Tango (25 page)

Read Tango Online

Authors: Mike Gonzalez

BOOK: Tango
12.97Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

14
   Quoted in Baim,
Tango: Creation
, p. 76.

15
   Ibid.

16
   Savigliano,
Tango
, p. 47.

17
   Julie Verbert, ‘The tango dancer's costume' at
www.alterinfos.org/spip.php?rubrique159
(accessed 13 March 2012).

18
   R. Cunninghame Graham,
Rodeo: A Collection of the Tales and Sketches of R. B. Cunninghame Graham
(Whitefish,
MT
, 2005), pp. 133–4.

19
   Matamoro,
El Tango
, pp. 26–7.

20
   Savigliano,
Tango
, p. 117.

21
   Ibid., p. 119.

22
   Quoted in John Storm Roberts,
The Latin Tinge
(New York, 1999), p. 46.

23
   Halsey K. Mohr, ‘The Tango in the Sky', quoted in Baim,
Tango: Creation
, p. 13.

24
   Roberts,
The Latin Tinge
, pp. 48–9.

25
   Savigliano,
Tango
, pp. 147–8.

26
   Matamoro,
El Tango
, p. 31.

27
   Savigliano,
Tango
, p. 138.

4 TANGO FINDS ITS VOICE

1
   David Rock,
Politics in Argentina, 1890–1930: The Rise and Fall of Radicalism
(Cambridge, 1975) pp. 32–3.

2
   Ibid., p. 50.

3
   Richard J. Walter,
Politics and Urban Growth in Buenos Aires, 1910–1942
(Cambridge, 1993), chap. 3.

4
   Paul Vernon, ‘The Tango Trip' in
Folk Roots
(2004), pp. 33–4.

5
   Donna Guy,
Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family and Nation in Argentina
(Lincoln,
NE
, 1995), p. 33.

6
   The phrase is Julio Mafud's in
Sociología del tango
(Buenos Aires, 1965).

8
   Julie Taylor,
Paper Tangos
(Durham,
NC
, and London, 2003), p.
II
.

9
   See F. Gil Lozano et al., eds,
Historia de las mujeres en la Argentina, Siglo
XX
(Buenos Aires, 2000), pp. 197–223.

10
   See Walter Benjamin, ‘On Some Motifs in Baudelaire', in
Illuminations
, trans. Harry Zohn (London, 1970), pp.157–202.

5 GARDEL AND THE GOLDEN AGE

1
   See Pablo Antonio Paranagua,
Mexican Cinema
(London, 1996).

2
   See Simon Collier,
The Life, Music and Times of Carlos Gardel
(Pittsburgh,
PA
, 1986).

3
   See Simon Collier ‘Carlos Gardel and the Cinema' at
www.gardelweb.com
(accessed 13 April 2012).

4
   José Ignacio Cabrujas,
El día que me quieras
(Caracas, 1997), p. 24.

5
   See George Dangerfield,
The Strange Death of Liberal England
(London, 1935).

6
   Sung with passion and intensity in a recent incarnation by Estrella Morente in Pedro Almodóvar's film of the same name.

7
   Ed Archetti,
Masculinities: Football, Polo and the Tango in Argentina
(Berlin, 1989), p. 149.

8
   Ernesto Sábato quoted in Julie Taylor, ‘Tango: Theme of Class and Nation', in
Ethnomusicology
, xx/2 (May 1976), p. 277.

9
   Donald S. Castro, ‘Popular Culture as a Source for Historians: The Tango in its Epoca de Oro, 1917–1943', in
Journal of Popular Culture
,
XXIX
/3 (Winter, 1986), p. 47.

6 THE DYING OF THE LIGHT

1
   See N. Torrents and John King,
The Garden of Forking Paths: Argentine Cinema
(London, 1988). See also Matamoro,
El Tango
, pp. 76–7.

2
   See
chapter 5
.

3
   See Matamoro,
El Tango
, pp. 74–8.

4
   Simon Collier et al.,
¡Tango!, the Dance, the Song, the Story
(London, 1995), p. 153. This volume contains some extraordinary photographs of the crowded dance halls of the period (on p. 155, for example).

5
   Matamoro,
El Tango
, p. 83.

6
   Ibid., p. 85.

7
   Legend has it that the song was in fact deeply personal, commemorating Contursi's lifelong unconsummated fascination with the singer Susana Grisel.

8
   Tomas Eloy Martinez's
Santa Evita
(London, 1997) explores the myth beautifully. And Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's
Evita
brought her image to an even wider audience.

9
   Rock,
Politics in Argentina
, p. 239.

10
   Daniel James has sensitively explored the history and power of Peronism in
Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine Working Class
, 1946–1979 (Cambridge, 1988), and the excellent
Doña María's Story: Life, History, Memory and Political Identity
(Durham,
NC
, 2000).

11
   James,
Resistance and Integration
, p. 290.

7 ASTOR PIAZZOLA AND TANGO NUEVO

1
   Evita's charitable foundation collected money for earthquake victims, for example, and publicly encouraged the ladies of the upper classes to contribute their jewellery. Contemporary news footage shows that they did so, but with gritted teeth.

2
   See Ronaldo Munck,
Argentina: From Anarchism to Peronism
(London, 1987), pp.127–46.

3
   For discussion of the complex politics of Peronism, see Daniel James,
Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946–1979
(Cambridge, 1988), Munck,
Argentina
, and the three-volume study by Felix Luna,
Perón y su tiempo
(Buenos Aires, 1990).

4
   See Munck,
Argentina
, pp. 142–149.

5
   The film
The Hour of the Furnaces
(dir. Getino and Solanas, 1968) both represents and depicts this period.

6
   Munck,
Argentina
, pp. 160–61.

7
   See Pablo Vila, ‘Tango to Folk: Hegemony Construction and Popular Identities in Argentina',
Studies in Latin American Popular Culture
,
XXIV
(2005), pp. 107–39.

8
   Vila, ‘Tango to Folk', p. 128.

9
   See María Susana Azzi and Simon Collier,
Le Grand Tango: The Life and Music of Astor Piazzolla
(Oxford, 2000). See, too, the website
piazzolla.org
.

10
   Azzi and Collier,
Le Grand Tango
, pp. 58–9.

11
   Ibid., p. 59.

12
   There are a number of recordings of his performances accessible via YouTube.

13
   Their collaboration is recorded, and Ferrer's poems reproduced in the two-volume
Los tangos de Ferrer y Piazzolla
(Buenos Aires, 2000) and in Horacio Ferrer's own prolific writing about tango.

14
   
Los tangos de Ferrer y Piazzolla
, vol.
II
, p. 42.

15
   Recorded and used by many people since, and differing as widely as the post-modernist disco ‘queen', Grace Jones, and the fine, classical cellist and great admirer of Piazzolla, Yo-Yo Ma.

16
   We will address the extraordinary impact of this show and its repercussions in chapter Eight.

8 THE LONG ROAD HOME

1
   On the families of the disappeared, the film
The Official Story
(1984) and
La Cautiva
(2011) are examples. See the
www.madres.org
and Marguerite Guzman Bouvard,
Revolutionising Motherhood: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Latin American Silhouettes)
(Wilmington,
DE
, 1994).

2
   See John King and Nissa Torrents,
The Garden of Forking Paths: Argentine Cinema
(London, 1996).

3
   See Zuzana M. Pick,
The New Latin America Cinema: A Continental Project
(Austin,
TX
, 1996), pp. 167–76.

4
   Mario Benedetti, ‘El desexilio', in
El País
[Madrid], 18 April 1983. It is republished as the prologue to M. Benedetti,
El desexilio y otras conjeturas
(Barcelona, 1986).

5
   Thanks to Riikka Gonzalez for her help. See, too, Jutta Jaakkola (2000) on the website of the Finnish Music Information Centre:
www.fimic.fi
.

6
   See Arcángel Pascual Vardaro's very useful and well-informed
El tango en la década del jo y otras cosas más
(Desert Hot Springs,
CA
, 2011). Vardaro also points out the negative consequences of Japanese tango enthusiasm: people have bought and taken so many bandoneons that few remain in Argentina, and that the Japanese remastering of old record collections return in
CD
form but at very high prices.

7
   Claire Spooner, ‘Explorations in Intimacy',
Therapy Today
,
XXII
/2 (March 2011), p. 18.

8
   Ernesto Sábato,
Tango discusiòn y clave
(Buenos Aires, 1963), p. 19. Quote in Eduardo Archetti,
Masculinities
(Berlin, 1989), p. 143.

9
   Archetti,
Masculinities
, p. 149.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

This list is a selection, nothing more. There are many books on tango, many of them very recent, though very often devoted to the dance alone. There are also a huge number of websites devoted to tango, but by far the most comprehensive is:
www.todotango.com
.

Azzi, María Susana,
Antropología del Tango
–
Los Protagonistas
(Buenos Aires, 1991)

—, and Simon Collier,
Le Grand Tango: The Life and Music of Astor Piazzolla
(Oxford, 2000)

Castro, Donald S.,
The Argentine Tango as Social History, 1890–1933: The Soul of the People
(New York, 1991)

Chichelnitsky M. and Omar Tambasco,
Antología de letras de tango
(Barcelona, 1999)

Collier, Simon,
The Life, Music and Times of Carlos Gardel
(Pittsburgh,
PA
, 1986)

—, Artemis Cooper, María Susana Azzi and Richard Martin,
¡Tango!
(London, 1995)

Cunninghame, Graham, R.,
Rodeo: A Collection of Tales and Sketches
(New York, 1936)

Deluy, H. and S. Yurkievich,
Le Tango
(Paris, 1988)

Denniston, Christine,
The Meaning of Tango: The Story of the Argentinian Dance
(London, 2007)

Ferrer, Horacio,
El tango: su historia y evolución
(Buenos Aires, 1964)

—,
El libro del tango: crónica y diccionario, 1830–1977
(Buenos Aires, 1980)

—,
El siglo de oro del tango
(Buenos Aires, 1996)

Flores, Rafael, ‘No me lloren, crezcan: Carlos Gardel, centenario y tango inacabable' in
Cuadernos
Hispanomericanos,
XLVII
/91 (1990), pp. 7–28

Foster, D. W.,
Imagination Beyond Nation
(Pittsburgh,
PA
, 1998)

Gil, Lozano, F., Valeria Silvina Pita and María Gabriela Ini, eds,
Historia de las mujeres en Argentina
(Buenos Aires, 2000)

Gobello, José,
Crónica general del tango
(Buenos Aires, 1998)

—,
Nuevo diccionario lunfardo:
Buenos Aires, 1990

Gorín, Natalio, ed.,
Astor Piazzolla: a manera de memorias
(Buenos Aires, 1990)

Guy, Donna, J.,
Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family and Nation in Argentina
(Lincoln,
NE
, 1991)

Historia del tango, La
, 19 vols (Buenos Aires, 1976–87)

Hodges, Donald,
Argentina, 1943–1976
(Albuquerque,
NM
, 1976)

James, Daniel, ‘Perón and the people' in
The Argentina Reader: History, Culture, Politics, ed
. G. Nouzielles and Gabriela Montaldo (Durham,
NC
, 2002)

Kassabova, Kapka,
Twelve Minutes of Love: A Tango Story
(London, 2011)

Keeling, David, J.,
Buenos Aires: Global Dreams, Local Crises
(Chichester, 1996)

Kukkonen, Pirjo,
Tango Nostalgia: The Language of Love and Longing
(Helsinki, 1996)

Kutri, Carlos,
Piazzolla: la música límite
(Buenos Aires, 1992)

Legido, Juan Carlos,
La orilla oriental del tango: historia del tango uruguayo
(Montevideo, 1994)

Matamoro, Blas,
El Tango
(Madrid, 1996)

Munck, Ronaldo,
Argentina, from Anarchism to Peronism: Workers, Unions and Politics, 1855–1985
(London, 1987)

Pellicoro, Paul,
On Tango
(London, 2002)

Piazzolla, Diana,
Astor
(Buenos Aires, 1987)

Puccia, Enrique, H.,
El Buenos Aires de Angel Villoldo
(Buenos Aires, 1976)

Rock, David,
Argentina, 1516–1987
(London, 1987)

—,
Politics in Argentina, 1890–1930: The Rise and Fall of Radicalism
(Cambridge, 1975)

Romano, Eduardo,
Las letras del tango: antología cronológica, 1900–1980
(Rosario, 1991)

Romero, Migdalia,
Tango Lover's Guide to Buenos
Aires:
Insights and Recommendations
(Bloomington,
IN
, 2009)

Sábato, Ernesto,
Tango, discusión y clave
(Buenos Aires, 1963)

Salas, Horacio,
El tango
(Buenos Aires, 1986)

Salmon, Russell O., ‘The Tango: Its Origins and Meaning',
Journal of Popular Culture
,
X
/45 (1977), pp. 859–66

Other books

Jack in the Green by Diane Capri
Bradbury Stories by Ray Bradbury
What Happens Next by Colleen Clayton
Forever Wife by Faulkner, Carolyn
Pep Squad by Eileen O'Hely
Hounded by Lust by Chambers, D. A.
The Scavengers by Michael Perry
The Quest by Mary Abshire