...and singer Jorge Denis (1943-47)
If you read this page, you may have seen our chronology of the breakup of Edgardo Donato's orchestra, which is quite different from the accounts given in earlier sources. Judging by the ads in "El Mundo," Edgardo's orchestra bifurcated much later than previously believed, not in June 1942, but in May 1943, with the earliest performance of Edgardo's new orchestra (with singers Jorge Denis and Pablo Lozano) being advertised on the 23rd of that month.
Osvaldo's aggregation, which included most of Edgardo's instrumentalists plus vocalist Horacio Lagos, went their own way. That orchestras was quite successful at first, with a flood of high-profile gigs (beginning with a ten-week engagement at Bar El Nacional) and radio appearances throughout 1944. Edgardo didn't disappear by any means, but was not as active as usual for the remainder of '43 and all of '44. Even so, he made a strong showing at Carnavál, appeared frequently on Radio "El Mundo," and in May debuted a Guardia Vieja-style cuarteto with Anselmo Aieta, Francisco Pracánico, and Domingo Donnaruma.
As a result of my most recent researches, I'm finding that by 1945-47 the tables were very much turned. Osvaldo's orchestra starts to lose steam and Edgardo goes full speed ahead. I don't have the full story yet--I'm still sifting through the data I've collected. But it's quite clear that Edgardo's "Típica Moderna," as his orchestra was called beginning in 1945, was hugely popular, especially at Carnavál, when he and Julio De Caro musicalized for a dance at the Círculo General General Urquiza attended by 5000 people. He was still going strong in 1947 as the main act for the eight nights of Carnavál dances at Racing Club, playing the club's huge, 6000 square metre annex at Nogoya 3045 with his new singers Roberto Beltrán and Osvaldo Morel accompanied by jazz phenomenon "Hector." Big football clubs like Racing depended on revenue from Carnavál dances for their survival; they couldn't afford to take a chance on a second-rate orchestra. After his stellar results during the 1945 and '46 Carnavál seasons, Edgardo had become a bankable entity and Racing would have considered him a sound investment.
During the same period Osvaldo's trail goes cold. It's hard to find any ad for him around Carnavál time 1947. Except, that is, for the one you see here, an almost ignominious, one-night engagement in San Isidro, a northern suburb of Buenos Aires that in those days lay just a few kilometres this side of Nowheresville. An even bigger surprise is Osvaldo's vocal lineup: Horacio Lagos is gone, replaced by none other than Edgardo's mic-wrangler of 1943-44, Jorge Denis! Denis shares singing duties with one Osvaldo Bazán, whose bio on todotango.com tells us that he left the orchestra in early 1949 because Osvaldo didn't have enough work for him. He went with Juan Sanchez Gorio instead. That's a huge change from Osvaldo's triumphant ascendancy of 1943-44. It's not clear to me what happened to Lagos, but it suggests that he was, in his time, an indispensable factor in the Donato equation. When Edgardo lost him, it took the better part of two years to fully recover; when Osvaldo lost him, he really did go "off the radar," and I suspect he never came back. As always, further research is needed. I'll keep you posted!
PS: Who was the mysterious Emilio LAGOS who hosted Osvaldo's gig in San Isidro? Was he an unknown brother or cousin of Horacio's? Or is the conjunction of last names just one of those weird coincidences that history sometimes throws in our faces, just to hold us in its thrall?
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