Encyclopedia of Tango and the 1950's Instrumental Tango - DJ Antti Suniala

The recently released "Encyclopedia of Tango" by Gabriel Valiente is a huge book. Not only in size but in importance to many tango DJ's and collectors. The 800 page book compiles discographies of 148 orchestras with the essential information about singers and recording dates but also, which I find very interesting, who were the members of the orchestra for each time period and which companies the orchestra recorded for. The discographies have been compiled from various sources - rare unreleased or limited release discographies, different collections and publications as well as numerous online resources.

Needless to say it is a very practical tool for every DJ and here is an example of how I put it to use. I looked for orchestras who recorded in the 1950's and had recorded instrumental tangos. The 1950's was ruled by D'Arienzo, Di Sarli, Troilo and Pugliese (in amount and quality of recordings), but I found many orchestras I had never heard of and I was fortunately able to find at least one song from most of them on Spotify. This playlist shows a few things. First, the great amount of orchestras (with great musicians) recording in the 50's. Second, how far sometimes many of the orchestras were from capturing the essence of tango for dancing (not claiming that all of them tried to) especially when comparing to best of D'Arienzo, Di Sarli and songs like Biagi's "El recodo".

Still there are many highlights to this compilation and a lot of songs great to dance to or just listen to and appreciate the musicianship. To name a few of my favorites to listen to of these songs - Lorenzo Barbero, Raúl Kaplun, Juan Polito, Mario Demarco and Di Sarli's less known second version of "Bahia blanca".

As I said, not all the orchestras were available on Spotify. One of them was Orquesta Tipica Dante Puricelli of which you can listen to "El pollo Ricardo" on YouTube.

All comments on and the sharing of this playlist are appreciated.

DJ Antti Suniala - 1950's Intrumental Tango 
listen on Spotify / Deezer

1. Alfredo Attadía - "El negro Pintos" 1952-08-14
2. Armando Baliotti - "La guitarrita" 1952-07-10
3. Lorenzo Barbero - "Ataniche" 1951-10-15
4. José Basso - "Entrada prohibida" 1950-01-20
5. Rodolfo Biagi - "El recodo" 1952-11-05
6. Jorge Caldara - "Cascabelito" 1959-02-25
7. Miguel Caló - "Una fija" 1951-07-31
8. Roberto Caló - "En fa menor" 1953
9. Juan Cambareri - "El llorón" 1950-11-22
10. Francisco Canaro - "Lorenzo" 1950-05-05

11. Ángel D'Agostino - "La sonámbula" 1954-01-26
12. Victor D'Amario - "La torcacita" 1951-10-15
13. Juan D'Arienzo - "Canaro en París" 1950-05-05
14. Alfredo De Angelis - "Nueve de julio" 1950-07-20
15. Julio De Caro - "El arranque" 1951-11-16
16. Eduardo Del Piano - "Chiqué" 1951-09-17
17. Mario Demarco - "Mal de amores" 1952-08-08
18. Lucio Demare - "Milonguero viejo" 1954
19. Carlos Demaria - "El Marne" 1951-11-19
20. Carlos Di Sarli - "Bahía Blanca (2nd version)" 1958-11-14

21. Edgardo Donato - "El huracán" 1952-11-04
22. Domingo Federico - "Leyenda gaucha" 1952-11-24
23. Enrique Francini, Armando Pontier - "Derecho viejo" 1953-10-23
24. Osvaldo Fresedo - "Prepárense" 1950-05-31
25. Alfredo J. Gobbi - "El andariego" 1951-06-27
26. Raúl Kaplún - "Estaño" 1950 
27. Francisco Lauro - "El estribo" 1953-09-09
28. Pedro Laurenz - "Amurado" 1952-09-25
29. Los Astros del Tango - "Sans souci" 1959-09-12
30. Osmar Maderna - "Inspiración" 1950-02-02

31. Alberto Mancione - "Ventarrón" 1950-07-28
32. Enrique Mora - "La payanca" 1951-10-01
33. Ricardo Pedevilla - "El amanecer" 1950-11-28
34. Adolfo Pérez - "Yapeyú" 1951-06-12
35. Astor Piazzolla - "Triste" 1950-12-29
36. Juan Polito - "El internado" 1952-10-10
37. Armando Pontier - "La cachila" 1956-08-15
38. Osvaldo Pugliese - "Seguime si podés" 1953-10-06
39. Francisco Rotundo - "Mariposita" 1950-08-18
40. José Sala - "Recuerdo" 1953-12-29

41. Fulvio Salamanca - "Chiqué" 1957-05-31
42. Horacio Salgán - "Mi refugio" 1950-06-21
43. Juan Sánchez Gorio - "El caburé" 1956-01-20
44. Florindo Sassone - "La trilla" 1951-06-22
45. Atilio Stampone - "La rayuela" 1958-06-12
46. Ricardo Tanturi - "El pollito" 1959-12-09
47. Aníbal Troilo - "Quejas de bandoneón" 1958-12-16
48. Héctor Varela - "Mi dolor" 1953-06-16

The D'Arienzo discography and TangoTunes.com

  

It's a good day for us tango enthusiasts! TangoTunes.com has released a lot of tracks from Juan D'Arienzo in amazing quality. The songs are digitalized from shellacs in collaboration with the Tango Digital Archive and the sound quality is just beautiful.

You can also go to Tanda of the Week to read about and enjoy a special discount promotion for these songs! And ofcourse check out all the D'Arienzo tandas on TOTW.

So far your best options for getting some of these songs in good quality have been the very rare Club Tango Argentino releases or albums like De Pura Cepa (Spotify link) or El Esquinazo (Spotify link). In some cases the differences in quality are minor and it's up to you which versions you prefer, although many of the CTA versions have a lot more record noise than the TangoTunes versions. Although the TangoTunes versions have gone through more remastering don't be afraid since the songs are not over filtered and the orchestras sound better than ever.

Nevertheless, I would like to especially highlight one song in particular: "Trago amargo" from 1939 with Alberto Echague. Unfortunately the short sample available on TangoTunes is not in full quality (low bitrate) and it fails to give a true example of the quality of the digitalization (which is available both in MPEG-4 and FLAC), but you can hear the clearness of the sound and that there is no record noise besides slight hiss, making this probably the best version available and at least the best one I've heard. I had to dig into my recycle bin to recover my older versions of the song to compare the quality further. I had the versions by Keith Elshaw (totango.net), Club Tango Argentino (CTA306), "Tango Bravo" (album), and also the collection "Su obra completa-Vol 06 de 48(1939-1940)". The last three suffer greatly from loud record noise, which just gets worse in the end of the song especially on the CTA version, and the last two also have very poor quality in general. The Keith Elshaw version has less record noise but unfortunately the way it is remastered hurts my soul. The "Trago Amargo" available on Spotify (and iTunes) from the The History of Tango / El Rey del Compas / Recordings 1954 - 1955, Vol. 7 album (which oddly enough includes actually the 1939 version of the song) also has similar record noise to the CTA version.


I've made a printable PDF file of the complete D'Arienzo discography between 1935-1939 with links to the songs available on TangoTunes.com as well as links to www.tango.info where you can find more information about the songs. Below are the songs from 1935-1939 available on TangoTunes so far. Also more shellac digitalizations are available and you can check them here.

Penas de amor	vals	-	1935-08-12	info	TangoTunes
Tinta verde	tango	-	1935-08-12	info	TangoTunes
Francia	vals	-	1935-10-03	info	TangoTunes
Re Fa Si	tango	-	1935-10-03	info	TangoTunes
Sábado inglés	tango	-	1935-11-18	info	TangoTunes
Joaquina	tango	-	1935-12-12	info	TangoTunes
Pabellón de las rosas	vals	-	1935-12-12	info	TangoTunes
Nueve de julio	tango	-	1935-12-31	info	TangoTunes
Orillas del plata	vals	-	1935-12-31	info	TangoTunes
La guitarrita	tango	-	1936-01-14	info	TangoTunes
Silueta porteña	milonga	Walter Cabral	1936-01-14	info	TangoTunes
El flete	tango	-	1936-04-03	info	TangoTunes
Un placer	vals	Walter Cabral	1936-04-03	info	TangoTunes
Lorenzo	tango	-	1936-05-08	info	TangoTunes
Tu olvido	vals	Walter Cabral	1936-05-08	info	TangoTunes
Inolvidable	vals	-	1936-08-05	info	TangoTunes
Don Juan	tango	-	1936-09-29	info	TangoTunes
Lágrimas y sonrisas	vals	-	1936-09-29	info	TangoTunes
Comme il faut	tango	-	1936-10-27	info	TangoTunes
Una lágrima	vals	-	1936-10-27	info	TangoTunes
Ataniche	tango	-	1936-11-27	info	TangoTunes
Corazón de artista	vals	-	1936-11-27	info	TangoTunes
La viruta	tango	-	1936-12-30	info	TangoTunes
Visión celeste	vals	-	1936-12-30	info	TangoTunes
Alma dolorida	vals	-	1937-03-05	info	TangoTunes
Mentías	vals	-	1937-04-01	info	TangoTunes
Homero	tango	-	1937-04-27	info	TangoTunes
La puñalada	milonga	-	1937-04-27	info	TangoTunes
Valsecito de antes	vals	-	1937-08-31	info	TangoTunes
El caburé	tango	-	1937-09-22	info	TangoTunes
Milonga, vieja milonga	milonga	-	1937-09-22	info	TangoTunes
El cencerro	tango	-	1937-12-09	info	TangoTunes
Gallo ciego	tango	-	1937-12-09	info	TangoTunes
El africano	tango	-	1937-12-14	info	TangoTunes
La cumparsita	tango	-	1937-12-14	info	TangoTunes
La morocha	tango	-	1937-12-21	info	TangoTunes
El esquinazo	milonga	-	1938-01-04	info	TangoTunes
Indiferencia	tango	Alberto Echagüe	1938-01-04	info	TangoTunes
Unión Cívica	tango	-	1938-01-07	info	TangoTunes
La mariposa	tango	-	1938-03-23	info	TangoTunes
El aeroplano	vals	-	1938-04-12	info	TangoTunes
El horizonte	tango	-	1938-04-12	info	TangoTunes
Trago amargo	tango	Alberto Echagüe	1939-12-22	info	TangoTunes

Tangovalsmilonga.com Compilation 1 - Instrumental Tango 1952

- Updated 13th of April 2013

This Spotify instrumental tango compilation highlights one of my favorite periods of tango, the early 1950's, and in this case especially the year 1952. Since purchacing songs on Spotify is not possible anymore I've also added the links to the iTunes Store search results for every song. When purchasing the song make sure you are buying the correct version!

- DJ Antti Suniala

1. Juan D'Arienzo - "El puntazo" - iTunes Store
2. Rodolfo Biagi - "El recodo" - iTunes Store
3. Mario Demarco - "Mal de amores" - iTunes Store
4. Carlos Di Sarli - "La cachila" - iTunes Store
5. Héctor Varela - "Champagne tango" - iTunes Store
6. Alfredo De Angelis - "Cuando llora la milonga" - iTunes Store
7. Domingo Federico - "Leyenda gaucha" - iTunes Store
8. Pedro Laurenz - "Amurado" - iTunes Store
9. Aníbal Troilo - "Quejas de bandoneón" - iTunes Store
10. Alfredo J. Gobbi - "Nueve puntos" - iTunes Store
11. Enrique Francini, Armando Pontier - "Contratiempo" - iTunes Store
12. Osvaldo Pugliese - "La yumba" - iTunes Store

Francisco Canaro's milongas on Spotify

Francisco Canaro

There are suprisingly few milongas from Francisco Canaro on Spotify and the quality isn't that great either. However, here's a list of some of the more popular Francisco Canaro milongas that I was able to find on Spotify.

Canaro, Francisco - TOTW - Todo Tango - tango.info - iTunes Store

Edgardo Donato - Serie 78 RPM - Orquestas de Antaño

Here is some of the best of Edgardo Donato in excellent quality from the Serie 78 RPM collection available on Spotify. Enjoy!

Aníbal Troilo - Instrumental tangos 1938-1945 - Spotify playlist

 

Here is a Spotify playlist of Anibal Troilo instrumental tangos from 1938-1945. The playlist is in chronologial order based on the listings of www.tango.info of Troilo's recordings. Some of the tracks are in questionable quality but they were the best I found. Enjoy!

Orquesta Típica Misteriosa Buenos Aires - "De Salón" 2010

I want to use the TVM-blog to share quality tango in all it's variety to tango fans worldwide, including music from today. One of my favorite current tango orchestras is definitely Orquesta Típica Misteriosa Buenos Aires. I have seen them twice in Buenos Aires and both times I loved their set. They are one of the few orchestras playing more in the style of Di Sarli and their music is very suitable for dancing.

I have to admit though that unfortunately the Misteriosa Buenos Aires album "De Salón" from 2010 doesn't quite capture their energy perfectly. Maybe it's just the fact that live music sounds better and being used to the sound of the 1920s-1950s recordings, there's something in the very high quality recording quality that is a bit of a turnoff to me personally. Anyway the album has great selection of classics and great arrangements and the orchestra shines especially in the instrumental songs. Get the album and try to catch them live in for example their own Milonga de la Misteriosa!

The album is available on Spotify - iTunes

Osvaldo Pugliese - Instrumentals - Spotify Playlist

To celebrate Christmas and the new blog I have compiled a Spotify playlist of instrumental tangos from Osvaldo Pugliese (until early 1970's) in chronological order. I tried to select the best quality versions available on Spotify. The playlist is based on the list of Pugliese's recordings found on www.tango.info. Enjoy!

Aníbal Troilo y su Orquesta Típica - Archivo RCA "Milongueando"

Here are some of the highest quality digitalizations available of the classic milongas and valses of Aníbal Troilo. Highly recommended.

This album is available on Spotify - iTunes Store

At "Tanda of the Week" you can listen to tandas with Anibal Troilo.

Aníbal Troilo y su orquesta - El inmortal "Pichucho"

Here's is a great compilation from the early years of Aníbal Troilo y su Orquesta Típica. The album includes all the tangos recorded with Francisco Fiorentino in 1941, but not the valses "Bajo un cielo de estrellas" and "Tu diagnóstico" and the milongas "Mano brava", "Con toda la voz que tengo" and "Del tiampo guapo". All the classic instrumentals from 1941 like "Cachirulo" are fortunately included as well. The songs follow each other in chronological order.

The quality of the digitalized recordings is excellent and the recordings have a very natural sound with some background noise remaining but none of the high end frequencies are ruined by filtering too much. This is the highest quality compilation I was able to find on Spotify for these recordings from 1941 and I highly recommend it.

The album is available on Spotify - iTunes Store - Amazon

At "Tanda of the Week" you can listen to tandas with Anibal Troilo.