Repeating orchestras (II) & Guardia Vieja

Album-Sudamericano Claudio-Rebagliati-1870, Wikimedia commons

 You couldn't make it up. 

I was chatting to a DJ about the orchestras I'd heard recently repeated in a short set only for him to announce this was his second Pugliese tanda within two hours.  He said it was OK because the tandas were only three tracks, not four... 

Then Troilo with singer Marino came on, for the second time.  

Didn't you play Troilo with Marino just before?

I had that familiar feeling of walking on dangerous ground which happens whenever one starts pushing a point. 

Probably, he said, unconcerned. 

The rest of the tangos were e.g. Los Provincianos, Mil Novecientos, Niño Bien, Orquesta Tipica Victor, and the dregs of Canaro: Sangre Azul, Nobleza de Arrabal.  Niño Bien is not the worst OTV, by any stretch but I suspect that was the best of that tanda.  Sangre Azul isn't even on the internet but here's the Lomuto version which is probably pretty close. Nobleza de Arrabal wasn't the good 1940 version, but the unbearable one from 1927.   It isn't heard in the traditional milongas of Buenos Aires because almost no-one would dance it. This Guardia Vieja style is all so similar it's like hearing one orchestra, not three.  That is not to say there is not good OTV; there is -  some tangos and especially the vals.  

It was like the recurring nightmare when Guardia Vieja was the norm in Edinburgh. It was around the time of publishing that piece that I was (unsurprisingly) suddenly dropped from DJing there. It was fine.  I had been shocked by the organiser at the time saying people had to "prove themselves" before they could dance with so-called good dancers of the organisers' so-called calibre.  It was an arrogance and unkindness so breathtaking that I departed that scene for years until they left. 

So there were at least three tandas (in threes) of that dirge-like music, two Pugliese, two Troilo with Marino one decent tango tanda and two good vals tandas, within two hours.  I stayed an hour and a half, mostly chatting.

And people wonder why the dancing is so poor in that city (it isn't Edinburgh).