She sang the tango like no one else

	NELLY OMAR with FRANCISCO CANARO

PLAYLIST

1.  Cancion desesperada
2.  Dejame, no quiere verte mas
3.  Sus ojos se cerraron
4.  La cancion de Buenos Aires
5.  Adios pampa mia
6.  Gardel-Razzano
7.  Rosa de otoño
8.  Desde el alma
9.  Nobleza de arrabal
10.Sentimiento gaucho

SYNOPSIS

Nelly Omar passed away in her sleep on December 20, 2013 at the age of 102. The singer was born in the province of Buenos Aires on September 10, 1911. Her artistic career as a professional singer started  in 1924. Between the years 1932 and 1933, she sang on Radio Stentor.

For some decades the quota of tango recordings was considerably restricted. The share corresponding to the ladies was small in relation to the contribution they made to the history of this popular music. The case of Nelly Omar serves well as a good example. She finally recorded in 1946, having already sung professionally for 14 years.
Then, through the sponsorship of Francisco Canaro on behalf of the Odeon label, she recorded ten songs with his orchestra, January 1946 and October 1947. In this album one cannot choose one song above another, because Nelly Omar knew she was making recording history, and that she might not easily come across similar opportunities ever again.

Nelly Omar forged a close relationship with First Lady Eva Perón in 1940. Years later, Omar said that Evita loved her singing style, and helped her get a spot on Radio Splendid.
In 1955, following the military coup that overthrew Peron, Nelly Omar was blacklisted for her close links to Peronism.

She traveled to Montevideo, Uruguay, where her friend Tita Merello offered her a singing role on a stage production. Omar then flew to Venezuela, where she stayed for nearly a year.
She returned to Argentina during Arturo Frondizi’s term in office, but retired shortly after.

She staged a huge comeback in 1972 with guitarrist José Canet, and never left the stage again.

Source: Buenos Aires Herald

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SUBLIME EXPRESION OF A SAD IDEA THAT IS DANCED

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PLAYLIST

1. EL TORITO, Francisco Canaro
2. ARRABALERA, Francisco Canaro
3. RECUERDO, Osvaldo Pugliese
4. EL MONITO, Julio de Caro
5. TIERRA QUERIDA, Julio de Caro
6. BOEDO, Osvaldo Pugliese

SYNOPSIS

Roberto Firpo is considered to be the first serious musician of tango. Little by little, the unforgettable nights of the cabaret Armenonville saw the birth of what it would be a long list of musicians and styles.
Leopoldo Thompson, a bass player who had joined Firpo’s group, created a special effect striking with the arc and the extended hand the cords of the instrument. That particular sound was named the canyengue effect. The word, very controversial and used and abused too much, has a clear and specific meaning, deteriorated, lethargic. Its application to the rhythm of the tango seems to be a consequence of the turn of the century choreography. The ostentatious dancers showed their skills affecting indolence, laziness, and reluctance. At the beginning of the twentieth century there exist numerous prejudices, among which was the belief that the lower layers of the society produced lethargic and useless individuals. The tango may evolved as a much needed way of expression for a social class.

The situation of postwar period and the international prices of Argentine farming products allowed President Marcelo T. de Alvear to administer a prosperous country without any acute social conflicts. The new ruling class under the conservative regime, one step below the aristocracy, became a tango consumer and constituted the new customer of the night clubs. The cabarets of the nineteen twenties witnessed the arrival of conservatory musicians that were going to give to tango music a greater melodic and sonorous richness.
These are the times of the first book of Borges, Fervor of Buenos Aires, the astonishment of fascism in Italy, and the films of Charlie Chaplin and Rodolfo Valentino. In the nineteen twenties, a melody with a calmer rhythm, to be danced by walking, is the founder of a lineage that persists until the present.

These are the times when Boca Juniors becomes the first Argentine futbol team that tours Europe, when Luis Angel Firpo knocks Dempsey off the ring, when the voice of the tango is Carlos Gardel, and music is Julio De Caro. The Decarean sound becomes the foundation of all the typical orchestras that helped the tango become the music of Buenos Aires. The music that has captivated the entire world with his musical and poetic wealth, with its melodic variety and its unmistakable beat.

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CHARACTERS OF THE BUENOS AIRES FAUNA

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PLAYLIST

1.SHUSHETA, Angel Vargas with Angel D’Agostino
2. NINO BIEN, Tita Merello with Francisco Canaro
3. COMPADRON, Carlos Dante with Alfredo De Angelis
4. AMARROTO, Alberto Echague with Juan D’Arienzo
5. CHORRA, Hugo del Carril

SYNOPSIS

The tango lyrics draw images of characters of the Buenos Aires fauna who have been typified as the years have given the tango a narrative character and have accepted it as a faithful reflection of the city and the people that gave it origin.

There is the phony type who feels the need to try to be what he is not, mainly because he believes that that will overcome his innate complex of inferiority and social disorientation. The niño bien represents that caricature. Other characters are notorious for their propensity to boast. The compadron, for example is the caricature of a false gutsy man, and often confused it with the compadre. The compadrito, is essentially an imitator, a half size hero, a fetus that didn’t reach its term, a suburban premature baby, a braggart, indecent, somebody similar to the dandy from Madrid. He is recognized by his gratuitous provocation, the boastfulness of a false anger, and taking credit for other people’s feats.

For a society that inherited from Spain an allergy to work, all type of tasks that generally involve manual activity or a relation of dependency, was reserved for riffraff, rabble, the tanos, the gallegos. In contrast, there is a character who makes an obsession of work, thus becoming the target of ridicule by the wise guys because he does not to share the same tastes in matters of leisure and relaxation. The obsession is more about being stingy, being an amarroto. The amarroto eventually falls in love with a mature matron that spends his money as if there is no tomorrow. That is the deserved punishment he gets for not being capable of enjoying a hard fought horse race at the racetrack.

The ambitious and egoistic woman also has her place in our history. Product perhaps of a society where being born in the wrong cradle is akin to a life sentence of poverty and suffering, the tango draws images of women without purity, with no heart and no feelings. A common scheme of the social life of the population is to seek a wealthy future for a maiden daughter, speculating with candidates with money and if it is possible without a brain. Too late, the man discovers that he married a chorra, a thief, not only of his fortune but also of his love. For this man there will never be a good woman that will restore his faith and his confidence in love.

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