Posts Tagged ‘ tango music ’

1903, April 8 – BIRTH OF DANIEL LOPEZ BARRETO

Composer, Pianist, Author (Aries) – Tangiers beguiled him and as she had done to William S Burroughs, to Jack Keroac, to Tenessee Williams, to Matisse…she seduced him and so Daniel Lopez Barreto did the unthinkable, he deserted the Argentine Navy and disappeared into Tangiers’ mysterious labyrinths of spys and smugglers…but it was not easy and out of desperation he joined the French Foreign Legion, finding himself oddly at home with its failed revolutionaries and trouble makers from all over the world…but fate had a surpise in store for him, enjoying himself at the “Cabaret Lumiere Du Midi” the night before shipping out, some drunken English sailors suddenly became rowdy for the lack of the promised live music…one of Daniel’s campanions suggested to owner that Daniel play the piano; his debut was so successful that it turned into an eight month engagement…one evening a German couple happened to come in; she was a voice and music professor and was so impressed with Daniel’s talent that she took him under her wing…they took  him to the magical island of Ibizia where through stern, disciplined training she perfected his talent…together they would perform classical music concerts throughout europe in splendor and elegance he had never imagined

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But the call of his native land was strong and against the counsel of his benefactress he decided to return to Argentina where he was immediately arrested; he was sentenced to one year in prison at hard labor…upon his release, for a while, he began earning his living as a boxer and a pianist billing himself as “The Boxing Pianist”….now back in Buenos Aires, he began working in a music publishing house where one day the legendary, Roberto Firpo happened to hear him play piano and asked him to join his orchestra…in 1929 he formed a trio to play on Radio Nacional, later Radio Belgrano…he accompanied renown tenor Tito Schippa in one of his celebrated concerts in Buenos Aires…he composed the music for a number of films including “Canillita” in 1936, and “El Hombre Del Sabado” in 1947….either as a composer or as a lyricist, he would record over 100 tangos…his music and his curiosity would take him around the world Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States; his highlight was undoubtably winning in a prize at the prestigious Mozart Festival in Salzburg…he lived on Easter Island for many months to study the language of the natives and he published a book in the United States on his findings….at the age of seventy nine after an incredible life he passed away at his home in Buenos Aires

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CLICK HERE- 
http://www.todotango.com/

spanish/las_obras/Tema.aspx?id=BJYAM8BYPRQ= to hear “La Uruguayita Lucia” with lyrics by Daniel Lopez Barreto and music by Eduardo Pereyra performed by the Ricardo Tanturi Orchestra sung by Enrique Campos

2012
04/08
CATEGORY
Argentinean
Aries
Composers
Films
Orchestras
Pianist
Recordings
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2006, April 7 – PREMIERE OF “TAKE THE LEAD”

Pierre Dulaine, is a kind of a special person; Antonio Banderas who plays him in “Take The Lead” called him “the invisible man”… in the film when Dulaine’s dance group of unlikely heros is victorious, instead of joining in the celebration, he simply turns around and walks out, hence “the invisible man”…Banderas says of the real Pierre Dulaine, “that’s the way he really is; that’s the way he does everything…his capacity to love and share without expecting anything in return”...the two tenants of his teaching method are “Respect and Compassion” and it is indeed these two elements which in real life led him to volunteer to teach dance to inner city trouble kids to give them hope…out of the effort was born Dancing Classrooms which helps young people to acquire life lessons of self esteem, respect, team work…the program has been duplicated in hundreds of schools throughout the United States…Pierre Dulaine was born in Jaffa, Palestine to a British officer, and a mother who was half French and half Palestinean…

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They later settle in Amman Jordan where he learned to speak French, Arabic and English…in 1956 because of the Suez Crisis, they family had to leave in a hurry and leave everything behind; they settle in Birmingham England…His early days were difficult, he was shy and unsure in an alien evnviornment where his accented english did not help him to get accepted…at the age fourteen he discovered dancing … by his own admission he was not good but he liked it; eventually he went on to win ballroom dancing’s most prestigious awards….today it is part of his teaching philosophy, “if you like dancing you can become a good dancer even if you are not particularly gifted”, he says…eventually he settled in New York where he met his dancing partner Yvonne Marceau..Antonio Banderas was personally inspired by the whole idea and in fact during the rehearsals he would invite the dancers to his house for dinner so that he could get to know them better and he had long conversations with Pierre Dulaine…film critic Tony Medley summarized the film accurately when he said, “it held my interest throughout and passed the watch test with flyng colors”

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CLICK HERE - 

 to see the tango scene in Take The Lead

2012
04/07
CATEGORY
Films
Orchestras
Tango In Film
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1933, April 5 – PREMIERE OF “MELODIA DE ARRABAL”

Like Dostoyevsky’s Rodion in “Crime and Punishment”, Robert Ramirez, is an example of the redeeming power of love…he is a con man in love and now he is repentant about his past as says to his beloved Alina, “I don’ deserve you, I am not good enough for you…my whole life is a lie..I always been a liar, I was a gambler, a thief and an ass…”…Alina puts her hand to his mouth just when he is about to admit that he is a murderer and says to him, ” be quiet, it doesn’t matter now, all that matter is that I love you”…Carlos Gardel plays Ramirez who is a gambler, a cheat and eventually even a murder but he once saved the life of the detective who is investigating and knows the truth about Ramirez and whom he decides to help; Imperio Argentina plays Alina the voice and piano teacher  who falls in love with Ramirez…the critics were merciless to the film and to Gardel’s acting but there was little doubt about Imperio Argentina for her screen presence and her superb acting…In fact this film made her enormously popular in the United States…

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Directed by Louis J. Gasnier and written by Alfredo Le Pera, “Melodia De Arrabal” premiered at Cine Porteno and was a big hit surpassing even the renown “Luces De Buenos Aires” by half year…Gardel attended the premiere and was met with thunderous applause upon his entry…its musical numbers, featuring the orchestras of Juan Cruz Matteo and Horacio Pettorossi, became best sellers “Silencio” was an instant hit all over the world…the other major hit was “Cuando Tu No Estas” written the renown French musician Marcel Lattes who would die ten years later at the Auschwitz concentration camp…Marcel Lattes who was originally from Nice would compose music for over thirty films…Imperio Argentina, who started her career as “Petit Imperio” at the age of six, was a particular favorite of Adolfo Hitler and he had Joseph Goebbels request an audience with her; she came and he asked her to film the life of exotic dancer Lola Montez which she later refused…she was reputed to have had a lesbian affair with Marlena Dietrich.

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CLICK HERE- 
http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=mSadGn2l8Hw&playnext=

1&list=PL9F48543BA8107F4B to hear Gardel sing a big hit from the film, “Cuando Tu No Estas”, composed by Marcel Lattes and Carlos Gardel

2012
04/05
CATEGORY
Argentinean
Composers
Debuts
Female
Films
Jewish
Male
Recordings
Singers
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1928, April2 – BIRTH OF LUIS CORREA

Singer (Aries) – reflecting on a long and successful career, Luis Correa would recall with nostalgia, his father crouched around his radio listening to his favorite stars on Radio Belgrano…as a little boy he began to imitate those singers to the delight of his father whose secret wish was to have been a singer and so he greatly encourage his son…Luis Correa was born in the town of “El Trebol” (clover) near Santa Fe, Argentina to a struggling family…he began singing in the local bars and cafes for donations and little by little he began developing a name for himself…through one of his loyal fans, at the age of twenty two, he was able to get his first professional job in a second-rate club in Mar del Plata (the birth place of Astor Piazzolla) catering to the newly rising middle class tourist…the result, in the eyes of some, of Juan Peron’s revolutionary populist policys…eventually he was befriended by renown singer Oscar Alonso who encouraged him to enter Radio El Mundo’s famous “Ronda de Cantores” singing contest which proudly featured  the Osvaldo Fresedo Orchestra…

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With great reluctance Luis entered and to his great surprise, out of hundreds of contestants, he was declared the winner…his first break came when he was recruited by the Francini – Pontier Orchestra, comprised of two childhood friends from the town of Zarate who would have such a great impact in the world of tango –  with them he made his recording debut on November 4, 1955 with “Noche de Locura” and “Perdoname”…in his career he would lend his voice to a number of orchestras including those of Alberto Mancione Orchestra and Hector Varela…with the Fulvio Salamanca Orchestra, in duet with singer Armando Guerrico, he would record the great hit “Recuerdo”…with the Miguel Calo Orchestra he had another hit in “Dos Fracasos”…in the mid sixties he began a solo career embarking on a successful tour of Latin America and later a successful tour of the United States culminating in a performance at the renown “Rincon Latino” in Miami”…he passed away from a heart attack  in the city of Mar del Plata at he age of sixty-four

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2012
04/02
CATEGORY
Aries
Composers
Male
Orchestras
Recordings
Singers
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1950, March 22 – PREMIERE “AL COMPAS DE TU MENTIRA”

Renown Argentine actor, Pedro Quartucci, who stars in this film was the protagonist of a fascinating story; as a young actor he had a relationship with an aspiring actress Eva Duarte the future wife of Juan Peron,”Evita” with whom he supposedly had a daughter “Nilda”…the little girl however was brought up as their natural daughter by himself and his wife Felisa Borborino…years later Nilda, now grown up and married, heard from her husband that her real mother had been Eva Peron…when she confronted her father, he admitted that it was true and her mother Felisa, at the eleventh hour, confirmed the story as well…Father Benitez, the priest present at the deathbed of Evita wrote that in her confession she spoke of “the great pain in her life” and he hinted that it was the fact of never having known a child born to her…besides this Pedro was a professional boxer before he became an actor…competing as a feather weight, he won a bronze metal in the 1924 Olympics…

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“Al Compas De Tu Mentira”, adapted from Oscar Wilde’s, “On The Importance of Being Ernest”, was directed by Hector Canzani and is a musical comedy with lots of dancing and tango music…Canzani spent most of his career as a poet and screenwriter but this film, which was moderately successful, bestowed him notiriety…this was to be the last film of Juan D’arienzo and his orchestra…other notables in the film include the Domingo Federico Orchestra with singer Jorge Casal singing the theme song “Al Compas del Corazon”…Edmundo Rivera, the only bass in a world of tenors and baritones,  sings “No Te Enganes Corazon” composed by Rodolfo Sciamarella…the ill-fated Osmar Maderna “the Chopin of Tango”, who would die young in an airplane crash, plays his “Lluvia de Estrellas” which is indeed reminiscent of Chopin’s ballads; he is accompanied by the Alfredo De Angelis Orchestra…

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2012
03/22
CATEGORY
Orchestras
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1907, March 16 – BIRTH OF ISABEL DEL VALLE

She was in a trance, her eyes swelled with tears, the pain of her humiliation as she returned home was almost undearable…she had gone personally to see the brothel owner La Ritana whom persistent rumors said she was Carlos Gardel’s lover…to her dismay, not only did La Ritana admit that, yes, she was his lover but that she had given as a gift to Carlitos a precious pekinese puppy; that was the very puppy that Carlos had in turn given to her…Isabella for her whole life never tired of repeating  that she was Carlos Gardel’s only real love…she claimed she was not jealous,“Jealousy, me,  never, a woman who loves a man like Carlos Gardel can never harbor undignified sentiments like jealousy” and yet not only did she go to see La Ritana but also another woman rumored to have been Gardel’s lover Mona Maris about whom she said “I got fed up with her declarations, she was only an adventure for him, the slut threw herself shameslessly on him”…Isabel del Valle was born in the neighborhood of Costitucion, Buenos Aires to a her father was a railroad manager….

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The fateful day occurred on the corner of  Sarmientos and Pellegrini Street where through her brother’s friend she met Carlos for the first time; she was fourteen years old, he was thirty four…the next day, Carlos showed up at the house with the ingredients to have Isabella’s mother prepare Valencian style rice….a long and at times tumultuous relationship ensued which to one Gardel scholar was merely a love of formal appearance with no real passion behind it….nevertheless over the years not only Isabella but the whole family became dependent on Carlos’s generosity…there was even some evidence that her brothers had blackmailed Gardel into giving them a large some of money by threatening to accuse him of child molestation as Isabella had been only fourteen years old when he began his relationship with her…Isabell had once said proudly, “yes I was fourteen but my body was already that of a real woman”…it is known that Gardel had relationships with many women but without ever apparently developing a deep love with any of them; there were even rumors that he was gay…he once said, “I never fall in love…all women are worthwhile of loving, but to have a blind adherence to one is to offend the others”

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CLICK HERE - 

 to hear Carlos Gardel sing “Amore de Estudiante”

2012
03/16
CATEGORY
Costitucion
Male
Pisces
Singers
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1906, March 14 – BIRTH OF RODOLFO BIAGI

Leader, Composer, Pianist (Pisces) – sitting still in class for little Rudy was not easy; his soul was restless…his forays into the realm of day dreaming more often than not, brought him reprimand “Rudy, pay attention”…but lurking inside was a genius who would one day change the world of tango…in his brief three years with the Juan D’arienzo orchestra, his innovative beat on piano would help usher in “danceable tango”  and reinvigorate tango in the forties by appealing to young people…Rodolfo Biagi was born in the neighborhood of San Telmo, Buenos Aires to struggling Italian immigrants…he caused a family crisis when at the end of grammar school, young Rodolfo insisted on leaving school; his parent reluctantly agreed but they enrolled him in the conservatory of the newspaper “La Prensa” to study piano…being strong willed and independent, at the age of thirteen, without his parents’ consent he began playing in a silent film cinema

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One evening the legendary Juan Maglio (Pacho) happened to be in the cinema and was stunned by the precocious teenager at piano; he eventually accepted him into his orchestra, he was only fifteen…a major break occurred when in 1930 Jose Razzano interceded him backstage to ask him to accompany Carlos Gardel on a series of recordings…on April 1, 1930 he found himself next to the legendary Carlos Gardel in the recording studio…soon after he worked with a number of orchestras and along the way composed his first tango “Indeferencia” with lyrics by Juan Carlos Thorry…Rodolfo was a frequent customer of the Cabaret Chantecler where the Juan D’arienzo played nightly…his pianist Lidio Fasoli was notoriously late and one evening D’arienzo could endure no more and on the spot asked Rodolfo to take over at piano: with D’arienzo he would record 71 tangos…in 1938 Biagi left to start his own orchestra which debuted on September 16, 1938 at the Cabaret Marabu…in its long run his orchestra would record some immortal hits like the waltz “Lagrimas Y Sonrisas” and the tango “Quiero Verte Una Vez Mas” with singer Jorge Ortiz

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CLICK HERE - 

 to hear one of Rodolfo Biagi’s greatest hits “Lagrimas Y Sonrisas”

2012
03/14
CATEGORY
Composers
Orchestras
Pianist
Pisces
Recordings
San Telmo
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1921, March 11 – BIRTH OF ASTOR PIAZZOLLA

Composer, Leader, Bandoneonist, Pianist (Pisces) –“You idiot, that’s Piazzolla”Nadia Boulanger screamed at a young Astor Piazzolla; looking back on a story book career many years later he would say“in a mere matter of ten seconds, she had sent to hell ten years of work”…perhaps more than any one else, it was Nadia Boulanger, renown music teacher of the twentieth century, who was responsible for the eventual emergence of the genius Astor Piazzolla…he had been ashamed of his tango roots and his bandoneon; his true soul, he thought, belonged to Mozart and Bach but the astute Boulanger set him on the right destiny…the destiny of combining classical, jazz and tango all cemented by the musical milieu of New York where he grew up…it was a fateful day in 1953 when it was suggested to him to enter one of his compositions into the “Fabien Seveitsky Competition” which he did very reluctantly, he just did not think his work was good enough…to his great surprize, he won first place and a scholarship to study with the legendary Nadia Boulanger in Paris

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Although Astor Piazzolla was born in Argentina he was raised in New York and his music, his character and his life reflected that ambience; he even spoke english with a New York accent…his granparents had been immigrants from the ancient town of Trani, a settlement of ancient jewish scholarship in the region of Puglia in Southern Italy…as a boy he went through a series of operations due to a polio deformed right leg; his father advised him to be tough and to never let anything defeat him a lesson he learned all too well; he was once thrown out of school for aggressive behavior…the composition which won him his first popular acclaim was “Ballada Para Un Loco” which was premiered in 1969 by his second wife Amelita Baltar at the First Iberoamerican Music Festival where it won second place…his immortal “Libertango” was composed during the period that he lived in Rome in the 1970s…in his prolific career he would compose over 1000 works including orchestral works that continue to be played by orchestras the world over…Astor once said, “music is more than a woman because you can divorce a woman but not music…once you marry her, she is your everlasting love and you go to the grave with her”…he also once said of the most famous tango in the world, “La Cumparsita”, “the worst of all tangos”

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2012
03/11
CATEGORY
Bandoneon
Composers
Jewish
Musicians
Orchestras
Pisces
Recordings
1 comment

1914, March 9 – PREMIERE OF “TANGO TANGLES”

By now tango madness  had swept the world over, it was all the rage in Paris, Berlin, London and so when director Mack Sennet read in the newspaper about an upcoming tango contest, he had a flash…he would send his film crew to the dance hall and improvise one of his famous “shorts”…in fact the whole of “Tango Tangles” is only twelve minutes long…”shorts” were low-budget, fast directed, improvised films which the viewing public at the turn of the century learned to love…actual tango dancing in Tango Tangles appears only briefly in the opening scene where a couple is dancing what appears to be a parody of a tango which metamorphosis into a ballet style movement…Charlie Chaplain plays an inebriated dandy who shows up at the “Dark Town Strutter Ball”, a  masked affair, makes a pass at the hat-check girl played by Sadie Lamp….

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Her favors however are being sought by two other characters, the orchestra leader played by Ford Sterling and the clarinetist Roscoe Arbuckle, all legends of the silent movie era…there is of course the requisite slapstick, with the long punches and the inadvertent falls, a genre created by director Mack Sennet which would lead to stellar success for his Keystone Studios; it was he who discovered Chaplain about whom George Bernard Shaw would say, “he was the only genius to come out of the movie industry”…Chaplain’s role was one of the few where he did not appear as his signature “tramp and mustache” character…Chaplain’s many loves would include the sex goddess Louise Brooks…Mack Sennet, Canadian born actor, comedian, musician and director, would produce more than 1000 silent films in his 25 year career …his short “Wrestling Swordfish” won an academy award in 1932…..in the final scene of Tango Tangles, Ford Sterling and Charlie Chaplain have punched each other out and are lying on the floor exhausted and Sterling finally says, “I don’t want her, you can have her”

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CLICK HERE- 
http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=YqgSgkz_Obw to see “Tango Tangles” directed by Mack Sennet

2012
03/09
CATEGORY
Films
Tango In Film
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1994, March 4 – “RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES” AS TANGO

“He is the last of a dying breed and the first of a new one” is how one critic described Richard Grayson…he has been called a genius for his ability to improvise on the spot, in any melody, in any key, in any rhythm, in any style…it is said  J. S Bach was one of a very few musicians in history who had this ability…in fact, as Richard himself points out, in the Baroque and Renaissance period it was customary for classical musicians to learn to improvise; today that talent is most often associated with Jazz musicians…in fact tango dancing, which is strictly improvisational shares this tradition with them…Richard started studying piano when he was six years old and as a child he loved to just sit at the piano and improvise on the sounds that he was hearing and feeling…he was  a winner of the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship which enabled him to study with renown masters in Europe…

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He later received a Ph.D in composition from UCLA and taught until retirement at the Occidental College in Los Angeles…he became legendary for his unusual concerts where audience members would challenge him on the spot to improvise on a suggested theme….out of his copious compositions perhaps his two most popular are “Mr. 528″ and“Shoot the Piano Player”…Ride of the Valkyries occurs in the beginning of Act III of “Die Walkure”, the second of  Richard Wagner’s “Ring Cycle”….”Valkyries” has been used in many films starting with W. D. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” in 1915 and more recently in 1979 in Francis Ford Coppola’s, “Apocalypse Now” in the horrifying scene of  helicopters attacking a Vietnam Village …according to Guy Sajer, a German tank officer in World War II, in his book “A Forgotten Soldier”, “Valkyries” was played on their short wave radios before attempting a breakthrough in the “Battle of Memel” on the eastern front

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  • CLICK HERE- 

     to hear Richard play “Ride of the Valkyries” as a tango
2012
03/04
CATEGORY
Composers
Films
Orchestras
Recordings
Tango In Film
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