My choice for this week is ‘El puntazo’ (Juan D’Arienzo, 1952). I reviewed 54 performances.
My favorite: Vanessa Gauch Arabacıoğlu & Eşref Tekinalp.
I also liked the performances by Virginia Pandolfi & Edwin Espinosa and Roxana Suárez & Sebastián Achával.
These documentaries, directed by Gabriel Soria, were produced for the Sólo Tango TV station (now TangoCity) and released between 2000 and 2005. Approximately 55 episodes were made. The list below is very incomplete; I welcome any comments and corrections. I provide links to the episodes available online.
My choice for this week is ‘Si la llegaran a ver’ (Juan D’Arienzo with Héctor Mauré, 1943). I reviewed 11 performances.
My favorite: Stephanie Fresneau & Fausto Carpino.
My choice for this week is ‘El olivo’ (Juan D’Arienzo with Héctor Mauré, 1941). I reviewed 22 performances.
My favorite: Peninsula & Jinsuk Muchacha.
I also liked the performance by Noelia Hurtado & Carlitos Espinoza.
My choice for this week is ‘Mandria’ (Juan D’Arienzo with Alberto Echagüe, 1939). I reviewed 47 performances.
My favorite: Noelia Hurtado & Carlitos Espinoza.
My choice for this week is ‘Trago amargo’ (Juan D’Arienzo with Alberto Echagüe, 1939). I reviewed 21 performances.
My favorite: Inés Muzzopappa & Federico Naveira.
I also liked the performance by Fatima Vitale & Maximiliano Cristiani.
The discographies of the tango orchestras are scattered all around the web. Below is my best attempt to make the relevant links all available in one place. When I found more than one discography for a given orchestra, I chose the one which seemed most complete and reliable. I plan to keep this post updated, so if you think I’m missing something, please let me know.
Update: See here for my current attempt to improve on these discographies. The links below will gradually link to my own discographies, as they become available.
My choice for this week is ‘Milonga, vieja milonga’ (Juan D’Arienzo, 1937). I reviewed 70 performances.
My favorite: Marina Marques & Ozgur Demir.
I also liked the performances by Barbara Carpino & Claudio Forte, Amanda & Adrián Costa, Julia Gorina & Aníbal Montenegro, Michelle Marsidi & Joachim Dietiker and Evelina Sarantopoulou & Theodore Georgedakis.
These tangos from D’Arienzo’s collaboration with Héctor Mauré are full of emotion, and mark an obvious contrast with his earlier period with Alberto Echagüe.
When I started dancing and listening to tango music two years ago, I quickly discovered that one of the easiest ways to identify an orchestra was to pay attention to the final two chords of the song (the dominanc-tonic, characteristic “chan-chan” ending ). Each orchestra plays those chords in its own, distinctive way, so by learning how the chords sound like, one can infer the orchestra even of songs one is unfamiliar with. The video below, which I created a while ago for my own amusement, provides a sample of the tango endings of 20 of the most popular tango orchestras. I am now posting it here in case it is of interest to readers of this blog.