Shooting from the hip

Plausibly Troilo-Marino: drama, melodrama, or sophistication?

It's easy enough I suppose to shoot from cover so I thought I should try and say something about why I don't think the Troilo-Marino or Troilo-Ruiz tangos are that great for dancing although I don't feel compelled to justify that because I have not made the claim that the later sides are "perhaps the most sophisticated dance music ever recorded".  Moreover, I hear this music played or its supposed merits talked about by some DJs so often at the moment I'd like to give some examples of it to show why its apparent virtues may be controversial.  

Speaking of fair, "Well, but why don't you like it?" is a fair question.  I say so largely  only because I ask it often enough, privately - trying patience, no doubt  -  and very occasionally I get brief, enlightening answers.  I don't know if I can do the same but I can try to say why this sort of music is not, to my mind, the best for dancing - with the caveat that trying to explain taste or to describe music in words may be a fruitless and forsaken exercise.  Yet the mystery of taste is an enticing field and there is a whole branch of philosophy devoted to it. Wittgenstein took things further saying that ethics and aesthetics were one.  He also said famously "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen" - Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.  I suppose in my case curiosity about whether one can speak coherently or usefully about music is a stronger influence than signs which may suggest the contrary.  On the strength that you learn more conclusively from your mistakes than from advice and that perhaps it's easier to say why you don't like something than why you do I'm going ahead anyway.

Take Recuerdos de bohemia (with Marino, '46) from the middle of the Golden Era.  For me it's like fill-in music in a movie.  (All such qualitative judgements here are merely personal.)  I can't imagine anyone would confess to playing this in a milonga and I wonder how it could go so wrong after Fresedo-Ray did it so well more than a decade earlier.   The Troilo is like being in a deranged dream.  I can't for a moment believe it was written for dancing, so let's say it's not a fair choice.  The sound wobbles unpleasantly within the first thirty seconds of Asi es Ninon (Marino, '46). It is better instrumentally than vocally I think.  Camino del Tucumán (Ruiz, '46) I find dull for dancing though who's to say it's not well suited to flirtation across the tables.  Tedio (Marino, '45) pretty much sums up my feelings about the pairing of this orchestra and singer.  I have heard these last three tracks in milongas but for balance let's choose some tracks I hear more often.

If the volume is up you'll hear the wobbly sound at the start of Tal vez será su voz (Marino, '43) which always sets me on edge and it's the kind of track that can really grate when overplayed.  Someone who knows once told me Troilo had a poor sound engineer, and you can hear it in this and  many other tracks.  

I heard Cuando tallan los recuerdos (Marino, '43) in the milongas I used to go to more often around my way and it makes me think of a film at the cinema where the guy is running after his girl imploring her to come back.  It's no surprise that when you search for that title on Google it's the Caló-Iriarte that comes up first because, I expect, like me, more dancers prefer it.  Confesion (Ruíz, '47) from Michael's site is a better recording compared to much on the internet and it is one of his choices for the tanda he submitted to Tanda of the Week.  I think this is good music, but it is not the music I like for dancing and it is very far from the best for dancing.

I quite like Fuimos (Marino, '46) and Uno (Marino, '43) and might dance them though with Fuimos I really can't help but think of that romantic black and white film again and when Marino comes in, I want to sit down and listen.  Perhaps I just can't think of many guys I would like to dance this with and in the other role I doubt I'd want to invite anyone to these. There are at least as good versions of Uno for dancing: the d'Arienzo-Mauré ('43) and this evening at least, my preference: the Biagi with Acuña ('44).  La Noche que te Fuiste (Ruíz, 45):  lovely track and I am susceptible to it. It is another of Michael's choices for Tanda of the Week, but listen to the Caló-Iriarte version (also '45); Michael calls it merely "simpler" and there is something in that but I find it both strong and delicate and anyway I think one needs to be wary about using  "simple" as a disparaging descriptor.  I like Marioneta (Ruíz, 44) and dance it even though I find Ruíz as a singer a bit nasal. Sin palabras (Marino, '46) is a great track too, a good tango to listen to.  I might dance it with the right partner, though more likely I'd regret getting up.  Café de los Angelitos (Marino, '44) is OK but as with the Canaro (with Roldan, '45) I'd rather have a drink to it, preferring, for dancing again the Biagi (with Alberto Amor, '45).

In Naranjo en Flor (Ruíz, '44) the long, lingering vocals just don't make me want to dance.  I think rather of a swooning woman in that black and white film.  I'd prefer to listen to the more interesting instrumentals of the Laurenz-Linares or to the Rodriguez-Moreno (both also '44) and I guess I do dance those, especially the Rodriguez.  I love Laurenz but what I really feel about this kind of Laurenz is that it's the equivalent in his orchestra to what I hear in Troilo-Marino, too overblown and extravagant to be the very best music for dancing.  There's arguably more of that sort of thing in this tanda.  Having said that the opener, La madrugada,is a gorgeous, very danceable track and actually I'd dance any of the tracks in that tanda.  If I have any problem with these perhaps it's with Bermúdez: for a soft, crooning singer, his voice is also very strong and insistent. You can hear that especially in Me estan sobranda las penas.  Sometimes there's the sense it could tip over into melodrama.  I don't look for that in tango.

Much Troilo doesn't hold back at all with that grand, melodramatic feeling - like Cancion desesperada (film melodrama again - Marino, '45).  Mi tango triste (Marino, '46), Rosa de tango (Marino, '44), Sombras nada mas (Marino, '44), Cotorrita de la suerte (Marino, '45) are drama and passion for those who like that sort of thing and I can see that some might.  Certainly, I seem to hear them often enough to want to groan and hide.  I mind Rosicler (Marino, '46) less but probably only because of association with the far better De Angelis (with Martel, also '46) where the sound is also superior and I much prefer it for dancing.

But again, judge for yourself. Listen to any of the three Troilo-Marino tango tandas on Tanda of the Week (all three were published between the end of 2014 and May 2015) and then listen to this tanda Antti put together of Troilo with Fiorentino.  Which makes you want to dance more?  You hear the wobbly sound again in Los mareados, but still, I think there's no comparison.

In his careful way Michael says Fiorentino's '41 sides are "...the most accessible dance music Troilo ever recorded, the music that sounds most like the other bands." I simply don't understand what this means. Who could he mean? All the top orchestras are so distinctive that it is one of the reasons I think they probably are great. Troilo-Fiorentino like Biagi, like OTV or perhaps like Canaro? The idea is bizarre.

Troilo-Marino or Troilo-Ruíz is currently on trend among some DJs.  Perhaps it is played on the marathon and the clubby encuentro circuit.  This music appeals to people who do like drama in their music or their dance and it is good that they are supplied with the kind of music they like to dance to. If you have those dancers at your milongas then you had better be prepared to play it if you want to keep them sweet - if you accept those kind of gigs; though as Chris pointed out they are not the classics that have been pulling dancers to the floor since the 1940s.

For me, and many I think the challenge is in finding a DJ who plays most of what you like.  How much easier for travel that would be if those who DJ published their sets.  Until recent or sample sets are available more widely the risk of going on-spec just to find out is too high for me.

After a milonga had finished, I was talking to a visitor. In the set that had just played there had been a Troilo-Marino tanda.  I had found the busiest two hours of the set to be OK but I wasn't getting that thrill of pleasure that a great first track induces and the tandas weren't taking me to that relaxed, meditative state that great track after great track, tanda after tanda induces. I was in the milonga only for that couple of hours.  Later, another day I went back to hear a more representative, longer set by the same DJ, staying for three and half hours and after that I wouldn't go again for danceable music.  But that first time I was talking to the visitor about Buenos Aires. 
"How is it there?" I asked her. 

"Here," she said, indicating the salon with her head, "the music didn't really give me a feeling for dancing. I danced it, but....there, the music is different." 

"What do they play there that is different?" 

She didn't know the orchestras well enough to say. "But there I get more of a feeling for dancing" she said and really, for me that said everything.

Photo:  By Jenny Mealing (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons