Argentine Tango School

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Milongueando with Suzanne at Lafayette milonga. Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires.

Dancing at a milonga

Ricardo Tanturi. Argentine Tango music at Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires

“Pocas palabras” by Ricardo Tanturi y su Orquesta Típica with Alberto Castillo in vocals (1941)

Ricardo Tanturi. Argentine Tango music at Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires

Ricardo Tanturi: El caballero del Tango

Pianist, leader and composer
(January 27, 1905 – January 24, 1973)

The turn for records came in 1937 with an unforgettable piece recorded for Odeón, containing the instrumental version of “Tierrita” tango by Agustín Bardi, and “A la luz del candil”, with music written by the talented Carlos Vicente Geroni Flores, cruel lyrics by Julio Navarrine, and sang by Carlos Ortega.

But Tanturi’s great success would come in 1939 when he incorporated Alberto Castillo, a great attraction for the public. Castillo, with his perfect tune, master ability in the use of pitches and mezza voce, seduced the audience in many possible ways: with his exaggerated gestures, his masculine elegance, and neat hairstyle, his gynecologist degree (obtained in 1942), and that sometimes intimate sometimes lively mood, all of which made a show of every tango. Continue reading at www.todotango.com...

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José Gonzalez Castillo Argentine Tango lyricist portrait at the piano

“Sobre el pucho” by Juan D’Arienzo y su Orquesta Típica with Héctor Mauré in vocals, 1941.

“Sobre el pucho” by Juan D’Arienzo y su Orquesta Típica with Héctor Mauré in vocals, 1941.

José Gonzalez Castillo, author of tangos

José González Castillo

Poet and lyricist (25 January 1885 – 22 October 1937)

Lyrics for tango were born around 1914, based on those ones conceived by Pascual Contursi that year and the following years (“De vuelta al bulín”, “Ivette”, “Flor de fango”, “Mi noche triste (Lita)”), and they were growing strong very slowly.

So much so that in Carlos Gardel’s repertoire tangos were, until the next decade, a rare bird. There was not even a notion of how to sing a tango, a standard that Gardel was gradually establishing after 1922.

That was, precisely, the year José González Castillo truly disembarked in the genre with the lyrics of “Sobre el pucho”, after Sebastián Piana’s music, which was introduced at the talent contest organized by Tango cigarettes.

José Gobello (Crónica general del tango, Editorial Fraterna) stated about this work that, with it «some novelties broke into tango that the tango literary work of Homero Manzi would later turn into true constants. By the way, Pompeya («Un callejón en Pompeya/y un farolito plateando el fango…»); later, the description of the neighborhood and, soon, the enumeration as a descriptive procedure».

But in those lyrics there is something else, metaphor, that springs up in the memory that the malevo devotes to his lost love «…tu inconstancia loca/me arrebató de tu boca/como pucho que se tira/ cuando ya/ni sabor ni aroma da». It is clear that González Castillo was a forerunner, and also that other later lyricists were who deepened those trends.

Read more about José González Castillo at www.todotango.com

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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.

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Cayetano Puglisi. argentine music at Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires.

“Criolla linda” by Cayetano Puglisi y su Sexteto Típico, 1929.

Cayetano Puglisi. argentine music at Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires.Cayetano Puglisi

Violinist, leader and composer

(2 January 1902 – 2 November 1968)

The eldest in a family of three musician brothers, Cayetano Puglisi was born in Messina, a region of Sicily (Italy).

Emilio, a violinist like him, of an uneasy spirit, after enjoying the sweet smell of success in the Buenos Aires orchestras, played in international orchestras, even in the far distant Teheran (capital of Iran). José, instead, from the humblest place in the teatro “Colón” orchestra of Buenos Aires, carried out his career devoted to violoncello, totally apart from tango life.

Cayetano Puglisi arrived in Buenos Aires in 1909. A violin student, he was alumnus of the maestro Pessina, seeming to become a great player of so difficult instrument. In his beginnings, inclined to classical music, after playing a concert at the Teatro Nuevo, the La Prensa journal granted him a scholarship to polish his studies in Europe, a voyage he was unable to make because the World War burst out in 1914.

By those difficult times, the riverside cafés at the neighborhood of La Boca witnessed his early gigs, although his formal memories as for the name of partners lead us to the famous Iglesias barroom on Corrientes Street, lining up a trio with Carlos Marcucci (bandoneon) and Pedro Almirón (piano), the latter replaced by Robledo, none of them was older than 13. It was a trio of kids. Continue reading at www.todotango.com...

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

Enrique Cadícamo. Argentine Tango music at Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires. Learn too dance.

“Ave de paso”, by Ángel D’Agostino y su Orquesta Típica with Ángel Vargas (1945)

Enrique Cadícamo - Argentine Tango dance classes for beginners, intermediate and advanced level. Argentine Tango dance Private lessons. one to one Argentine dance lessons. Argentine Tango dance lessons for couples. Argentine Tango Milongas and workshops.Cadícamo: “Tango needs not to be changed”

Excerpts from a conversation with Enrique Cadícamo: «I don’t agree at all with the so-called avant-garde of tango. Vanguard is what first falls in a line of fire. In a combat a vanguard is the part of an army which goes ahead of the main body. In tango there is something similar. The vanguard of tango is the first thing that falls before the indifference of all those who know what tango is.

«Tango has popular roots, like other rhythms in other parts of the world that have not changed nor have they been distorted nor have they been presented with a new packaging. Can one update cante jondo? It would be nonsense. Why? Because it comes from popular roots, Moorish, Spanish. I love all that means progress but in some things it doesn’t make sense. For machinery, for computers, for shows is all right. But not for this.

«Tango is a very humble, very simple thing. It was played by guys who had no formal musical training like Ángel Villoldo, Eduardo Arolas, Enrique Delfino. It was a feeling that was worth more than all the orthodox part contained in the written music. We have to keep tango the way it is. It is our thing, it is a landscape that remained as it was before. The tango has already come. It is impossible to speak of tango yet to come. Continue reading