A: For a long time I went around asking people which groups today are trying to recreate the sound and complexity of the Golden Age (so that we would have more tracks) and was surprised that there seems to be virtually nobody.
B: It is true. There's no money in it, esp. when they have to compete with the greats we have on CD.
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A: I was thinking about what you said - there isn't the same music today because there's no money in it etc.
But imagine if everyone danced as they did in the 1940s when it was normal for people of my grandmother's generation to go to local dances on a Saturday night. She told me they'd walk three or four miles to get there if they had to. I do dream of that. Everyone dancing again. Every neighbourhood should have a milonga. Imagine that.
B: I can imagine that :) but I don't think we'll see another Golden Age of dance soon. And esp. not in the UK, where most of what people call tango is the English-style dancing done in so-called Argentine tango classes.
But aren't we confusing "Golden Age records" with "Golden Age music" of tango? Most tango venues in BsAs used live music then, also "bailes con grabaciones" were gradually gaining importance. The orchestras had many more temas "en vivo" than we could find recorded today.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, most classic-style tango orchestras today work live music venues too, leaving few recordings. I occasionally play the gems of Krebs or Maytorena in mixed tandas, for example, but their bands aren't for DJs as much as for live music event organizers.
Dmitry/MOCKBA wrote "But aren't we confusing "Golden Age records" with "Golden Age music" of tango?"
DeleteI guess that depends what "We" refers to :)
I see you've been to Tango Decoder's interesting post on baile con grabaciones (dancing with recordings).
There are different ideas above: a golden age of (at least) UK 20C dance, a Golden Age of tango music and dance in Buenos Aires and a golden age of possibly other records.
The Golden Age of UK dance was a time when local village halls had Saturday night dances. For example I heard last year that in the area in Scotland where I live now it wasn't necessarily that the same hall hosted a dance every week - different halls in a local region hosted dances and some halls had better reputations than others. This continues in the area today with people travelling within and across regions for (today, specifically) traditional Scottish country dances. Towns and cities had special dance halls, some of which survive and many do not.
I have never lived in an area with a truly neighbourhood milonga with dancing genuinely socially derived rather than the class-contrived version though I glimpsed what that must be like in the busy central milongas and the one very local, traditional barrio milonga I went to (twice) in BsAs. I love the idea of many people of all ages in a community meeting for dance using a tried and tested formula that exists in BsAs today but does not seem to in many places outside it. It strikes me as so healthy in so many ways - not least while there's a rumour that drinking champagne wards off brain diseases. Apparently it's a compound found in pinot noir and pinot meunier grapes. If that's true the combination of dance and champagne has to be winning. Is there, for regular consumption, a sparkling wine version with similar properties?! :)
Right, I was referring to the first 4 lines of the blog entry, without going into the specifics of the UK dance scenes of the past. And these first lines contained an interesting unrealistic expectation: that if there are any bands recreating the richness of the Golden Age tango (and there are several), then we the rank-and-file DJs will have new tandas to play (and I'm like, not really, it'd take lots of very active bands to yield some mixable recordings)
DeleteFor those who are interested in the UK dance scene of the past, Tango Commuter has just written a post on this topic.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand - forewarned being forearmed - he censors comments, like Barrio de Tango and many others; in Tango Commuter's case (at least) - often and broadly.