Tango Masters: Osvaldo Pugliese

298 Pages·07.064 MB·English

by  Michael Lavocah

Tango Masters:
Osvaldo Pugliese
Michael Lavocah
a ,
♦
milonga press

Tango Masters:
Osvaldo Pugliese
Published in Great Britain by milonga press
Cop) right © Michael Lavocah 2016
Michael Lavocah has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1998 to be identified as the author of this work
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade
or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the
publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All rights reserved
First edition 2016
2345678901
milonga press
England
www.milongapress.com
Paperback: ISBN 978-0-9573276-7-2
Series editor: Mike Stocks
Cover design: Nigel Orme
set in Garamond 11/14
There has never been a group of people that
played with such warmth and affection...
on stage they stripped their souls bare, and
that sent the people crazy.
Jorge Vidal
-
(singer with the orchestra 1949-1951)

Locura tanguera
)1
(Tango madness
Buenos Aires is full of contradictions. She charms as she infuriates.
Even more than the grand European capitals that inspired the
architects who built her, this is a restless city which never really
sleeps. Peace is to be found only beyond, in the vast spaces of the
Argentine countryside.
In the barrios, the mechanical impulses of the city are never absent,
but their disturbing influence is alleviated by a pervasive lyricism.
Flowers tumble from balconies as traffic drums on the cobbles of
the streets below’. Busy junctions still have pavement cafes and ice
cream parlours. This is a city which has not allowed the metropolis
to drown out the human spirit.
At the crossroads of the human and the mechanical there arose a
new7 music that was not really concerned with fusing these rhythmic
and lyrical impulses. Instead, it allowed them to stand together, like
an unresolved question - not an enigma, but a contradiction that
cannot be eliminated, only lived through. Today this music stands
far removed from the nostalgia and sentimentality that perv ades the
tango universe. It is the music of the only orchestra from the golden
age of tango that wras still developing as that age drew' to a close,
because it is a music that looks forward rather than backward. It still
sounds modern today, and continues to offer those wTio hear it not
an escape, but the opportunity for the spirit to rise in order to meet
a reality that is contradictor}7 and uncomfortable. This is the music
of Osvaldo Pugliese.
Michael Lavocah
Buenos Aires
April 2015
1 Locura tanguera is the title of an instrumental tango written by first ban-
doneön Osvaldo Ruggiero and recorded in 1966.
Contents
Part 1: The Sound
1. Introducdon
2. Yu mb a
3. The inheritance of De Caro
4. The first orchestra (1939)
5. Osvaldo Ruggiero: bandoneon
6. Enrique Camerano: violin
7. Osvaldo Pugliese: piano
8. Roberto Chanel: voice
Part 2: The Repertoire
9. An introduction to the repertoire
10. Pugliese before Pugliese (1943)
11. Ruggiero comes of age (1944)
12. Recuerdo (1944)
13. The fans
14. Alberto Moran: a voice from the heart (1945)
15. La yumba (1946)
16. Erased (1948)
17. Permitted? (1949)
18. Jorge Vidal (1949)
19. The 1950s: a new style
20. New versions? (1952)
21. On the radio (1953)
22. Moran goes solo (1954)
23. Prison (1955)
24. Clavel rojo (Red carnation) (1956)
25. Anclao en Pans (Stranded in Paris) (1957)
vm
Part 3: The 1960s and beyond
26. Still moving forwards
27. The missing link (1960)
28. The 1960s: Corrientes bajo cero (Corrientes below zero)
29. Sexteto Tango (1968)
30. The 1970s: free to work?
31. A1 Colon!!
32. Globetrotters
33. Muchas gracias, Maestro
Part 4: The Man & the Myth
34. Inside the orchestra
35. San Pugliese, antimufa
36. Osvaldo Pugliese: a short biography
37. Pugliese on Pugliese
38. The voices of those who loved him
Appendices
A. Pugliese on disc
B. Discography
C. Orchestra formadons
D. Carnival appearances
Bibliography
Glossary
Index of ddes
Acknowledgements