Of all the bands playing tango in Paris in the 1920s, the most intriguing is that of Brodman-Alfaro. Formed in June 1928, the orchestra was co-led by two local men, Pablo Brodman (violin) and Jean-Max Levesque, a classically trained musician who, after hearing the Argentine pianists Luis Cosenza and Enrique Delfino playing tango in a restaurant in Montmartre, switched from cello to piano in order to perform tango, changing his name to the more Spanish sounding Jean Alfaro.

The formation of the group had to wait until they could find a pair of good bandoneon players, a commodity always in short supply in France. The men they found were the Colombo brothers, Joseph (Guiseppe) and Hector (Ettore), born in Piedmont. The brothers had learnt the accordion as children and switched to bandoneon in Paris, where they played for a while with the Bianco-Bachicha orchestra (perhaps until it departed for Spain in early 1928). They are really skilled players, able to play the bandoneon variations that Pedro Laurenz is performing in Julio De Caro’s recordings (such as the one on Mala junta).

The band experienced immediate success and in many ways was the most advanced of its day. On the one hand, they respected both the clear beats of Canaro (who had been all the range in Paris in 1925-1926), but they also liked Fresedo (who arrived in Paris at the end of 1928) and in particular the harmonized melodies of the De Caro brothers (who came to Europe only in 1931). In an interview given in 1930, whilst admiring Fresedo’s lighter and livelier beat, the men noted that he had not been as successful in Paris as had been expected, commenting “We believe that it interested musicians more than dance lovers”. Of Julio De Caro (whom they had not yet heard in person at the time of the interview) they wrote: “De Caro had the merit of having escaped from the primary formulas of tango; he understood that, without altering its character, it could be enriched with beautiful harmonies. He knew how to surround himself with brilliant instrumentalists; his orchestration is original and varied”. [1]

The repertoire of the band displays these preferences, with danceable versions of Francisco De Caro’s Flores negras and Cobián’s Pico de oro. Some of their versions lack power, but there is a very interesting comment in their interview about the difficulties of recording the rhythmic melody as played with the heel of the violin bow: “These effects, very common in dance halls, are rarely heard on records; they must be avoided, their use being too brutal for the sensitivity of the microphone. However, a good tango violinist must know how to do them brilliantly. It is a somewhat special technique that no school teaches; so a certain amount of training is required to be able to make them biting, strong, in time and… without breaking too many strings”. The implication is that they played differently for dancers than they did on the records.

I leave you with one of my favourite interpretations by the band, Agustín Bardi’s Lorenzo, recorded on 25th June 1929:

References

[1] Tango Sasha: Brodman-Alfaro, 24-01-2018
[2] Jean Alfaro on Bibletango

Many people have noted the connection between the tango La melodia del corazón, well known in the 1940 recording of Edgardo Donato, and Chopin’s piano étude Op. 10, No. 3.
When the same thing happened to me, many years ago, I asked my dad (who never danced tango) about it because I could remember him humming this tune when I was a small child. He told me that the lyrics began “How deep is the night”, and so I knew immediately that the connection between Chopin’s melody and popular music was not confined to tango. But which came first – the tango version, or another?
The most well known version in English, bizarrely, is one by the comedian Ken Dodd. The melody is said to have been used in the 1938 Bette Davis Movie “Jezebel”, and there is also a version with German lyrics recorded the same year by the Viennese Singing Sisters for the film “Memories of Chopin”

Jens-Ingo traced the tango versions to a 1939 arrangement made in Paris by Mario Melfi with the title “Reviens mon amour”, which was a big hit for Bruno Clair, but take a look at the sheet music: as a sub-title, it gives another name – Tristesse – Sadness. That’s also the title used by Tino Rossi, singing in French, in his 1939 recording:

Chopin considered this his most beautiful melody. He published it in Paris in 1833, having left Warsaw for Vienna in 1830. Less than a month later, his native Poland was thrown into war by the November uprising, an armed rebellion against the Russian Empire which ruled part of the nation (which was partitioned between Russia, Prussia and Austria, and did not exist as a separate country). It is easy to hear in the melody Chopin’s heartbreak at the fate of his country; one of his pupils reported that during a class, while he was demonstrating this piece, Chopin broke down in tears crying, “Oh my homeland!”

The majority of the pictures of the great tango musicians of the past were taken by just a handful of photographers. Today I want to introduce you to the most prolific: Sivul Wilenski, who is now forgotten by all save for a small group of enthusiasts. Born in Poland in 1897, Wilenski came to Buenos Aires in 1920 as a member of Iván Totsoff’s theatre company. Here he became interested in photography and started getting work after some years at the newspaper La Razón, taking photographs of society beauties for the “Notas Societas” pages. When La Razón opened an office in Paris he was sent there to open an exhibition of his photographs, staying for three years whilst he apprenticed himself to Parisian studios, developing himself as a photographer. His son Osias says that Sivul was much influenced by French poetic cinema – think of the films of Jean Renoir such as La Grande Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939).

Wilenski returned to Buenos Aires in 1930, opening his first studio at Florida 118, but then returned to Paris in 1931 to photograph the massive Exposition Coloniale Internationale. In 1932 Wilenski moved his studio to Santa Fé 997. He now took photographs of people from the world of entertainment and culture: not just tango, but also theatre, cinema and dance. Many of his pictures were published by the magazine Sintonía. Wilenski nearly always retouched his photographs before printing (no photoshop in those days!) and when he did so he signed them. The rounded initial ‘W’ is very characteristic, making it easy to identify his work in the majority of cases.

After Wilenski died in 1952 his family donated his negatives to the Museo del Cine in the barrio of La Boca. In 2023 the museum arranged an exhibition of his work which again passed largely unnoticed by the tango community. The pictures are not as dramatic as those of Annemarie Heinrich, who started out as his pupil, but show people in natural poses. I hope this little article will raise appreciation for his work – look out for his signature on the photos on sheet music covers.

References:
Facio, Sara: La fotografía en la Argentina Desde 1840 hasta nuestros días. Buenos Aires, La Azotea Editorial Fotográfica, 1995.

When the pandemic struck, my friend and colleague Dag Stenvoll (Bergen, NO) had an idea: how about doing a free online Zoom show for the tango community? To slice the cake differently, his idea was to choose a particular year. He would choose the year and the tracks to play, and I would talk about them. The twist: I wouldn’t know which numbers he was going to play – only the year. I agreed, and Tango By Year was born. Over the next 18 months we did 38 shows – over 130 hours of programming, covering 1927-1955 – the core years of tango – with a few bonus programmes. All the episodes are freely available for listening on the TBY Soundcloud (optional donation).

In March 1926 the Victor company were the first to bring electrical recording to Argentina. Although their rivals Odeon were not able to follow suit until November this did not give Victor a competitive advantage: both parties had an interest in not advertising the new technology because – if it was really so much better than acoustic recording – who would buy the stocks of old acoustic discs? Victor and Odeon came to a gentleman’s agreement, and no announcements were made. Accordingly, Victor made no changes to their numbering system, continuing with the same matrix numbers, and there was no way of telling if the disc had been recorded acoustically or electrically. Once Odeon went electric in November, Victor’s discs would bear the monogram VE: Victor Electrical.

The first electrical recording was matrix BAVE (Buenos Aires Victor Electrical) 753 and this was given to Rosita Quiroga. It sold over 14,000 copies. By way of contrast, Agustín Magaldi would sell between 5,000 and 16,000 copies, Carabelli’s Jazz Band 7000 copies, and De Caro 1,500. Quiroga’s third disc, Mocosita c/w Horas tristes, sold 26,000 copies.

date	matrix	artist	title	genre	disc
1st March	BAVE 753-2	Rosita Quiroga	La musa mistonga	tango	79632-B
1st March	BAVE 754-2	Rosita Quiroga	Beba	tango	79632-A
	BAVE 755-1	Ramón Franco	Todo por la raza	monólogo	79633
	BAVE 756-1	Salutación del Mayor Zanni al Comandante Franco		monólogo	79633
	BAVE 757-2	Carabelli Jazz Band	Ingenuamente	fox trot	79634-A
	BAVE 758-1	Carabelli Jazz Band	Gitana de ojos moros	paso doble	79635-A
	BAVE 759-2	Carabelli Jazz Band	Comandante Franco	paso doble	79634-B
7th April	BAVE 760-1	Rosita Quiroga	Como luces de bengala	tango	79638-B
7th April	BAVE 761-1	Rosita Quiroga	Son grupos	tango	79638-A
	BAVE 762-2	Rosita Quiroga / Juan Velich	El amor a golpes	escena cómica	79639-A
	BAVE 763-2	Compañía Victor de Comedias	Pum… Garibaldi	escena cómica	79639-B
8th April	BAVE 764-2	Rosita Quiroga	Mocosita	tango	79641-A
8th April	BAVE 765-2	Rosita Quiroga	Horas tristes	tango	79641-B
	BAVE 766-3	Carabelli Jazz Band	Voronoff	fox trot	79635-B
	BAVE 767-1	Trío Los Nativos	El crucifijo	tango	79640-B
	BAVE 768-1	Trío Los Nativos	La china Hilaria	ranchera	79640-A
12th April	BAVE 769-2	Julio De Caro	Mary	tango	79636-A
12th April	BAVE 769-2	Julio De Caro	Feliz viaje	tango	79636-B
12th April	BAVE 771-2	Julio De Caro	Mis desvelos	Tango	79637-A
12th April	BAVE 772-1	Julio De Caro	Quince abriles	vals	79637-B
14th April	BAVE 773-1	Agustín Magaldi	¿Dónde estás?	shimmy	79642-B
14th April	BAVE 774-2	Agustín Magaldi	Hilos de plata	tango	79643-A
	BAVE 775-2	dúo Magaldi-Noda	Lirio azul	vals	79642-A
	BAVE 776-1	dúo Magaldi-Noda	Sauces del Chorrillo	tango	79643-B

And who is this Comandante Franco guy? If you think he sounds like a military type, you would be right: this is General Franco’s younger brother Ramón Franco. He made history in January 1926 by flying a Dornier flying-boat named Plus Ultra (!) from Spain to Buenos Aires, a distance of just over 10,000km. The flying time was nearly 60 hours.