Tango and Folklore
Today’s podcast features Carlos Garcia’s pianist. I interviewed him in January 1999 in a confectionery on Corrientes Avenue. Only a few steps separated us from the Alvear Theater, where we rehearsed after our conversation with the Municipal Tango Orchestra of Buenos Aires. He has conducted this orchestra together with Raúl Garelo since its foundation in 1980.
The first thing Garcia told me proudly was that he was a professional musician from the age of 72. When I asked him about his magic formula, how come he still manages to have so much energy, he replied, “Since I was 13, I’ve gotten up every morning and gone to work, until now. It keeps me in shape.”
García was born on April 21, 1914 in Buenos Aires. As a young man he accompanied silent films at the piano in the cinema of his San Cristóbal neighborhood. From 1932 he played in Roberto Firpo’s Orquesta Típica. In his long life, – he died in 2006 at the age of 92 -, he dedicated himself not only to tango. He was also interested in Argentine folklore and jazz. But his true musical roots were still tango.
Buy the full transcript
Part of the interview transcript
“And I’m very happy, because it’s a career, music is a career full of beauty… Hey… Sure, one can say “why do you like it”, but the beauty of the music is incomparable. Also, no… No… it is not to see, it is to feel, if there is no sensitivity everything I say is useless, is it not true?
This… one… it starts by liking the popular, because there is the root, right? Scholarly music needs a base, the basis is popular music ah? It means that without that, the one who does not know this, is in a… in a dictionary… in an English musical encyclopedia; he who does not know the music of the countryside, does not know the music, right? If you don’t finish or start, let’s say, by liking a chacarera to a samba or tango, you will never have sensitivity for another cos“.
“When… With what happened with de Caro as can happen with Salgán, which is a phenomenon, and that is the phenomenon not Piazzolla, Salgán. I speak within tango, tango huh? not music from Buenos Aires, tango. Tango has… if we neglect it… that happens with all popular music in all parts of the world.
I was in France and Brazil recently with the orchestra, 2, 3 years ago and to a journalist, I told a girl: “You have in your popular music, perhaps the most sensual rhythm in the world, the rhythm of samba”; it is the most, the most, the most… more sensual, it’s a thing that yes, if you don’t feel it, you can’t dance. But you guys are raffling it, do you know what a raffle is?“
Carlos Juan Pedro García Echeverry (April 21, 1914 – August 4, 2006) was an Argentine pianist, conductor, composer and arranger.
He grew up in the city of Buenos Aires, in the neighborhood of San Cristóbal and between 1920 and 1926, he began his first musical studies with Mariano Domínguez (1920-1926). Some time later, he knew how to perfect himself in piano, studying harmony, counterpoint, fugue, composition and instrumentation with maestro Pedro Rubbione (1929-1969).
As a teenager he accompanied from the piano the projection of silent films, in the transitional period towards sound cinema, as his first works. After his first professional activities in 1926, he joined in 1932 the Orquesta Típica of Roberto Firpo and the typical trio, replacing Sebastián Piana, who accompanied Mercedes Simone (between 1936 and 1938 in recordings and live performances).
Then, until 1946, he dedicated himself to Argentine and American folk music and was part of the Hawaiian Serenaders, Efraín Orozco orchestras and seconded the folk duo Martínez-Ledesma. During the same years he was pianist of the Alberto Castellanos orchestra, in LR1 Radio El Mundo. From 1946 to 1960, he dedicated himself to teaching and had some performances as a soloist and accompanist of outstanding singers. From 1960 he served as musical advisor to LS1 Radio Municipal and, later, to the record label EMI Odeón until 1983. Among his extensive discography, solo piano discs stand out and the recording of Orchestra and guitar with Roberto Grela.
In the seventies he made a tour at the head of his orchestra Tango All Stars through forty cities in Japan, in addition to those he completed throughout the country and abroad. He was accompanied by outstanding singers whom he directed on tours, concerts and recordings: Héctor Pacheco, Ramona Galarza, Alberto Marino, Alfredo Zitarrosa, Rubén Juárez, Oscar Alonso, Claudio Bergé, Francisco Llanos and Guillermo Fernández, Argentino Ledesma, Alberto Merlo, among others. In 1978 he joined a formation of 55 musicians in the Municipal Theater Presidente Alvear of the cycle “Tangos for the World”.
From 1980 he began to conduct until his death, the Tango Orchestra of the City of Buenos Aires, co-directed by Raúl Garello. He was also in charge of the musical arrangements of the most traditional tangos that were performed in this orchestra. In the national cinema, he set to music several Argentine films: “Hormiga negra” (dir.: Ricardo Alberto Defilippi, 1979), “La canción de Buenos Aires” (dir.: Fernando Siro, 1980).
In 1985 he received the Konex Award, with a diploma of merit as a Typical Orchestra Conductor in the Popular Music category.
Video – My Old Men’s House
carlos garcía entrepreneur, carlos garcía kavak, carlos garcia Facebook, carlos garcía humorist wikipedia
We recommend these fantastic books:
