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<strong>Top</strong> <strong>10</strong> Tango Tunes<br />
1 La Cumparsita<br />
2 Por una Cabeza<br />
3 Mi Noche Triste<br />
4 Silencio<br />
5 El Carretero<br />
6 Tomo y Obligo<br />
7 Mi <strong>Buenos</strong> <strong>Aires</strong> Querido<br />
8 Volvió una Noche<br />
9 El Día que me Quieras<br />
0 Guitarra Guitarra Mía<br />
La Cumparsita<br />
To the chagrin of<br />
porteños, tango’s most<br />
recognizable melody,<br />
La Cumparsita, has its<br />
origins in Montevideo,<br />
Uruguay, where a<br />
struggling architecture<br />
student anonymously<br />
gave the sheet music to<br />
a local band director in<br />
1917. It was only after the<br />
student later heard his<br />
composition when he was<br />
in Paris that he understood<br />
his folly – having<br />
sold the rights to the tune<br />
for just 20 pesos.<br />
* Casimiro Ain (1882–1940)<br />
Gardel would have never<br />
been able to seduce Europe had<br />
the dancer Casimiro Ain not<br />
been through Paris in 1904,<br />
where this <strong>Buenos</strong> <strong>Aires</strong> milkman’s<br />
son captivated audiences<br />
with what was then an unknown<br />
artform, which he called “tango<br />
criollo” (earlier tango). Ain, in a<br />
later Paris visit, succeeded in<br />
convincing the archbishops that<br />
tango was not a sinful dance.<br />
( Carlos Saura (b.1932)<br />
Spanish director and<br />
choreographer Saura is most<br />
famous for his Flamenco trilogy<br />
of films – including 1983’s<br />
Carmen, starring flamenco<br />
The Mythical Gardel<br />
Carlos Gardel might not figure as prominently as<br />
Edith Piaf or Al Jolson among early 20th-century<br />
vocalists, but the Latin songbird commands an<br />
Argentinian cult that would put Elvis worshippers to<br />
shame. Gardel wedded lyrics about deceit, drunkenness,<br />
and <strong>Buenos</strong> <strong>Aires</strong> to tango’s florid guitar lines.<br />
His presumed birthplace is Toulouse, France, where<br />
he was born Charles Romuald Gardes in 1890,<br />
though some sources suggest Uruguay is his native<br />
soil. Undisputed is his upbringing in <strong>Buenos</strong> <strong>Aires</strong>’<br />
Abasto district, where push-cart vendors and conmen<br />
provided ample inspiration for his songs. European<br />
audiences, won over by Gardel’s charm, helped<br />
legitimize tango in the eyes of porteño elites. Gardel<br />
died in a plane crash in 1935, a tragedy which only<br />
stoked his legend.<br />
A poster featuring tango star Carlos Gardel<br />
colossus Antonio Gades – but his<br />
internationally screened, highly<br />
conceptual, and controversial<br />
1998 feature,Tango, helped<br />
propel the dance’s worldwide<br />
renaissance.<br />
) Gotan Project<br />
The bohemian crew of<br />
porteños and Parisians comprising<br />
Gotan Project are<br />
practitioners of electronic tango,<br />
which fuses sampling and beats<br />
from hip-hop and dub with sultry<br />
vocals and bandoneón. Their first<br />
album, La Revancha del Tango, is<br />
their greatest statement. Similar<br />
to a Cockeny slang, the group’s<br />
name is derived from lunfardo’s<br />
jumbling of the word “tango.”<br />
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<strong>Buenos</strong> <strong>Aires</strong>’ <strong>Top</strong> <strong>10</strong><br />
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