The artistry of Carlos Di Sarli

El Señor del Tango, as he was named, didn’t permit anyone to film him at the piano.  When someone approached, he stopped playing.  He died in 1960 at the age of 57 with his artistic secrets.

In 1981, a group of musicians decided to form an orquesta playing the Di Sarli style.  They became Gente de Tango.  They were faced with the daunting task of notating the complete scores of Di Sarli arrangements which never existed on paper.  All Di Sarli’s arrangements were created in daily rehearsals.  The scores had to be recreated by listening to the recordings.

I first met the amateur musicians of Gente de Tango in 2005 at a rehearsal in Villa Devoto.  I refer to them as amateurs because most of them pursued careers in something other than music.  Like Carlos Di Sarli, Guillermo Durante directs the orquesta from the piano.  He is the master of the Di Sarli style.  It occurred to me recently that I should film Guillermo at the piano during a performance.

Orquesta Tipica Gente de Tango performed at Nuevo Salón La Argentina, and I was there to record Guillermo’s hands at the piano.  The salón has a grand piano on stage, and I was able to film from the left side of the keyboard.  It was the first time I watched him as he played Porteño y Bailarin, El Amanacer, Verdemar, A la gran muñeca, and Milonguero viejo.  Guillermo couldn’t understand why I wanted to film him.  It didn’t take much imagination to feel as if I was watching Carlos Di Sarli himself at the piano while filming Guillermo.  It was moving to say the least. 

Guillermo Durante has already passed the age at which Di Sarli died.  He should be sharing his expertise with young pianists so that future generations of musicians will continue to recreate the Di Sarli style for dancing.  We always will have the recordings of Di Sarli, but a live performance is very special.

Powerful moments

I don’t know how to describe it other than powerful. It was an overwhelming sensation. The tanda was Juan D’Arienzo with singer Alberto Echagüe. I was dancing with one of my regular partners. We were practically in the center, completely surrounded on a packed floor, something I haven’t seen for some time at my favorite milonga home. The energy was tremendous as we all were being seduced by the recordings of El Rey de Compás. I’ve never experienced anything like it before in all my years in the milongas. I told my partner the excitement I felt at that moment. D’Arienzo’s music grabs your attention, makes you feel it, and  you want to dance. If one hasn’t been moved by the power of his recordings, it’s time to switch to another dance. I imagined for a second what it would have been like to film from the center of the floor, but later I realized that the scene was already recorded in my memory along with the feelings I had of those powerful moments.

Esquina Osvaldo Pugliese

On the first Saturday of the month, free talks are given in Café Recuerdo of Esquina Osvaldo Pugliese in Boedo. 

Néstor José Scalone was invited to speak about the tango orquestas of the 1940s and provided recordings.

The orquestas had monthly recording quotas.  In March 1941, Troilo completed his monthly quota in one day.  Musicians had salaries of 6,000 pesos at the same time the President of the nation earned 10,000. 

 

In 1942, Ronda de Ases was aired on Radio El Mundo from Teatro Casino where the most popular tango orquestas played for audiences who entered free of charge for the live broadcasts.  During the 40s, the singer became one more instrument of the orquesta.

The walls of Esquina Osvaldo Pugliese are covered with photographs and memorabilia of the pianist, composer and director.

Tango recordings

Tango has its collectors, and I’m not talking about step collectors.  There are a few private collections of phonograph records in distinct formats.  There was a time when only 10,000 copies were made of recordings.  It’s no wonder that many recordings are lost.

It is estimated that only a mere ten percent or so of all tangos written were ever recorded.  Mauricio Diaz, Carlos Puente, and Bruno Cespi are three generations of collectors.  During a presentation at the Festival Tango Buenos Aires, we heard a 78rpm recording of Atlanta by Roberto Firpo (1914) and Orquesta Carabelli of 1932.

Bruno Cespi has a large collection of photographs and scores.  He brought some of his collection which included three ID cards of Carlos Gardel.  His oldest score is from 1925.  The back covers of sheet music provide titles of tangos that were never recorded. 

I met Mr. Cespi in July 2003 during my first visit to Club Glorias Argentinas in Mataderos.  He told me he was 83, and I thought he should be interviewed.  He organized a milonga in Club Social y Deportivo Buenos Aires and provided music from his 78rpm record collection.  He was finally invited to the Festival Buenos Aires Tango.  Mr. Cespi carried his precious scores and cards of Gardel in a paper shopping bag to the conference.

If you want to build your own music library of tango recordings and don’t know where to begin, Héctor Ángel Benedetti has published a guide to help you get started.  Tango 101 Discos (Editorial Sudamericana) is the essential guide to achieving the ideal record collection.  He offers a catalog of must-have artists, analyzes their main features and selects the best album for each one.  You won’t end up with duplicate recordings from different albums.  He even uses icons to indicate those with lunfardo and those which are danceable.

The most ambitious project ever undertaken for the preservation of tango is a tango digital archive of thousands of recordings, photographs, scores, musical arrangements and films.  Ignacio Varchausky, director of Orquesta El Arranque and artistic director of Orquesta Escuela del Tango Emilio Balcarce, has been working for three years with a team of collectors, restorers and digitalizers in order to create the archive which will have a complete history of tango in a data base in a high quality format.  TangoVia Buenos Aires needs to raise a million dollars in order to complete this important project for tango’s future.  Time is running out on some of the recordings which will be gone forever if not preserved.  A fundraising campaign will make it possible for tango lovers around the world to contribute to this project.  The archive will be accessable to all.

Three minutes

The recordings played at a milonga are short but sweet.  Tangos, valses, and milongas are two to three and a half minutes according to the times indicated on the CDs in my small collection.  Other kinds of dance music is usually longer, so why is a tango only three minutes?

I decided to attend a music clinic at the Festival Buenos Aires Tango conducted by Julián Peralta where I knew I would get an answer to this question.  He wrote the book, “La Orquesta Tipica: Mechanics and Application of the Fundamentals of Tango” which fills the gap with material on the technical aspects of tango.  Musicians now have a source for studying the styles of Troilo, Di Sarli, Pugliese and others. 

Before I could ask my question, another participant wanted Julián’s opinion about the length of tangos.  He answered that a tango is an synopsis rather than a novel.  It says what is necessary musically and sometimes with words in a couple minutes.  It is complete with theme and variation.  I have always felt the same way.  A tango friend once said that, “tango is an opera in three minutes.”  After the clinic, I chatted with the man who posed the question and told him that I had the same one in mind.  He said he has a different theory about it and didn’t agree with Julián.  Seventy-eight rpm records had a limit of three minutes of play.  So tangos were composed and arranged to fit within the parameters of recording standards.  That seems logical, but certainly composers were more concerned with the musical thoughts for each tango, vals and milonga rather than restricting their compositions to three minutes.  The earliest tangos weren’t recorded.  Tango wasn’t written for the purpose of making money from publishing sheet music and selling recordings. 

Julián Peralta is a researcher and teacher at the School of Popular Music of Avellaneda, the National Tango Academy, and the Musical Studio of Orlando Goñi.  He was a member of Orquesta Tipica Fernando Fierro, and presently is with Orquesta Astillero and directs Orquesta Tipica Julián Peralta.  He’s only 34 years old and has many years ahead training tango musicians in the styles of the orchestras.  His school is located in San Cristobal.  His book is available from Club de Tango for 90 pesos.

Tango in the cabarets

There is nothing written about exactly what happened inside the cabarets of Buenos Aires.  The only way to learn about the nightlife in the cabarets is to talk to those who inhabited them–musicians and milongueros.  That’s exactly what Andrés Casak and Mariano del Mazo have done in order to gather pieces of the puzzle and tell the story of the era of cabarets in Buenos Aires from 1930-1960.

They invited Carlos Pazo, Mario Abramovich, and Alcides Rossi to share details as tango musicians in the cabarets during a conference of the Festival Buenos Aires Tango.  This included a special video presentation with  Leopoldo Federico and Alberto Podestá and clips from the film Vida Nocturna (1952) and Cuatro Corazones about the cabarets.

The city had cabarets in three zones:  along Corrientes from Calláo to Nueve de Julio, Nueve de Julio to Alem (known as ”Bajo,” the lower part of Corrientes) and La Boca.  The cabarets opened at 23 hs and closed at 4 in the morning.  Orquestas de tango had contracts for six months, so the musicians had steady work in those days.  No one under the age of 18 was allowed to enter the cabarets, but Leopoldo Federico told the story of being hired as bandoneonist at the age of 17 to play at Tabaris (Corrientes 829).

The most famous cabarets (thanks to the orquesta that performed in them)were Chantecler(on Paraná near Corrientes) where Juan D’Arienzo’s orquesta played regularly; Marabú(on Maipu near Corrientes in “Bajo“) with Carlos Di Sarli; Singapur(Montevideo 348) with Miguel Calo and Alberto Podestá; and El Avion in La Boca.

I learned interesting morsels about the cabarets.  Chantecler had a swimming pool.  The coperas drank tea instead of alcohol with the male patrons in the cabarets who bought drinks for them.  Otherwise they would have been inebriated before the night was over. The musicians were strictly prohibited from talking with the coperas whose job was to sell drinks, engage in conversation and dance with customers.  Musicians were not allowed to leave the cabaret with a copera, although what they did outside the cabaret was their own business.

Musicians got their training with the orquestas in the cabarets.  They rehearsed in the salones of the cabarets.  In some of them, the orquesta performed from a balcony where the ladder was removed so they couldn’t return to the main floor and talk with the young ladies who worked.  That never stopped them from trying.  Some musicians ended up marrying coperas. 

The first 45 minutes of music in a cabaret was like a rehearsal when they didn’t play continuously.  Nobody danced the first hour.  The cabaret was important to the success of an orquesta for it was where new compositions were performed for the first time.  If the dancers liked it, it became a hit and then it was recorded.  An orquesta played six nights a week in cabarets from April through December with the summer months off.  The musicians were very well paid.

The future of tango is in their hands

Last night at the opening of the XI Festival Buenos Aires Tango, a new orquesta tipica made its debut in the 100-year-old Teatro Avenida on Avenida de Mayo.  Orquesta Tipica Porvenir is unique in that its fifty some musicians are teenagers.  They shared the stage with legends of tango–Nestor Marconi, Pablo Agri, Raul Lavie, Susana Rinaldi, Luis Salinas, and Leopoldo Federico.  A young clarinetist couldn’t hold back his emotion after performing as soloist along with guitarist Luis Salinas.  The concert was by invitation only for family and friends. 

The evening began with a performance by Gabriel “Chula” Clausi, bandoneonist who turns 98 on August 30.  His appearance was the reason I was determined to attend the concert.  I stood in line at the theater knowing that I would attend.  The man behind me provided me with a seventh row ticket only minutes before the doors opened.  As I took my seat, I saw that I had a perfect view for his performance.  A chair and two microphones were on stage in front of the curtain.  There was a noticeable hush in the theater while he gave us his heart and soul through his fueye.  The instrument requires strength to play, and he amazed us with his performance.  His arms no longer have the strength they once did nor do his fingers have the agility of younger players.   The audience showed their appreciation as he bowed modestly and left the stage.  Young musicians have his example and others–the future of tango is in their hands.

The program wouldn’t have been complete without a young generation of dancers.  That was provided by the tango school of Carlos Copello where children as young as nine years old are being trained in tango.  Girls who are not ready for high heels were dancing tango on stage.  It was heart warming to see them enjoying the moments after months of practice in the studio.  Their self-confidence was a sight to behold.  They may not have careers in tango, but at least they have been exposed to music and dance in their youth.

On the radio…1945

I am reading the first copy of the newspaper CLARÍN published on August 2, 1945.  Among the various interesting items, there is one that demands my attention.  It’s the section for arts and entertainment with the various radio programming for the day.  Read what importance tango had at this time and how the radio stations dedicated time to providing our city’s music.  You can appreciate how all the important orchestras at this time were included in the programming.  And this is only for one day!

It begins with Tango Cavalcade at 10:00 in the morning when LS4 Radio Pueblo announces Miguel Caló and his orchestra with singer Raul Iriarte.  I want to clarify that the concerts lasted thirty minutes and were a live performance, nothing was recorded.  And to continue at 10:30, LR3 Radio Belgrano presented Francisco Canaro with singers Alberto Arenas and Guillermo Coral who later was actor Guillermo Rico.  I remind you that the pianist for this orchestra was Mariano Mores, and they premiered Adios Pampa Mia at this time.  Then at 11:00 in the morning LR1 Radio El Mundo has the honor of presenting Anibal Troilo with singers Floreal Ruiz and Alberto Marino.  And to finish off the morning, listeners could choose between Ricardo Tanturi with his singers Enrique Campos and Roberto Videla on Radio El Mundo or listen to recordings of Agustín Magaldi on Radio Belgrano. 

At 12:00, the lunch hour, Radio El Mundo broadcast news and then another program with Tanturi.  And for dessert, Radio Belgrano had Francisco Canaro.  You had time for a nap or get your work done quickly, because at 1:45 Tanturi and Canaro finished their concert for the day.  Then at 2:00 LR6 Radio Mitre began with Tipica D’Alesandro and the jazz orchestra Osvaldo Norton.  At 3:00 Radio Pueblo presented José García with his Gray Foxes.

We have arrived at 4:00 in the afternoon.  After having separated from Carlos Di Sarli, singer Roberto Rufino and his orchestra directed by Atilio Bruni are on Radio Belgrano.  At 5:00 and 6:00 at fifteen minute intervals, Radio El Mundo presented Osvaldo Pugliese with his singers Alberto Morán and Roberto Chanel.  Rest a bit, friends, because during the dinner hour we can listen to Ada Falcón on Radio Argentina and Alberto Castillo on Radio Belgrano.  We can have coffee at 9:30 while listening to Oscar Alonso on Radio Mitre and later at 10:30 Radio Mundo presents Osvaldo Fresedo for a good night.  Well, did you like this programming?  The following day included Juan D’Arienzo, Carlos Di Sarli, Rodolfo Biaggi, and more.  What times those were!

Translated with permission from Anecdotas Tangueras by Jorge Gutman. Diostango – June 2009.

Club del Vino

A tango dancer from Europe encouraged me not to miss the concert on Saturday nights at Club del Vino.  It was 1997 during my third visit to Buenos Aires.  I found another foreign woman who was interested in joining me, so I went to get half-price tickets the afternoon of the concert.  In those days, it was thirty dollars for the concert not thirty pesos.  We were both on a budget. 

We arrived before the starting time of 22hs. and were pleasantly surprised to be seated all the way down in front at the edge of the stage.  These were the best seats in the house for us.  We could see the musicians up close, smiling back at us during the concert.  And what a concert it was.

Today, while rummaging through some old files, I came across the program I saved from that memorable night in September 1997 at Club del Vino in Palermo. 

Nestor Marconi has been in charge of directing the Orquesta Escuela del Tango Emilio Balcarce since Balcarce retired for the second time two years ago.  His son Leandro is following in his footsteps playing tango on piano.

Nelly Omar is 98 and gave a concert at Luna Park at the beginning of May.  She was the muse of Homero Manzi.

Antonio Agri is gone, but his legacy remains in the hands of his son Pablo who continues in his father’s tradition on violin. 

Horacio Salgan was last seen on stage when Café de los Maestros performed in Teatro Colon in August 2006.  He’s in his 90s and has passed the torch to his son César who has released a compact disc of his father’s unpublished piano works: Raras Partituras. 

I’m glad I took that dancer’s advice and attended the concert.  Club del Vino is closed.  Salgan no longer performs.  Agri is gone.  It was a night I will remember with tango’s greats.

Mi Buenos Aires Querido

Today is the tenth anniversary of my arrival to live in Buenos Aires. I was enrolled in a continuing education course I call ”Milonga Codes and Customs” with no materials for study.  Everything was either observed or shared by milongueros.  I want to share a few things I learned.

One’s tango dancing improves in the milongas.
Attending tango classes hasn’t really helped my dancing when I think about it. What has helped me the most is going to dance, having to adjust to every partner’s style and improvising in the moment.

A man who comes to the table doesn’t know how to dance.
I learned this lesson the hard way with lots of awful tandas because I wanted to dance. It took time to be able to avoid responding to those who approach the table. I would rather sit and enjoy the music than suffer through a tanda. 

The tango embrace of an Argentine is why women return to Buenos Aires.
Tango is an embrace in Buenos Aires. Argentine men love tango and women. They aren’t shy about embracing women. Foreign women find the embrace they have dreamed of. The trip is worth it for this alone.

Each tango orchestra has a unique style just like every milonguero.
It took years for this revelation even though I am a trained musician. When it finally dawned on me, I relied on my musically trained ear to help me identify the orchestra before I selected a potential partner for each tanda. 

The organizer sets the tone of each milonga.
Not all milongas are alike. Knowing the organizer and deejay gives you a pretty good idea about a milonga. Then when you finally get comfortable going regularly to your favorite milongas, things will probably change.

There are very few men who dance tango very well.
Visualize a pyramid. The masses are at the bottom, but only a few preserver and achieve the summit. That’s the way it is in every endeavor in life. We may not be the best dancers in the world, but we can always dance our best. That’s enough.  We dance our best with those who dance well.

Respect the tradition of the cabeceo.
The cabeceo (movement of the head) has been used in Buenos Aires for decades to invite a woman to dance. It’s a test for learning patience. We should respect the tradition along with the rest of the milonga codes.

Music is why we dance.
It can inspire us. It can transport us. We need to connect with it in order to express it. Then we understand why tango isn’t just a dance, but it’s a feeling that is danced. We have to know the music well to dance well. There is nothing quite like tango.

The milongueros are a vanishing species.
There aren’t many of them left. There will never be another generation like them. They are the self-taught dancers who learned from their youth and lived for the nights of tango along Corrientes. They dance well or not at all. They taught me what it means to dance tango.