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Tango according to Juan Carlos Thorry
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Singer, author and speaker (28 June 1908 - 12 February 2000) Full name: José Antonio Torrontegui |
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By Juan Carlos Thorry
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 y relationship with tango
is old, intimate and sentimental. I was a young kid and then my old
man, who used to play guitar, taught me some accompaniments (dominant
and tonic chords) with which I began my early "two-four" songs.
«Which melody would I have learned first? I remember, through the distant time, the counter line of "La cumparsita", the one that says: "Si supieras, que aún dentro de mi alma..." And then, years later, "Buenos Aires, la reina del Plata...", or "Rechiflao en mi tristeza...", when I became acquainted with Carlos Gardel.
«My first "long" trousers, the end of my high school studies and the time when I entered the university are very closely linked to my early experiences at "dancehalls". We used to go to dance to the venues called then "cabarets", which later became "boites" and thereafter "night-clubs" and now are "boliches". There we held a contest of twists and turns dancing with the best players of the period: Troilo, D'Arienzo, Fresedo, Pugliese, Donato, De Angelis, etc. They caressed our adolescent dreams with the most popular melodies of the time. «There, at the "Florida Club" I met and became friend of Osvaldo Fresedo's, whose friendship still today I have the honor to enjoy, as well as that of the players of his orchestra: the unforgettable José María Rizzutti, "el tano" Muzzi and the wonderful violinist Manlio Francia. Rizzutti was who wrote in the music staff what I awkwardly played for him "by ear" on the piano. A sweet melody, with as well syrupy lyrics which was named "Pensando en ti" and that, to elude involvements, I smartly dedicated on the cover of the Rivarola's publication: «To her». Fresedo recorded it. That meant to me then the most important event in my life. «Later, when I gave up my studies and started this blessed career, professional singing on radio or at theaters. I mixed foreign melodies like jazz tunes or bolero airs or French songs with the most famous tango expressions of the time. In 1934 at the cinema theater Paris of Suipacha Street, between Cangallo and Bartolomé Mitre (inexistent today) I appeared at soap operas aired by radio directed by Claudio Martínez Payva and whose cast was headed by Fernando Ochoa. I announced the show and was, furthermore, the jazz crooner in the Rudy Ayala Orchestra. There was a sort of competition between jazz and tango. The two orchestras were the abovementioned jazzband led by Ayala and the Juan Canaro's tango orchestra. In the latter orchestra the pianist was Rodolfo Biagi.
«Consequently, because of these programs I came to know the beloved "Manos brujas" with whom we became friends. During a rehearsal he played for me a tune he had just composed and asked me to write the lyrics for it. There on the piano, I scribbled the first words of "Indiferencia". Something similar happened, years later, with Edgardo Donato on radio El Mundo. We agreed that I should write the lines for his number "Mi serenata". Those two numbers, together with "Vida querida" with music by the unforgettable Lalo Scalise, are my dearest tango gems.» He is author of: Published in: "Tango. Un siglo de historia", Editorial Perfil, Buenos Aires 1980, page 312. |
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