"Baile Con Grabaciones": Dance with recordings, 1943

Not all milongas of the 40s featured live orchestras. There were lots of milongas that played recordings ("baile con grabaciones"). In fact, some of the old milongueros tell us that the more accomplished dancers preferred the dances with recordings. When you went to hear a live orchestra like Di Sarli, Troilo, D'Arienzo, or Pugliese, there could be a few hundred people there (or in some cases, a few thousand) and everyone got up and danced, whether they knew what they were doing or not. So it was often very crowded, the floorcraft could be terrible, and it was sometimes hard to hear the music over the din of the crowd. 

Furthermore, as is true today, more accomplished dancers enjoyed dancing to music that they already knew. (Why? That's another discussion.) But the live orchestras were always debuting new material. The "bailes con grabaciones" on the other hand, were often held in social clubs or other small neighborhood establishments, and they often didn't have a lot of discs on hand. In that case they used to play the same song two or three times to make it last longer.

Around 1944, the Odeón recording company mounted a very strong marketing campaign for their tango artists in Argentina. As part of that campaign, they would sponsor certain dances, just like companies today sponsor entertainment or sporting events. They'd subsidize an ad in the newspaper, and provide the discs.

Another advantage of "bailes con grabaciones" was that the entrance fee was a lot lower than for live shows. A dance with a live orchestra could charge two, two-fifty, or three pesos for men (ladies, typically one peso) while a dance with recordings was one peso or less (ladies, fifty centavos or free). That would have made a big difference to a dedicated milonguero on a tight budget who wanted to dance several nights a week!

[Illustrations: El Mundo, 1943, 1944, 1942]

Comments

[Dmitry Pruss (aka MOCKBA)]

Where does the info about triples come from? I'm reading Gustavo's new book and the first time he mentions triple repeats is ca. 1950, Club Atlanta, very specifically three Cumparsitas. But he cites several oldtimers repeating the same misogynist trope about superiority of recorded, instrumental music: that even in the 1940s, an orchestra would bring a celebrity singer, and some impressionable girls would just stop and gaze and applaud mid-ronda (and by the end of the 1950s, even throw panties and bras into the air).

[Michael Krugman]

Hi, Dmitry! My friend and landlady in Buenos Aires, Tati Cataviglia, is dear friends with Ricardo Suarez, a much-interviewed old milonguero who started dancing tango in 1940. I asked her to ask Ricardo whether a milonga con grabaciones would have tandas like today's milongas. She did, and he said no, they didn't have tandas, in fact they often had so few discs that they'd play the same ones two or three times in an evening.

As for the experience of a live tango orchestra, I am quite sure that all sorts of shenanigans went on, and that there were many distractions from the music, as is true in any large, popular gathering of human beings. There is no need to resort to misogynistic stereotypes. In my own research, I have seen evidence of extreme overcrowding at performances by Di Sarli and Pugliese. In the latter case, Don Osvaldo placed an ad in the paper apologizing not only to his fans who were turned away at the door, but also to a group of invited guests including Lucio Demare, Enrique Rodriguez, and Ricardo Tanturi, who he could not attend to as he would have liked because of the volume of the crowds. I will post that ad soon.

[Michael Krugman]

As for the superiority of “recorded music,” I don’t think anyone is saying that recorded music is superior. What they are saying is that, all things considered, the ambience of a smaller venue with familiar music on recording was more conducive to serious dancing. There would be fewer distractions! This is easily understood by analogy to the present day, in which there has been a certain amount of backlash against large, crowded tango festivals, resulting in the popularity of the encuentro. Whether you’re pro- or anti-encuentro, I think you’ll agree that it is an _attempt_ to create an ambience more conducive to good dancing by more accomplished dancers.

[Dmitry Pruss]

Thanks! I still don't think that even with few records, they would have played the same piece thrice in a row - probably more like play it again later at night?
Interestingly, Jose Maria Otero just touched on milonga con grabaciones in his blog too writing that in Club Atlético Huracán, in the 1950s they started having Sunday milongas con "selectas grabaciones". Gustavo Benzecry Saba wrote that he traces actual modern-type tandas to the early 1960s when it was fashionable to play records of the same orchestra all night long, but Sportivo BsAs ran a monthly "potpourri" milonga on 4th Sunday where LPs of many orchestras were featured so played a few pieces of one orchestra, then a few more of another...

[D]

I'm glad you mentioned your source. Ricardo Suarez was the first milonguero I recorded in 2000 with Miguel Angel Balbi asking questions.

As I understand from them and many others, there were dances in the large clubs with orchestras, and milongas in the downtown confiterias with recorded music. Today we tend to use "milonga" where tango is danced. There was a big difference in the music, the atmosphere, and the level of dancing.

Janis
Tango Chamuyo

[Joy Milonguero]

Hi Mr. Krugman,
thank you for your post.
I would like to make few considerations.

I don't understand the reason why the same song should be played more times in a row. After all, Ricardo Suarez says that a song was played more times in the evening (if I have well understood your reply to a previous comment).

About the origin of tandas, some years ago I read on a book (Tangologia - giorgio Lala - Ed. Sigillo), briefly, as follows.
In the early days, dancing tango was unseemly for women and those few who were dancing were prostitutes or "bailarenas de Latas", professional dancers hired by clubs. Men, at the entrance, bought tokens. Delivering a token to one of these dancers they acquired the right to dance with her a number of tangos (this is the origin of "bailarina de latas). The curtain, usually a polka , marked the end of "service".

Kind regards.