The Tango Mahi “Tanda of the Week” is by the Miguel Caló Orquesta Tipica with vocalist Raul Beron:
1942 Que Te Importa Que Te Llore – composed by Osmar Maderna
1942 Al Compas del Corozon – composed by Domingo Federico
1942 Tristeza de la calle Corrientes – composed by Domingo Federico
In his 20s, Miguel Caló was a professional bandoneonist playing with many of the then leading orquestas and musicians including Osvaldo Fresedo, and pianists Osvaldo Pugliese, Carlos Di Sarli and Horacio Salgan.
In 1938, coinciding with the D’Arienzo orquesta’s revitalisation of the tango scene, Caló (as a 31 year old) set up his own orquesta with a line up of musicians that included many in their late teens or early 20s. The musicians included Armando Pontier (age 21) on bandoneon, Enrique Francini (age 22) on violin, Osmar Maderna (age 20) on piano, and Alberto Podesta (age 16) and Raul Beron (age 18) as vocalists. By 1939, Caló had recruited Domingo Federico (age 22) to replace himself on lead bandoneon, reduced his own roles to those of orquesta leader / conductor, manager, organiser and recruiter, but continued to perform live in radio broadcasts playing bandoneon to accompany the orqeusta’s vocalists.
The Caló orquesta played a repertoire of dance music comprised of music composed and performed by other artists, together with music composed and arranged by Caló orquesta members (especially by Federico, Maderna, and Francini) with only a very small number by Caló himself. The music incorporated a wide range of tango nuances recognised as signatures of other orquestas but few that were unique to Calo. With the 1942 release of the recordings chosen for the Tanda of the Week, the orquesta became one of the most popular in Argentina.
By the mid-1940s, all of Calo’s young recruits had become recognised as among the best in their respective fields and through 1944 and 1945 all of them left the orquesta (with Calo’s blessing) to either set up their own orquestas (Federico and Francini-Pontier) or to become key members of other leading orquestas including those of Di Sarli, Troilo, Demare and Piazzolla. The new orquesta members who replaced the departees, were all also first class musicians and the Calo orquesta continued to grow in popularity.
Raul Beron, was the vocalist for the orquesta’s hugely successful recordings in 1942 of “Al compás del corazón” and the other two recordings chosen for the tanda. When his young friends, Francini and Pontier recommended him to Caló, Beron was an active teenage folk music singer with little knowledge of tango. With Caló’s mentoring he soon became an accomplished tango singer,.
Here are links to two YouTube video clips:
The first one is of regular milongueros at a social tango dancing to”Al compás del corazón” at the Rivadavia Club in BsAs in 2014.
The second is of Rusty Cline from Tucson, Arizona using “Tristeza de la calle Corrientes” to explain a musicality exercise to dance musical phrases in tango.
