Thanks to everyone who contributed to our recent discussion on Facebook's Tango Time Machine about the origin of the tanda! That amiable exchange got a luscious stew of ideas cooking in my head, and as a result, I realized that I might look for an answer in the Tango Time Machine archives. Here's what I came up with....
As I have argued many times, the most important medium for the diffusion of tango during the 40s was neither records nor live performances, but radio. Only relatively affluent people could afford a record player and discs. The smaller, neighborhood dances with recorded music sometimes had so few discs on hand that they played each song multiple times per night—not exactly a varied program (this according to the recently deceased Ricardo Suarez, may he rest in peace). Live shows were relatively expensive to attend, about $2 pesos in 1942-43 and about $3 pesos in 1944 (one 1940 peso equals about $3 in today's US dollars). Radio, however, delivered varied, top-quality music programming to a potentially limitless audience all over the country at no charge. And they did so morning, noon, and night. And, as we have seen in an earlier post on this blog, the radio stations sometimes provided extended programs specifically for dancing. Radio was the principal means of diffusion of tango in this period.
What was the typical format for tango programming on that all-important medium of radio? Fortunately, we can answer that question with some precision by analyzing the daily radio schedules published in the El Mundo morning newspaper, which gave the schedule for each day's programming on LR1 Radio El Mundo. (The newspaper and the station were owned by the same company, Editorial Haynes.)
What can we learn from those schedules? Quite a bit. First of all, we see that an orchestra would almost always remain on the station's sound stage for a total of about 2.5 to 3 hours per session. During that time, they'd perform in three to five short musical segments, live, on the air. For example, in the schedule for 13 March 1943 (right) we see that Ricardo Tanturi's típica, Los Indios, first appeared at 12:15, played a total of four times, and finished at 15:00, for a total of two hours, forty-minutes. Beginning at 16:00, Emilio Orlando appears four times, and his típica remains in place until 18:45, again two hours, forty-five minutes. Finally, Edgardo Donato's outfit appears; they start at 19:10, play four segments, and finish at 21:30 for a total of two hours and twenty minutes onstage.
This atypical 1944 radio appearance by the Troilo orchestra featured six songs. The segment began with a feature called "The Hidden Proverb," and lasted 25 minutes. Other típicas performing on that day's schedule were Osvaldo Fresedo (three fifteen-minute solos and one fifteen-minute split) and Juan Carlos Cobian (two solos and two splits, 15 minutes each).
The length and composition of radio segments were highly variable. There were a few very short, five- or ten-minute programs featuring one orchestra, whether tango, jazz, or some other genre. There were many fifteen-minute programs featuring either one orchestra alone, or two orchestras, each playing a different rhythm. And there were frequent thirty-minute programs featuring two or three orchestras of different musical genres. Though there were many other variants, these were the most common formats for musical programming on Radio El Mundo.
Returning to the example of 13 March, Tanturi's "Los Indios" played three "solo" segments of fifteen minutes each and one "split" segment of fifteen minutes shared with a non-tango orchestra. Next, Emilio Orlando's outfit did just the same. Edgardo Donato's schedule was a little more varied, with one fifteen-minute solo set, two split fifteen-minute sets, and one "mixed" twenty-five-minute set, a relatively atypical session. Despite that minor departure from the norm, you can see that, of the sets played by the tango orchestras that day, nine out of twelve of them, seventy-five percent, were fifteen-minute sets, seven of which (ca. 55%) featured one orchestra only. This general pattern was established during 1942-43 and became almost invariable by 1944. In other words, we can say with confidence that the fifteen-minute segment was the most common unit of musical programming on LR1, and the majority of those segments were performed by a single orchestra.
Was the same true for Radio El Mundo's main competitor, Radio Belgrano? I strongly suspect so. According to Matthew B. Karush 's book, Culture of Class: Radio and Cinema in the Making of a Divided Argentina 1920-1946, Radio Belgrano was the gold standard for Argentine radio. Belgrano was the originator of Argentina's popular radio-programming format; the other stations emulated its programming in both form and content. (The homogeneity of radio programming was a common complaint of critics throughout the 40s, says Karush.) So, until there is we have evidence to the contrary, I'm going to assume that Belgrano's format was very similar, if not identical.
This LR1 appearance by Alberto Castillo debuted four songs: three tangos and the candombe-milonga, "Café!" Note that Castillo's band was directed by bandoneonista Enrique Alessio, recently departed from the Pugliese orchestra.
(9 November 1944)
What was the content of those fifteen-minute segments? It almost certainly consisted of four songs, plus announcer chatter and ads. If each song were about 2:45, that would yield 11:00 of music, leaving 4:00 for advertising and announcer chatter. (Ratio of music to ads/chatter = 2.75:1)
Could it have been five songs? In my opinion, not; that wouldn't have left enough time for ads. According to Karush, a common complaint among critics of radio during this period was that there were too many ads. If the most common program consisted of five songs averaging 2:45, that is, 13:45 of music and 1:15 of ads (with a music-to-ads ratio of 11), it's hard to imagine how anyone would complain. It's also hard to imagine the station making any profit from advertising. Hence, five songs per fifteen-minute segment doesn't seem at all likely.
What about three songs of 2:45 each, total duration 8:00, leaving 7:00 for commercials and chatter? (Ratio of music to ads/chatter = 1.14) To me, that doesn't sound like a winning formula either. It's an unbearable ratio of music to ads. I doubt any radio station anywhere in the world could hold a music audience with that much advertising. There is a limit! Furthermore, it's hard to imagine anyone dancing to a program like that. And tango is, after all, dance music.
The conclusion? The paradigmatic programming format for tango music was a fifteen-minute segment featuring four songs by a single orquesta típica, plus announcements and advertising.
So there you have it. This "radio-centric" view gives us a likely historical precursor of the modern four-song tanda sequence, a "radio-tanda" that was repeated on Argentina's stations day after day, morning, noon, and night, for years.
Is this, then, the birth of the modern tanda whose origin we so devoutly seek? Not just yet. Our "radio-tanda" is still a tanda in embryonic form. Like our modern tandas, this "radio-tanda" is a sequence of four songs played by a single tango orchestra. However, it seems certain that many of these fifteen-minute segments included not only tangos, but valses and milongas as well. (See the Alberto Castillo ad, above, for an example.) Our "radio-tanda," then, is a four-song segment, performed by one orchestra, that can include any of the tango-related rhythms. We do not yet have the rigid segregation of the tandas by genre.
It occurs to me that genre segregation, with separate tandas for tango, vals, and milonga, might have been employed during the extended, late-night radio programs provided specifically for dancing. Unfortunately, I have never seen a playlist for one of those longer shows, and I don't know if any survive. If such a schedule ever turns up, it will add much to our understanding of the genesis of the tanda.
In Part 2, we'll examine the role of the annual live Carnavál broadcasts in the genesis of the tanda.
