Anibal Arias, the guitar in tango
Welcome to the “The Masters of Music tell” podcast. Today I present my conversation with the late guitarist Anibal Arias, in an interview I recorded in Buenos Aires in 1998.
I met Anibal Arias at the Popular Music School of Avellaneda, where I studied for a while. Arias had co-founded this school of tango and folklore music. I also heard him play in a duo with the great bandoneonist Osvaldo Montes and in the Buenos Aires Tango Orchestra on Corrientes Avenue, a municipal tango orchestra that he had also co-founded.
When I visited Anibal Arias at his house, he took me directly to the studio. It was full of books, newspapers and photographs about tango. Anibal Arias spent his life researching the origins and history of this musical style, knowledge that he was very happy to pass on. Listen to what he told me on this topic!
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Biography
In the house where he was born in Villa Devoto there was music in the air that felt like a breath. And it is very likely that when he was still in his mother’s womb he would have enjoyed the sweet and harmonious lullaby that came out of a guitar and a voice when his father —a native of Santiago del Estero— sang songs and pluck those strings.
At the age when other children began to pick up a pencil to write the first strokes, he, at only four years old, was already holding the fingerboard of a guitar and with his thin fingers formed the simple chords of a song with that passion for the music. that would accompany him for the rest of his life.
Wearing shorts, he began with Anibal Arias brothers and cousins forming groups, forming a duo with his sister Amanda under the name Los Catamarcanitos in honor of his mother born in the province of Catamarca.
His first teacher, when he was ten years old, was a colleague of his father, Pedro Ramírez Sánchez, who guided him in his first steps and became his companion and adviser long after the. With him he met other guitar schools. This universe contributed to his development and allowed him to show a competence and confidence that are rare in a child. There he nurtured the technical and musical knowledge, but his talent and self-taught spirit did the rest.
He became a talented performer of classical music, but soon found his way into popular music. He began in folk music accompanying prestigious singers and groups from the golden age of that genre: Los Arrieros Cuyanos, Virginia Vera, the Vera-Molina duo, Alberto Castelar, Rogelio Araya, Hilda Vivar, Waldo Belloso, Moreno-Sayago duo, Ramona Galarza, Julia Vidal, Berón Sisters, Barroso Brothers, Argentino Luna, among others.
But his passion was tango and he played for many years at the now defunct venue La Querencia, on Avenida de Mayo, where he supported a large number of singers who performed at his shows.
He was well known when he debuted in tango accompanying a singer from the Mataderos neighborhood: Ángel Reco, whom he fondly remembers. Reco died in 1992 and was one of those classic neighborhood singers who emerged on the radio in the forties, according to the article written by Sara Ribot in September 1992 for the magazine Tango y Lunfardo.
In 1953 he joined the guitar group that accompanied Héctor Mauré for four years. He also played in a large number of ensembles: Miguel Nijensohn’s A Puro Tango quartet, a trio with Osvaldo Tarantino and Osvaldo Rizzo, several quartets by Enrique Alessio, Jorge Dragone, Armando Pontier, Luis Stazo, Eduardo Ferri, Osvaldo Piro, Celso Amato. , Francisco Grillo, Héctor Stamponi, José Libertella and, from 1969 to 1975, directed by Aníbal Troilo.
He was a guitarist for the greatest singers: Libertad Lamarque, Raúl Berón, Oscar Alonso, Carlos Acuña, Tania, Ángel Cárdenas, Roberto Rufino, Floreal Ruiz, Julio Sosa, Roberto Goyeneche, Susana Rinaldi, Edmundo Rivero, Enzo Valentino, Néstor Fabián, Alberto Morán, Jorge Casal, Argentino Ledesma, the Dante-Larroca duo and many more.
He was a member of the Tango Orchestra of the City of Buenos Aires, since its inception in 1980-under the direction of Carlos García and Raúl Garello. With this orchestra he toured Argentina and several Latin American countries and garnered well-deserved praise.
Now he is part of the cast of El Café de los Maestros together with the most outstanding musicians and singers. He appeared in the film of the same name shot in 2006 and appeared, with some of its members, in Berlin, Rome, Athens, Paris, London and Rio de Janeiro.
He dedicates much of his time to teaching to pass on his knowledge and experience to the younger generations and help them perfect their technique.
He was the founder of the School of Popular Music of the Municipality of Avellaneda where he worked as a professor of History of Tango and Tango Guitar.
He made numerous trips to the United States, Brazil, France, Spain, Germany, Greece, Japan (twelve times) with different artists, especially with the duo he formed with the bandoneonist Osvaldo Montes. Noteworthy is the historic trip to Washington with the Aníbal Troilo quartet in March 1972 for the May 25 festivities.
With Susana Rinaldi he performed in Paris at the Olympia and at the Theater de la Ville, also at the Teatro The Comedy of Madrid. With the Sexteto Mayor: in Venice, Berlin and Washington.
His first solo album, La Guitarra Romántica del Tango, was in 1985 for RCA, reissued on compact disc in 2008. It was followed by Una guitarra para Gardel and with his guitar quartet: two discs, Nuestras guitarras con Carlos Martínez, Six strings and a voice with Oscar Ferrari and “Querido Chamamé” with the bandoneonist Antonio Príncipe.