By mid-1943 the El Mundo "Dance Guide" had expanded quite a bit. Where our 1942 example had but six entries, this page from Sunday 17 April 1943 features no less than sixteen live appearances by tango orchestras. There are listings for the well known típicas of Caló, D'Arienzo, Troilo, Tanturi (twice), Laurenz, D'Agostino, Demare, Biagi, and Di Sarli, as well as several lesser known acts.
Some especially notable features:
PUBLICITY AGENCIES
• A small entry at the top of the left column, just below the "Vitoquin" ad, identifies a publicity agency Baylex as the compiler of the group of ads below it, which are all in the same "black bar" style. The ads on the right side of the page vary considerably in design, and include three with the distinctive hand-drawn type of the competing Santa Cruz agency.
Over time, several publicity agencies (others were Argañaraz, Chacabuco, Vicmar, Falcón, etc.) would vie for domination of the El Mundo "Dance Guide" pages, although no single agency ever came to prevail. It seems likely that efforts of these agencies to market their services was one of the forces that drove the expansion of tango advertising in this period. By 1944, individual ads usually bore a small signature identifying the agency that had placed them.
BAILES CON GRABACIONES: Dances with recordings
• The entry just below the Baylex panel is for a BCG (baile con grabaciones, a dance with recorded music) at the Atlanta football club. A BCG was a place for those who wished to dance in a more focused atmosphere, minus the hoopla of a live show. BCGs charged one peso or less for men, as opposed to the two- or three-peso entry charge for most live concerts. (A peso was worth about $3 in today's US dollars.) Women were admitted free, or for 30-50 centavos. These two factors made the BCG an economical solution for serious dancers who were short of cash, who danced frequently, or both. Ads for BCGs, generally much smaller than those announcing live shows, would appear in much greater numbers from this point on.
TANTURI DOUBLES UP
• There were two listings on this day for the Tanturi orchestra (which still featured singer Alberto Castillo at this juncture). Tanturi's regular gig at the Tribu ("Tribe") Social Club was scheduled for "Today and every Saturday at 17:30," while his second appearance, a Gran Velada ("Grand Soiree") at the Círculo General Urquiza sports club, went from 22:30 to 4:00. The phrase pistas cubiertas assured the reader that the dance floor, which probably occupied the space of the club's football field, was covered, so the event was protected from the elements and would not be cancelled in the event of rain.
THE MOST TYPICALLY ARGENTINE DANCE HALL
• The Salon Bompland "Arte Nativo" was an interesting dance venue advertising itself as the El Salón Más Criollo, that is, the most typically Argentine dance hall. Rather than big names, the Bompland emphasized variety and authenticity. On this night it featured four orchestras, each offering a different musical genre: tango, jazz, nativa (Argentine folk music), and polka. Admission: Gentlemen 1 peso, ladies free. The event lasted seven hours, from nine in the evening until 4 a.m. Good deal!
A "BIG GOAL" FOR PEDRO LAURENZ
• The page shown above features an ad for the Pedro Laurenz orchestra with singer Alberto Podestá, who would doubtless have been performing some of those fantastic songs they recorded in '43 and '44 like Garua, Todo, and Alma De Bohemio, Que Nunca Me Falte, and others. As any real tango fan would have known, that was going to be an unforgettable show. But the Ocean Dancing club wasn't taking any chances. They put a large and rather crudely drawn display ad on the page following this one, letting us know that Laurenz and Podestá were about to score El Golazo del Año, "The Big Goal of the Year." Here it is:
It's not tango advertising's finest moment, but it does have some historical interest, if only to demonstrate the tango-football affinity....
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