1. Héctor Varela / Argentino Ledesma - "Silueta porteña" 1956
2. Jorge Dragone / Argentino Ledesma - "Baldosa floja" 1957
3. Jorge Dragone / Argentino Ledesma - "Florcita porteña" 1959
Here are three milongas with the singer Argentino Ledesma from the later 50's. While there are not necessarily many songs I would play from Ledesma in a milonga, he still is one of my favorite singers and I listen to a lot of his recordings. There have been two tandas of Argentino Ledesma with Hector Varela on the blog before.In general most of the milongas played for dancers are from 1935-1945. From around the mid 40's there
was a lot of structural chance in the compositions and arrangement of tango music and it's especially difficult to find milongas after 1945 that are suitable (or considered great) for dancing. I personally do not crave for but still welcome some extra challenge even for milongas once the main course of milonga standards have been served. I believe that if you like the style of these songs you can find them very enjoyable to dance to. The arrangements and style of the Varela and Dragone orchestras are fairly clear and Ledesma sings mostly on the beat. I'm not sure how to label these songs though. Milonga in the style of the 1950's?
Mostly for listening or dancing with your friends. This tanda is not standard material but might work as the spicy exception when the time is right. You have been warned. Proceed with caution. But as too often music recorded in the 50's gets automatically thrown in the concert music category, I'd like to leave this quote here from Ricardo García Blaya from TodoTango.com
Luis Adolfo Sierra tells us in his book Historia de la orquesta típica: «Héctor Varela, lead bandoneon and arranger of the Juan D'Arienzo Orchestra, for ten years, identified himself with the trends of a genuine traditional origin, and his orchestra boasted, as major attraction, the precision of a difficult technical performance, in the middle of a very personal hasty rhythmic beat». And Jorge Palacio (Faruk) added: «And that is, exactly, what Varela strove for during his tango career: to play with his orchestra for dancers».
Have a look at the other milonga tandas on Tanda of the Week.
Varela, Héctor - TOTW - Todo Tango - tango.info - TangoTunes - iTunes Store
Ledesma, Argentino - TOTW - Todo Tango - tango.info - TangoTunes - iTunes Store
Antti wrote: " I'm not sure how to label these songs though."
ReplyDelete"Unpopular with dancers" :)
"«And that is, exactly, what Varela strove for during his tango career: to play with his orchestra for dancers»"
Many orchestras strove. The DJs job is to pick those that succeeded.