After the war, the Polish poet, journalist and singer Aleksander Kulisiewicz (who was interned in Sachsenhausen) spent decades collected poems, music and songs from the camps. In 1979 some of these were recorded by Smithsonian Folkways and released on an album entitled Tangos From the Depths of Hell. Amongst them was a poem from the Janowska Concentration Camp near Lviv (at that time part of occupied Poland and known as Lemberg) that had been set to the music of Eduardo’s Bianco mournful tango Plegaria. This poem references a Todestango, and it was assumed that this was the Todestango or “Death Tango” which was played by the camp orchestra during executions. This claim has been widely spread – you can read it, for instance, in Julio Nudler’s excellent book “Tango judió – Del ghetto a la milonga”, and it is stated as a fact on the website of the Holocaust Museum. You can also read it in the first printing of my book on Osvaldo Fresedo. (Note that this is a specific claim about one camp, the Janowska camp: other camps might also have had a Todestango, but these would have been different ones. Todestango is thus a genre rather than a specific piece of music).

During his long stay in Europe, Bianco courted the rich and powerful, playing before dictators such as Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. He is thought to have been a fascist sympathiser and it was thus easy to attribute a Todestango to him. But is it true? Recent research indicates that it was not. According to William de Haan, a Professor of Criminology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam – and a tango dancer – it was far more likely to have been Ta ostatnia niedziela (The last Sunday), a very popular and well-known tango in pre-war Poland. The composer of Ta ostatnia niedziela, Jerzy Petersburski, was popular in the Soviet Union (whose army liberated the Janowska camp). For Bianco to have been the author of a “Tango of Death” was a more convenient story for the Soviets. It also made for a much more compelling story, and the tale grew in the telling.

This is the briefest possible summary of a very complex topic. If you want to know more, I refer you to two recent books below.

I’ll leave you with my favourite version of Plegaria, the original and best in my opinion, recorded by the Bianco-Bachicha orchestra in Paris in 1927.

References
[1] Willem de Haan, Tango of Death: The Creation of a Holocaust Legend, 2023. ISBN: 978-90-04-52506-1. Read the beginning of Chapter 3 of de Haan’s book on the publisher’s website.
[2] Dirk Dietz, »Der Todestango«: Ursprung und Entstehung einer Legende, transcript, 2022, 206pp. ISBN: 978-3837662047

The most celebrated case is that of Louis Armstrong’s early recordings with his Hot Five and Hot Seven on the Okeh label in 1925-1927. People noticed that Cornet Chop Suey appeared to be in the key of E, which was a very strange choice for a trumpet. Thinking that the transfer must have been sped up, the jazz community first thought that the correct key was E flat – an easy key for a trumpet. This reduced the tempo, leading to the feeling that the Hot Five had played at a relaxed, laid-back tempo. Similarly, Big Butter and Egg Man played back in the key of F#. Surely, the correct key was F.

However we now know that all the early recordings on the Okeh label were made at a speed closer to 80bpm, which meant the transfers made at 78rpm were not too fast, but too slow. Cornet Chop Suey and all the recordings made on Okeh in 1925-1926 – so all the recordings of the Hot Five – actually needed to be sped up. Early reissues were at the wrong pitch, although Sony have now fixed this.

Just as with tango, incorrect pitch was found not to be just a technical question. Because of the impact on tempo, it affects the feeling of the music as well – just as it does with tango (see my primer on this topic). And that’s why it matters.

The formation of the group had to wait until they could find a pair of good bandoneon players, a commodity always in short supply in France. The men they found were the Colombo brothers, Joseph (Guiseppe) and Hector (Ettore), born in Piedmont. The brothers had learnt the accordion as children and switched to bandoneon in Paris, where they played for a while with the Bianco-Bachicha orchestra (perhaps until it departed for Spain in early 1928). They are really skilled players, able to play the bandoneon variations that Pedro Laurenz is performing in Julio De Caro’s recordings (such as the one on Mala junta).

The band experienced immediate success and in many ways was the most advanced of its day. On the one hand, they respected both the clear beats of Canaro (who had been all the range in Paris in 1925-1926), but they also liked Fresedo (who arrived in Paris at the end of 1928) and in particular the harmonized melodies of the De Caro brothers (who came to Europe only in 1931). In an interview given in 1930, whilst admiring Fresedo’s lighter and livelier beat, the men noted that he had not been as successful in Paris as had been expected, commenting “We believe that it interested musicians more than dance lovers”. Of Julio De Caro (whom they had not yet heard in person at the time of the interview) they wrote: “De Caro had the merit of having escaped from the primary formulas of tango; he understood that, without altering its character, it could be enriched with beautiful harmonies. He knew how to surround himself with brilliant instrumentalists; his orchestration is original and varied”. [1]

The band recorded on Pathé, Columbia (in early 1929 and again in 1932) and on Disque “Gramophone”. There is no published discography.

I leave you with one of my favourite interpretations by the band, Agustín Bardi’s Lorenzo, recorded on 25th June 1929:

References

[1] Tango Sasha: Brodman-Alfaro, 24-01-2018
[2] Jean Alfaro on Bibletango

Wilenski returned to Buenos Aires in 1930, opening his first studio at Florida 118, but then returned to Paris in 1931 to photograph the massive Exposition Coloniale Internationale. In 1932 Wilenski moved his studio to Santa Fé 997. He now took photographs of people from the world of entertainment and culture: not just tango, but also theatre, cinema and dance. Many of his pictures were published by the magazine Sintonía. Wilenski nearly always retouched his photographs before printing (no photoshop in those days!) and when he did so he signed them. The rounded initial ‘W’ is very characteristic, making it easy to identify his work in the majority of cases.

After Wilenski died in 1952 his family donated his negatives to the Museo del Cine in the barrio of La Boca. In 2023 the museum arranged an exhibition of his work which again passed largely unnoticed by the tango community. The pictures are not as dramatic as those of Annemarie Heinrich, who started out as his pupil, but show people in natural poses. I hope this little article will raise appreciation for his work – look out for his signature on the photos on sheet music covers.

References:
Facio, Sara: La fotografía en la Argentina Desde 1840 hasta nuestros días. Buenos Aires, La Azotea Editorial Fotográfica, 1995.

Tormenta (image generated by Bing AI)

Two decades later the scene seems to have tired of Tormenta; maybe we’ve finally finished that twenty year old maxi-jar of Nescafé. But the idea of a “go-to” tango that can make the dead dance has not gone away.

The mantle has been resting on D’Arienzo’s shoulders for a little while now – don’t forget that his music was once described as capable of waking the dead. In Argentina they used to play D’Arienzo’s La Bruja in this moment, but that’s not fast enough for us – especially once we started playing it at the proper (slower) speed. For a few years it was Mandria that we heard several times at almost every weekend event. Mandria is also like coffee, but it’s a good Italian coffee, a nice double espresso. Some of you may have noticed a not insignificant coincidence: both these interpretations were recorded in 1939, tango’s most intense year. Argentina was partying hard whilst in Europe the fuse ran down on the powder keg of war and then exploded.

So it was interesting for me to hear one D’Arienzo tango played three times in a weekend recently: El tigre Millán. Recorded one year after Mandria, this is not as hard and intense but it is even faster: 68 bpm compared to 67 bpm. That’s fast. D’Arienzo’s 1940 band is more sophisticated than his 1939 one, so this is a bit of a change in the community’s taste.

What next? Di Sarli’s Catamarca has been tried, but it’s just a bit too complex. Troilo perhaps? Sadly we have no recordings from 1939 and 1940. Milongueando en el 40 and the other classic 1941 sides don’t have the same intensity. They are more like a good cappucino: stimulating, yes, but meant to be savoured, rather than thrown back in a single gulp before the milonga. Perhaps some Biagi? Son cosas del bandoneón is well known but has never achieved the gold status of Tormenta, Mandria or El tigre Millán, whilst Pura clase is just too joyful. Gólgota? Too slow… reader I don’t know!

It’s an electrical recording – but can you tell?

The first electrical recording was matrix BAVE (Buenos Aires Victor Electrical) 753 and this was given to Rosita Quiroga. It sold over 14,000 copies. By way of contrast, Agustín Magaldi would sell between 5,000 and 16,000 copies, Carabelli’s Jazz Band 7000 copies, and De Caro 1,500. Quiroga’s third disc, Mocosita c/w Horas tristes, sold 26,000 copies.

And who is this Comandante Franco guy? If you think he sounds like a military type, you would be right: this is General Franco’s younger brother Ramón Franco. He made history in January 1926 by flying a Dornier flying-boat named Plus Ultra (!) from Spain to Buenos Aires, a distance of just over 10,000km. The flying time was nearly 60 hours.