September 2, 1944: Dancers, get ready to make some tough choices! On this Saturday morning in Buenos Aires, El Mundo newspaper's "Dance Guide" contains 28 ads for shows by some of the greatest names in tango, including the orchestras of Demare, Troilo, Caló, Tanturi, Pugliese, D'Agostino, Biagi, Donato, and Di Sarli, plus free-range singers Fiorentino, Rufino, and Castillo.
The sponsoring entities consist overwhelmingly of clubes sociales y deportivos--sports and social clubs--many of them associated with football teams like River Plate, Chacarita Juniors, and Atlanta. So be prepared to dance on basketball courts, handball courts, or even football fields converted to pistas for the evening! Some of these floors might be able to accommodate several thousand dancers. For those who prefer a more focused atmosphere without all the hoopla of a live show, there are a couple of bailes con grabaciones (dances with recorded music), too. Choose wisely! You are making history....
FIORENTINO: THE MAN OF THE MOMENT
This second day of September, 1944, is a crucial one for singer and pop-idol Francisco Fiorentino. He's left Troilo's orchestra, done a brief stint with Troilo pianist Orlando Goñi, and is about to debut a new band of his own directed by Troilo arranger and bandoneonista Astor Piazzola. This morning's Dance Guide carries a modest ad for the band's debut at the Circulo Almagro (see below), but Fiore and his friends have taken a larger, bolder ad (right) leaving no room for doubt that he is the man of the moment, and forever after. The text reads:
"HE'S HERE! WITH HIS FRIENDS AND SUPPORTERS / THE VOICE OF FIORENTINO AND HIS GRAND ORQUESTA TÍPICA / DIRECTED BY ASTOR PIAZZOLA / STARTING TODAY TO BRING HIS GREATEST HITS TO ALL THE BARRIOS OF BUENOS AIRES"
A NEW LOOK
As you may have noticed, the ads from the Dance Guide of September 1944 (Tanturi, right) look very different from those from early and mid-1943. The dense, older style of "black bar" reverse type (D'Arienzo, middle) is gone, and so is the fancy hand-drawn display lettering, with its intimations of the arrabal (Di Sarli, bottom). The typefaces are limited to a few contemporary fonts. There are no decorative borders, no graphic flourishes to break the monotony. Judging by the consistency of style, all the ads seem to have been designed in-house, by the newspaper's art department rather than the several different agencies that once vied for the readers' attention, each with its own visual style. Was this an aesthetic decision by the paper? Censorship by the military regime? The result of wartime shortages of ink, paper, lead, or photographic supplies? Cost-cutting, technical challenges, or something else? More research is needed...
ODEON RECORDS RULES THE ROOST
We are are now at the height of the "Odeon logo" period of the Dance Guide, a seven-month stretch (May-November 1944) when ads for artists signed to the Discos Odeon label are often distinguished by a big, bold company logo with the legend, "[This artist] records for Odeon Records," effectively turning El Mundo's weekend Dance Guide into a fever-chart of the record company's enviable market saturation. (Virtually all orchestras recorded for either Odeon or Victor at this time.)
It's not clear why the logos suddenly start cropping up in May 1944, but it appears to be a deliberate branding strategy by the label. I suspect that Odeon subsidizes the ads in return for the placement. The logos do not appear consistently. Consider, for example, that the ad for the Troilo-Bertolín pairing at Oeste Argentino (right) bears the Odeon logo, while an ad on the facing page for the same bill appearing tomorrow at the Círculo General Urquiza does not. Some BCGs (bailes con grabaciones, dances with recorded music only) also bear the Odeon logo, and promise "the latest recordings from Odeon Records." (That sounds nice, but I hope they were allowed to play some Victor records, too. A dance without D'Agostino, D'Arienzo, Di Sarli, Tanturi or Troilo would be a sad affair, wouldn't it?)
That Odeon logo presents a tricky problem, since artists who record for the label often appear in the same ad with others who don't. In that case, the ad is divided in half like a butterfly bandage, as is the case with Trolio (who recorded for Victor) and Washington-Bertolín (Odeon). Same goes for this ad for Fiorentino (currently unaffiliated; he doesn't sign with Odeon until May '45) and Malerba (who records for Odeon). These "butterfly" layouts must be a major headache for El Mundo's typesetters! It will take the paper another two months to find a remedy....
RADIO "EL MUNDO" HIGHLIGHTS
• Military march: 7.30
• Happy music: 8
• Típica D’Arienzo: 11.36, 12.15, 13.05, 13.40
• Carmen Duval: 11, 11:45, 13.05, 13.40
• Típica Sebastian Piana: 15:15, 16:15, 17, 17:45
• Típica O. Fresedo: 19, 20, 21
• End of transmission, military march: 0.35
Something new to me: Judging by this schedule, it appears that the orchestras and other musical artists, who appeared on the radio under contract, were required to put in something more than two hours on the station's sound stage, and to play at intervals during that period. That suggests that each appearance required something like three hours of an orchestra's time, with allowance for setting up, tuning, and packing up.
IN THE HEADLINES
What's on the front page this second morning of September, 1944? War news, with the Allies making some real progress three months after the Normandy invasion.
• THE SOVIETS ARE AT THE FRONTIER OF BULGARIA
• THE STRUGGLE IN FRANCE IS OVER: DIEPPE AND VERDUN UNDER ALLIED CONTROL
• RAPID PROGRESS TOWARD METZ
• THE NAZI FRONT HAS DISAPPEARED
FOR YOUR ADDRESS BOOK:
• Círculo Almagro (Triunvirato 4330, Villa Crespo)
• Club Atlético Chacarita Juniors (Teodoro Garcia 2885, Colegiales)
• Independiente (Av. Mitre 450, Avellaneda)
• Palermo Palace (Godoy Cruz and Santa Fe, Palermo)
• Club Atlanta (Humboldt 540, Villa Crespo)
