Skip to main content

Argentine Tango School

Tag: argentine tango

“Carro viejo” by Alfredo De Ángelis y su Orquesta Típica, vocals by Julio Martel, 1949.

Fernando Montoni

Real name: Montoni, Fernando José Juan
Nicknames: Jorge Raúl Ramírez
Bandoneonist and composer (27 June 1903 – n/d). Buenos Aires.
In his beginnings he attracted the public attention because of his mastery in guitar playing, with a thorough command of its intricate technique.
He had outstanding appearances in our main theaters. He appeared at the Victoria with the theatrical company led by the Podestás. Also at the El Nacional, accompanying the actor and singer José Cicarelli and Ignacio Corsini at the Apolo. He was later the guitarist that accompanied the Cicarelli-Fernando Nunziata duo.
By 1925 he gave up guitar playing to fully devote himself to study bandoneon. Continue reading at www.todotango.com...

“La Chiflada” by Ángel D’Agostino y su Orquesta Típica, 1942.

Juan Carlos Bazán

Argentine-Tango-classes-san-francisco-bay-areaStout, rather fat, and a good guy is the description with which those who knew him and gave us their testimony coincided.

In his youth, a waiter of a Japanese barroom located on 25 de Mayo Street a few meters from Corrientes, had told him that on several occasions he had seen that on the corner of the street people used to crowd together to listen to some music.

Eager to know, one day he went closer and, in the middle of that occasional audience, he saw Fat Bazán playing a long brass trumpet from which a cloth banner with golden letters was hanging.

It was the advertisement of Kalisay, an aperitif of that time, which included the classic boy doll with a large head that represented an old man… Continue reading at www.todotango.com...

Here you can see Juan Carlos Bazán playing his clarinet, next to his life long friend “El Pibe” Ernesto Ponzio, and “El Cachafaz” and Carmencita Calderón dancing, in this scene from the first sound film made in Argentina, “Tango!”, of 1933.

From “History of Tango – Part 3: La Guardia Vieja” and “History of Tango – Part 8: Roberto Firpo and the acceptance of the piano in the Orquesta Típica” (read more, click here).

Tango is Life

This article continues a previous article.

Milongas San Francisco Bay AreaDancing Tango is not only about you and you-and-your-partner. It is also a social event and a culture.

It involves more than two: those present at the milonga (tango dance party) in which you assist, and also all those who are intimately related to Tango, at your present time, in the past and in the future (other dancers, the composers of the songs that you dance to, the musicians who recorded the songs, all the people who were passionate about Tango throughout the history of this manifestation of our very unique nature as humans, and those, in the future, who will inherit it after us).

The dance party where you came to dance is a society, with its own culture and its own sets of codes which make possible, and structure, its existence, nurturing and favoring creativity, the behaviors that support the coexistence of all the artists on the dance floor, the milongueros, respect for all manifestations of this Art, not in words, but in actions, in dance. Continue reading at Medium.com.

SaveSave

“Jamás retornarás” Miguel Caló y su Orquesta Típica, piano Osmar Maderna and with Raúl Berón singing, 1942. (Lyrics translated)

Raul Beron. Argentine music at Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires.“Cuando dijo adiós, quise llorar…
Luego sin su amor, quise gritar…
Todos los ensueños que albergó mi corazón
(toda mi ilusión),
cayeron a pedazos.
Pronto volveré, dijo al partir.
Loco la esperé… ¡Pobre de mí!
Y hoy, que tanto tiempo ha transcurrido sin volver,
siento que he perdido su querer.

Jamás retornarás…
lo dice el alma mía,
y en esta soledad
te nombro noche y día.
¿Por qué, por qué te fuiste de mi lado
y tan cruel has destrozado
mi corazón?

Jamás retornarás…
lo dice el alma mía
y, aunque muriendo está,
te espera sin cesar.

Cuánto le imploré: vuelve, mi amor…
Cuánto la besé, ¡con qué fervor!
Algo me decía que jamás iba a volver,
que el anochecer
en mi alma se anidaba.

Pronto volveré, dijo al partir.
Mucho la esperé… ¡Pobre de mí!
Y hoy, que al fin comprendo
la penosa y cruel verdad,
siento que la vida se me va.”

Music and lyrics by Osmar Maderna and Miguel Caló,  Recorded by Miguel Caló y su Orquesta Típica, with Osmar Maderna in piano and with Raúl Berón singing, September 1942.

When she said goodbye, I wanted to cry …
Then, without her love, I wanted to scream …
All the daydreams dwelling in my heart
(all I dreamt of),
fell to pieces.
I’ll be back soon, she said as she left.
A fool, I waited for her… Poor me!
And today, so much time has passed without her coming back,
I can feel that I have lost her love.
You will never return …
my soul says so,
and in this solitude
I call your name night and day.
Why, why did you leave my side
and so cruel, have you destroyed
my heart?
You will never return …
my soul says,
and, although it is dying,
it is waiting for you incessantly.
How much I begged her: come back, my love …
How much I kissed her, how fervently!
Something told me that she would never return,
as the nightfall
was nesting in my soul.
I’ll be back soon, she said as she left.
I waited for her so much … Poor me!
And today, at last, I understand
the painful and cruel truth,
I feel that life is leaving me.

Listen and buy:


We have lots more music and history…

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and want to learn to dance Tango, you can:

“La vida es una milonga” by Pedro Laurenz y su Orquesta Típica with Martín Podestá in vocals, 1941 (English translation of lyrics).

“La vida es una milonga” by Pedro Laurenz y su Orquesta Típica with Martín Podestá in vocals, 1941 (English translation of lyrics).

Marcelo Solis dancing Argentine Tango at a milonga in Buenos Aires.

Music and lyrics: Fernando Jose Juan Montoni and Rodolfo Sciammarella.

Everyone is waiting
Improving their situation,
All live sighing
Rightly or wrongly.

Everyone regrets
If in the good they are no longer,
No one can stand the storm
If the “contra” is given.

Life is a milonga
And you ought to know how to dance it.
The one who loses his rhythm
Is one too many on the dance floor.

Life is a milonga
And you ought to know how to dance it,
Because it’s sad to be sitting
While the others dance.

More Argentine Tango lyrics

Listen and buy:

  • Amazon music

  • iTunes music

  • Spotify

We are happy to have a collaboration with the people from tangotunes.com from whom some of you may have heard, they do high-quality transfers from original tango shellacs.

It is the number 1 source for professional Tango DJs all over the world.

  • Now they started a new project that addresses the dancers and the website is https://en.mytango.online
    You will find two compilations at the beginning, one tango and one vals compilation in amazing quality.
    The price is 50€ each (for 32 songs each compilation) and now the good news!

If you enter the promo code 8343 when you register at this site you will get a 20% discount!

Thanks for supporting this project, you will find other useful information on the site, a great initiative.

Letra original en castellano

More Argentine Tango music selected for you:

We have lots more music and history

How to dance to this music?