La Busca, Candelo Folk Festival 2019

2020-01-09 - La Busca at Candelo Folk Festival 2019

With the advent of 2020 Tango Capital starts its 5th year with a look at the man and his wife who brought tango to the notice of the world outside Argentina – Alfredo Eusebio and Flora Gobbi. Kicking off the new year with a return to standard programming, there is a brief report on La Busca at Candelo Folk Festival 2019 and a quick round up of what’s on. That’s this Sunday on Tango Capital, 7:00pm to 8:00pm:

Image: La Busca on stage at Candelo Folk Festival 2019.

PLAYLIST:

  • Carriego; recorded by Miguel Caló on 5 January 1948; a tango with music composed by Roberto Nievas Blanco, lyrics by Julio Jorge Nelson, and sung by Roberto Arrieta. The name is a reference to the Argentine poet Evaristo Carriego, who had a big influence on the evolution of tango lyrics.
  • La Entrerriana; recorded by Alfredo J Gobbi on 16 May 1947; a vals with music composed by Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi, lyrics by Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi, and sung by Carlos Heredia and Hugo Soler.
  • La Crisis, meaning ‘The Crisis’; a cancion with music composed by Pascual ‘Cholo’ Mamone, lyrics by  Pascual ‘Cholo’ Mamone, and sung by Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi.
  • Preciosa Mía, meaning ‘My Precious’; recorded in 1923; a cancion with music composed by Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi, lyrics by Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi, and sung by Carlos Gardel and Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi.
  • No Me Abandones, meaning ‘Do Not Leave Me’; recorded by Francisco Canaro on 31 July 1928; a vals with music composed by Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi, lyrics by Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi, and sung by
  • Sin Madre, meaning ‘Motherless’; recorded by Alfredo J Gobbi on 18 September 1956; a tango with music composed by Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi, first recorded in 1924, lyrics by Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi, and sung by Alfredo Del Rio.
  • Reliquias Porteñas, meaning ‘Memories Of Ladies Of Buenos Aires’; recorded by La Busca in 2017; a milonga with music composed by Graciano de Leone, first recorded in 1938 and lyrics by Celedonio Flores.
  • Invierno, meaning ‘Winter’; recorded by La Busca in 2017; a tango with music composed by Horacio Petarossi, first recorded in 1937, lyrics by Enrique Cadícamo, and sung by Juan de Astrada Veron.
  • Pobre Flor, meaning ‘Poor Flower’; recorded by La Busca in 2017; a vals with music composed by Luis Mottolese, first recorded in 1932, lyrics by Victor Spindola, and sung by Juan de Astrada Veron.
  • El Picaflor, meaning ‘The Lady’s Man’; recorded in 1925; a cancion with music composed by Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi, lyrics by Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi, and sung by Carlos Gardel and Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi.

 

The Tango Decades: 1960-1964

2019-12-19 - The Tango Decades 1960-1964

Bringing a different perspective to the music of tango, The Tango Decades is an 8-part series focusing on a horizontal slice of what was hot, decade by decade, as tango blossomed over 40 years. This last episode is focused on 1960 to 1964, and reviews the forces that emerged during the late 1940s and the 1950s to lay waste to the tango orquestas during the 1960s …. That’s this Sunday on Tango Capital, 7:00pm to 8:00pm:

Image Credit:  Background: Vicente Greco established the sextet as the core structure of tango in the very earliest commercial disc recordings of tango dating from around 1910. Insert: Half a century later tango ensembles such as Osvaldo Berlingieri’s Cuarteto were returning to similar, smaller formations, although now as likely to be recording for television.

The smaller configurations reduced the dynamic range that had been a key factor in managing the emotional intensity of the music; together with the incorporation of jazz-related elements the result was a more intellectual style of concert music. While a few icons from the earlier years such as Troilo and Pugliese were able to maintain larger ensembles even their work followed the trend of those around them in moving towards a concert orientation at the expense of dancability. Astor Piazzolla had demonstrated overseas the practicality of small concert formations from the 1950s, but now the stage was cleared for emergence of the new names and styles of La Vanguardia in Argentina.  It was a generational change for the musicians, and it took a generation for tango dancing to return.

PLAYLIST:

2019-12-22 - Playlist

 

 

 

 

The Tango Decades: 1955-1959

2019-12-10 - The Tango Decades 1955-1959

Bringing a different perspective to the music of tango, The Tango Decades is an 8-part series focusing on a horizontal slice of what was hot, decade by decade, as tango blossomed over 40 years. This seventh episode is focused on 1955 to 1959, and explores the interaction between tango and television….That’s this Sunday on Tango Capital, 7:00pm to 8:00pm:

Image: Juan D’Arienzo performing in a television studio; the piece is ‘Loca’ which he re-recorded on 22 December 1955, so the image may date from 1955 or 1956 (image is in the public domain).

PLAYLIST:

2019-12-15 - Playlist

 

The Tango Decades: 1950-1954

2019-12-07 - The Tango Decades 1950-54

Bringing a different perspective to the music of tango, The Tango Decades is an 8-part series focusing on a horizontal slice of what was hot, decade by decade, as tango blossomed over 40 years. This sixth episode is focused on 1950 to 1954, and highlights the emergence of the star singers….. That’s this Sunday on Tango Capital, 7:00pm to 8:00pm:

Image: Record labels of the early 1950s highlight solo singers –unthinkable even a decade prior. And even when a singer is part of an orquesta—as Miguel Montero is with Lomuto’s orquesta here—their name is shown on the label; no more mere ‘con estrabillista’!

PLAYLIST:

2019-12-08 - Playlist

The Tango Decades: 1945-1949

2019-11-28 - The Tango Decades 1945-49

Bringing a different perspective to the music of tango, The Tango Decades is an 8-part series focusing on a horizontal slice of what was hot, decade by decade, as tango blossomed over 40 years. This fifth episode is focused on 1945 to 1949, and explores how the role of the singer was linked to developments in recording technologies.  That’s this Sunday on Tango Capital, 7:00pm to 8:00pm:

Image: The history of tango is intertwined with the development of audio technologies and none more so than recording. Tango started to emerge in the mid-19th century  but recording technology was only widely available from 1888. There are fragments of tango recordings from the 1890s but these may not be commercial; use of the technology was not widespread in Argentina and they may be ‘one-off’ as early cylinder players also made recordings. Then a series of technical improvements between 1895 and 1903 gave shellac discs advantages over wax cylinders, but the real impact was that discs were cheaper to make and much more compact for packaging and storage; with a big price differential they effectively displaced cylinders by 1910.

Tango capitalised on this cheap opportunity. Pedro Maffia started recording tangos from 1911, Juan Maglio from 1912, Carlos Gardel from 1917. Key patents covering disc recordings expired around 1919 and the result was an explosion of new companies but it was not until the mid-1920s that the speed of disc recordings was standardised at 78 revolutions per minute (nominal) and domestic sales expanded. From this time popular voices such as Carlos Gardel, Azucena Maizani, and Rosita Quiroga made some recordings with tango orquestas such as Canaro’s but once electric recording using microphones instead of acoustic horns arrived in Argentina in late 1926 singing was also re-introduced by Canaro as an integral element of tango for dancing in the form of the estrabillista. Gradually the balance shifted as during the 1940s and 1950s singers drove record sales.

Recordings also changed the way tango was experienced. Tango DJs playing shellac recordings emerged in the late 1920s. Recordings also offered opportunities to radio stations as early negotiations between the then-nascent technologies of recording and radio recognised that it was to their mutual benefit to co-operate. From the 1920s onwards recordings of tango music were thus piped into every home in Buenos Aires.

PLAYLIST:

2019-12-01 - Playlist

The Tango Decades: 1940-1944

 

2019-11-22 - The Tango Decades 1940-45

Bringing a different perspective to the music of tango, The Tango Decades is an 8-part series focusing on a horizontal slice of what was hot, decade by decade, as tango blossomed over 40 years. This fourth episode introduces the music and singing as the Golden Age of tango for dancing blossomed from 1940 to 1944.   That’s this Sunday on Tango Capital, 7:00pm to 8:00pm:

Image: The evolution of microphone technology profoundly influenced the direction of tango for dancing, shifting the emphasis over the 2 decades from 1923 to 1942 from mainly instrumental music to the exquisite balance of lyric, music, and voice that combined emotional depth with dancability through the early 1940s. Image of Shure 55 microphone by Holger.Ellgaard and made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 unported licence. Image of Raúl Berón singing on air at Radio Belgrano in 1943 from http://tandaoftheweek.blogspot.com/2013/09/tanda-of-week-22-2013-lucio-demare-y.html

PLAYLIST:

2019-11-24 - Playlist.JPG