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Lágrima Riós: canción para mi pueblo

AQ 078

At the beginning of July, More4 screened a new documentary, Café de los maestros, featuring the best traditional tango being made today. One of the artists to make an appearance was someone I'm ashamed to say I hadn't heard of before, Lágrima Ríos. Acqua records in Argentina have released two of her albums on cd. They are sensational.

Lida Melba Benavidez Tabarez was born in the countryside of Uruguay in 1924. As a child she moved to Montevideo with her mother, where an indelible childhood memory was a visit to their tenement home by Carlos Gardel in 1928.

She began singing professionally in 1942 but did not sing with a tango orchestra until 1956, after she won the national tango singing contest that year.

In the 1960s, with tango in decline, she sang with an acapella group and recorded on the Philips and Clave labels. After a brief period without work, in 1971 she began singing for the television program Sábados de tango (Tango Saturdays). She recorded her first lp in 1972, which has also been remastered and reprinted by Aqua. From this time onwards she became known as La dama del candombe (the lady of candombe), and in 1976 recorded an LP on RCA consisting entirely of candombes by Uruguayan composers. How I'd love to hear that!

During the 1980s she pursued a worldwide career, living briefly in Madrid, and travelled to Germany and England, where she returned in 1992, performing in the Royal Albert Hall.

Her career continuing with ever growing success, in 2002 she returned to Uruguay and founded the first ever candombe school there.

This album was recorded in 1997/8, when Lágrima was 74, and was reprinted by the Argentine Aqua label in 2005/6. It's fantastic.

This is not a soprano voice, but a black, alto voice, simple but full of power and feeling. The lyrics shine through. The closest female voice in tango would be Nelly Omar, but she far more resembles the Cuban Omara Portuondo.

Lágrima Ríos died on Christmas Day, 2006, at the age of 82.

Track list

1. Tormento
2. El milagro
3. Una canción para mi pueblo
4. El abrojito
5. Un momento vals
6. Pobre viejo!
7. Recién
8. Entonces sabrás
9. Horizontes
10. Sin farol y sin buzón
11. Viejas alegrías
12. Absurdo vals
13. El coro
14. Temor
15. Rebeldía
16. Carta para Silvio Rodríguez

Aníbal Troilo: Tinta Roja (1941/1942)

BMG 659437

I'm not here going to review the great Aníbal Troilo, whose orchestra was one of the greatest tango ever produced, or ever will. Somehow his music remains underplayed in milongas in the UK, although I was pleased to find that two visitors from the United States where happy to play Troilo/Marino tandas at the last Tango Mango.

This cd, being the second in BMG's wonderful collector's series, Aníbal Troilo en RCA Victor, won't require any effort on your part to enjoy. Volume 1 is one of our essential cds and we offered it as a club choice some months back. Volume 2 continues where Volume 1 left off, and musically it's quite similar, this being Troilo's original line-up with Fiorentino on vocals and the mercurial Orlando Goñi on piano. Even so, as 1941 turns into 1942 there are already, in tracks like Malena, traces of the slowing of pace - and the increase in sophistication - which so marks the 1940s. C.T.V. is a tour-de-force, with Goñi's piano playing an absolute marvel. Fueye, a tango in praise to the bandoneón, one of the greatest tango recordings ever. The whole cd is at this quality - just wonderful.

Oh yes - there is a small error in the transfer of Colorao - colorao, which goes right back to the lp transfer made in the 1970s. See if you can spot it. This track has never been printed correctly on cd - at least I don't think so. If you have a different version - call me!

Track list

1. Tinta roja
2. Malena
3. Pa' que bailen los muchachos
4. Fueye
5. C.T.V.
6. Mi castigo
7. Del tiempo guapo milonga
8. Soy un muchacho de la guardia
9. Papa Baltasar milonga
10. El tamango
11. Tu diagnostico vals
12. Cautivo
13. No le digas que la quiero
14. Un placer vals
15. Colorao - colorao
16. Sencillo y compadre

Canta:

Francisco Fiorentino (1-4,6-16)

Francisco Canaro - Canta Roberto Maida vol.2

EMI 235 393

Okay, you know the fabulous Canaro/Maida album Poema? If you don't, follow the link. Now, this new cd on Reliquias, which presents material from the same era and also includes that fabulous and unique tango, is not quite as good. You should get that first. But then you should get this one.

Track list

1. Alma de bandoneón
2. Novia
3. Golondrinas
4. Ciego
5. Soledad
6. Secreto de amor vals
7. Poema
8. Casas viejas
9. Nena
10. Solo una novia
11. Donde?
12. Como las flores
13. Silueta porteña milonga
14. Envidia
15. Viejos tiempos
16. El dia que yo pueda
17. De puro guapo
18. Sueño de muñeca vals
19. Copos de nieve
20. Milonga del corazón milonga

Canta:

Roberto Maida (1-20)

Solo Tango: D'Arienzo / Mauré

BMG 71376

Singer Héctor Mauré was the person who did more than anyone to drag the D'Arienzo orchestra kicking and screaming into the 1940s. Whether that was a good thing, I'll leave others to decide, but the work they produced together was wonderful.

The work on this cd is pretty much in chronological order and covers the early 1940s. The early upbeat tracks such as Ya lo ves and Tierrita are tremendous fun, but with a depth D'Arienzo doesn't always have. The final tracks are real classics. With Uno, D'Arienzo/Mauré produce one of the greatest interpretations of this immortal tango of Discépolo. The little known Amarras is even better.

This cd is now deleted. We have only a few left. Update: stock exhausted

Track list

1. Ya lo ves
2. Tierrita
3. Nunca más
4. El olivo
5. Humillación
6. Sobre el pucho
7. Cuatro palabras
8. Infamia
9. Garronero
10. Mirame en la cara
11. Claudinette
12. Tirando a matar milonga
13. Compadron
14. Cicatrices
15. Enamorado (Metido)
16. Tango brujo
17. Si la llegaran a ver
18. Uno
19. Lilian
20. Amarras

Canta:

Héctor Mauré (1-20)

Osmar Maderna 1946/1951

EU 17002

Osmar Maderna was Miguel Caló's miracle pianist. After Caló's orchestra of the stars went supernova in 1945, Maderna set up his own orchestra to showcase his very considerable talents. As history has demonstrated, the work produced under such circumstances is never as good as what went before, and the Maderna orchesta belongs firmly inthe second tier. Nevertheless, the valses are of real quality, whilst the tango version of El vuelo del moscardón - yes, that's Rimsky Korsakov's The flight of the bumblebee, is both stunning in its virtuosity and tremendous fun.

Track list

1. El vuelo del moscardón milonga
2. Malva
3. Concierto en la luna
4. Gracias
5. Ojos negros
6. Plomo
7. Se perdio el amor
8. Rincones de París
9. Pastora
10. Lluvia de estrellas
11. Para tí madre vals
12. Charamusa
13. Pequeña vals
14. Cuando no te quiere nadie
15. Divina
16. La cumparsita
17. Escalas en azul
18. La huella
19. Los mareados
20. Mimi Pinson

Cantan:

Orlando Verri (2,4,6); Pedro Datila (7,14); Mario Corrales (8); Mario Corrales / Pedro Datila (9,11); Hector De Rosas (13,15); Adolfo Rivas (19.20); Instrumental (1,3,5,10,12,16,17,18);