INTRODUCTION:
They were born between 1920 and 1940, approximately.
They were and will continue to be a source of inspiration for those of us who love tango.
I filmed the interviews without the proper technical equipment.
Everything was done from the heart, and my interviewees gave themselves in the same way.
In this brief journey through the different stages that these milongueros have gone through,
we will see how tango is the central focus of their lives in most cases.
The transmission between generations
RICARDO PONCE “CHINO PERICO”
-I crept under the table with my sister when some guys came to our house to practise, because we had a big dining room.
They put the table aside, installed the gramophone and practised steps. And I watched them. When they were finished, I took my sister and tried to do what they had done.
Apart from that, my sisters were single.
When my oldest sisters began having boyfriends, they had to go with a brother, and then they chose me.
My sister who was a dressmaker made my clothes and everything.
I remember that she had made me black velvet trousers with a beige silk shirt to take me to a dance.
She took me to a dance on the corner of the Melo and Maipú streets. I did not want to go.
The only way that my father would may sister go dancing with his boyfriend was with me.
That’s why my sister’s boyfriend used to buy me all sort of candies.
In that time dances were with lunch.
-Were they?
-With lunch.
-Ah!
-They put a buffet table in the back, you went there and helped yourself.
Actually, it was the boyfriend who went with a plate and he chose sandwiches, pastries…
Imagine how many we were. There were as many boys as girls who had to take them along. And we ate all of it.
That way I learned to dance, watching how the others were dancing. But that was another style, they were kind of dancing with little jumps.
-The tango of that period was very different from the tango that you later danced.
-Yes, of course. Then you had Edgardo Donato, Biagi, Canaro. And later the big orchestras come on the scene.
Orchestras and fanaticism
JORGE GARCIA
-I had good experiences with Osvaldo Pugliese.
We were looking after Osvaldo, I can’t say we were bodyguards,but we took care of him because they hated him very much for being a communist. I was a communist party member and a militant.
We looked after the old man, we accompanied him everywhere to take care of him, so that nothing would happen to him.
We spent hours drinking mate with him.
-Tell us something that you have…
-About Osvaldo? There are so many things, so many situations.
What I learned from him is humility, equality, and he showed that by the orchestra form.
-He formed a cooperative with his orchestra.
-The cooperative. On a certain occasion we were in the salón on the corner of the streets Sarmiento and Paraná and they were rehearsing, but there was a bit of resentment in the orchestra.
Then suddenly he says: “What do you think if we’d play A mis compañeros?”
It was very emotional, there were even tears and that way everything was settled. Because the old man was unique.
EDUARDO MASCI “EL NENE”
-Shall I tell you something?
One time we were all at my house.
One of my brothers, now deceased, called “Pichi,” whose name was Ulisse, without anyone else looking, said to me: “Here, go to the store and buy a Pugliese record.”
I remember it was “La Tupungatina.” I went, bought it for him, and gave it to him.
At home we always listened to Troilo e Troilo.
My older brother found the record and said to me: “Who brought this record?”
“Pichi,” I replied. And he said: “Break it!”
I smashed it. We never listened to Pugliese at home.
Afterward, after some time, yes.
However, more than nothing, Troilo was Troilo first, after everything else. That’s how it was at home.
Romantic relationships
“CACHO” DANTE
-In the neighborhood club, they danced “salon” style.
Why?
Because if you grabbed a girl and squeezed her, her mama would hit you with her purse.
So when you wanted to squeeze her, you took advantage of her moving away. Her mama wasn’t looking, so you squeezed her for a moment. That’s how it was, you had to dance apart. “Vegetarian.”
-Vegetarian?
-Yes.
My father was a “millionguero.”
He lived alone in the “Abasto” neighborhood. He was an orphan. He grew up with a basket of garlic and lemon. He also had a sister.
He grew up in the Abasto, so he experienced the full tango experience.
One day—because he didn’t talk much, but what he said was very precise—he said to me: Do you want to get married?
No, I told him. I went dancing in the neighborhood. Over there, in the Flores neighborhood…
And why do you go dancing there? Because we go with girls, I replied.
Of course! – he said to me – you’ll leave someone pregnant and you’ll have to get married. Forget it, come dance downtown!
At this point he sent me downtown and mentioned two or three places: “El Augustero,” “La Argentina.”
I went there.
There I met a nephew of my father’s, my cousin, with whom we rarely saw each other. He was one of those “atorrante” (cheeky) ones.
And yet he was a real milonguero.
-So you’ve discovered a new world…
-Yes, yes. To me, they were all more heroes than any of us had in history.
They didn’t have any studies, though, they had a certain wisdom… everything.
CARLOS FUNES
-Did you see “Cata” only once or regularly?
-I saw her several times before we danced.
-How was that invitation?
-I liked her. I nodded to her and she accepted.
-And you finished the tanda?
-No.
-What happened?
-I kissed her on the cheek.
-During the dance you kissed her on the cheek?
-Yes.
-And what happened?
-She left me standing there.
-Really?
-Yes.
-Still, she ended up being your wife. How did you overcome that situation?
-After a year, due to circumstances that had happened in the dance, she looked at me again and I took her to dance.
Since that day we never stopped dancing.
-So, after that kiss she refused to dance for a year.
-Then she forgave me.
Contemporaries of the musicians
ALBERTO DASSIEU
-Next to the Teatro Nacional there was a café where D’Arienzo, Troilo, Di Sarli, Pugliese were, all the orchestras were there, all of them. When I first started going there, Alfredo Gobbi’s orchestra was there, and when he passed by me he said to me, ‘Boy, you like tango so much, that you come here every day?’ And I said to him, ‘It drives me crazy!’
-Oh yes! What, do you like the violin?’ -No, I like tango. I blushed, it made me feel embarrassed, it was Alfredo Gobbi. He said to me, ‘Do you dance?’ I said, ‘Yes!’ -Where do you go dancing?’ -No, they won’t let me in anywhere because I’m 14. So, he said to me, ‘how come they won’t let you in?’ -Because I’m a minor,’ I told him, ‘Alfredo, they won’t let me in.’ He said to me, ‘If they let you in, would you dance?’ “Absolutely!”
Well, he said, “Look, there’s a milonga across the street where I’m going for a drink with a friend. I’ll let you in.”
All right.
We crossed the sidewalk across the street and there was a milonga called “Sans Souci.”
He let me in, had me sit in a chair next to where he was with a friend, and said, “Are you seriously going dancing?” “Yes, I came to dance. You invited me.” “I’ll let you dance with a girl.”
So he spoke to the waiter, who we later became friends with, and this gentleman acted as an intermediary so that I could dance with that girl.
ROBERTO SEGARRA
-Via a brother-in-law I sometimes played maracas in a jazz orchestra.
-How does an orchestra function? Once it is formed, does it have a representative? How did they find work?
-The situation was like this: A club hired a typical orchestra (orquesta típica), what was prevailing in the 1940s, and a modest jazz orchestra.
Then the agent who had hired the orchestras called us, or some other orchestra.
He got everyone together in one place because he didn’t want to risk that some musician was missing.
-Sure, they didn’t arrive one by one.
-He sent a bus to that place, and we all got in, those of the típica and of the jazz, everyone.
And inside we fraternized, I heard Alberto Castillo singing Italian canzonetta in the bus. It was marvelous.
The decline
HORACIO PRESTAMO
-Everything was full of tango, Buenos Aires was full of tango.
It started there, in ’59, the decline began in ’60. And it reached its peak in ’70.
-What do you remember from that period?
-That you could see it coming. You could see what was happening, you’d turn on the radio and you’d hear… the same thing as now. Please, don’t step on my flowers, Palito, buy it. It was torture. They stuck it in your head every day.
And then what I said before. For us, those of us who danced tango, there were four nicknames. Whichever of the four they stuck on you marked you for life. You were a finished man. Carlito – not Carlitos –, Carlito, Gardelito, Tanguito, or Milonguita.
You practically had to hide the fact that you danced tango.
-You said that if they gave you one of those four nicknames, you were a dead man. What do you mean?
-I’ll explain it to you in stadium-parlance: No girl would give you the time of day. Plain and simple. You were a marked man.
You were a marked man. Besides, the password to call yourself a player was, “I don’t like tango.” Then, from there, you could start talking.
If you started with “I don’t like tango,” then you could keep talking. Don’t even think about saying, “I like tango because…” And what about this idiot? You were an idiot because you liked tango.
I’m talking about my era, eh? Alito (an old milonguero) will come and tell me: “No, boy, it wasn’t like that.” “No, in your era.” Ricardo Suarez (another old milonguero) will be able to say the same thing. In his era, no; in mine, it was already like that.
MARIA EUGENIA ROLDAN
-Look, what mostly caused the decline of tango was the military dictatorship.
Though Oscar Héctor continued to organize dances, he did so only sporadically.
We had many periods of prohibition; we couldn’t assemble in the streets if we were more than two or three people. Because if they saw you, they asked for your documents.
I went to dance but, police often raided the dance halls.
The police arrested you without justification. They often took away fellow dancers in a truck parked in front of the door.
They were detained 24 hours while their records were checked.
Later tango began to reappear in ’83 with democracy.
The resurgence
PEDRO FARALDO “TOTO”
-In what year were you born?
-In ‘29.
-In the 1940s, I already saw how people danced… tango was in the air… tangos were whistled… There were magazines that published tango lyrics.
My sisters sung while washing clothes in the patio of my house.
-How nice… Were they magazines dedicated to tango?
-Sure, “El alma que canta,” (“The soul that sings”) and others that I don’t remember now. They contained all the lyrics of the tangos that were becoming popular.
-And people listened to the radio a lot…
-People listened to the radio a lot. The only entertainment there was at that time was putting the radio on the patio table and everyone would listen to it. There was nothing else.
-Do you still go to milongas? How often?
-I go. I go as often as possible.
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-And you’re also teaching… every week…
-Every week.
-And when did you become a tango teacher?
-I was forced to become a teacher because many young people saw me dancing and said to me: “I want to do what you’re doing.”
And I taught them; I taught them for free. But then they proved me wrong because what I taught them for free; they then taught for money.