di Sarli tandas.  Dancing one tanda of Di Sarli with a milonguero is enough to satisfy me for the night.  The other day I danced a tanda of Di Sarli, ending with Junto a tu corazon (Hoy como ayer).  I love this tango so much that I had to buy the sheet music with lyrics. 

Di Sarli never allowed anyone to film him while he played piano with the orchestra nor did he notate his elaborate piano improvisations.   They were painstakingly transcribed from recordings.  Today is it possible to experience Di Sarli’s unique style at the piano as it is recreated by Guillermo Durante, pianist since 1982 with Orquesta Tipica Gente de Tango in Buenos Aires. 

photo from TodoTango.com

El Choclo

This tango is as well known as “La Cumparsita” and “Jalousie.” Every once in a while the Dos por Cuatro radio station plays “Kiss of Fire” recorded in 1952 by Louis Armstrong, his version of El Choclo with lyrics by American songwriters Lester Allen and Robert Hill adapted to the music of Angel Gregorio Villoldo composed in 1903.

I touch your lips and all at once the sparks go flying
Those devil lips that know so well the art of lying
And though I see the danger, still the flame grows higher
I know I must surrender to your kiss of fire.

Just like a torch, you set the soul within me burning
I must go on, I’m on this road of no returning
And though it burns me and it turns me into ashes
My whole world crashes without your kiss of fire.

I can’t resist you, what good is there in trying?
What good is there denying you’re all that I desire?
Since first I kissed you my heart was yours completely
If I’m a slave, then it’s a slave I want to be
Don’t pity me, don’t pity me.

Give me your lips, the lips you only let me borrow
Love me tonight and let the devil take tomorrow
I know that I must have your kiss although it dooms me
Though it consumes me, your kiss of fire.