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 band recorded on Pathé, Columbia (in early 1929 and again in 1932) and on Disque “Gramophone”. There is no published discography.
“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