    |
|
Gardel and his recording history |
|||||
|
By Bruno Cespi and Héctor Lucci |
|||||
|
These talking machines astonished the Buenos Aires population that eagerly wanted to hear them. Because of that they were placed on Florida Street and on Avenida de Mayo. At these locals audible demonstrations were made for those who paid a fee equivalent to an admission to a popular show. This same experience and modality had already happened in Buenos Aires five years before, in 1893, with the appearance of Edison's phonograph that recorded and played wax cylinders. Coincidentally, in that so phonographic year ninety three, Mrs. Berthe Gardés, born in Toulouse, with her son Charles Romuald Gardés, born in the de la Grave hospital of that same city on December 11, 1890 arrived at the port of Buenos Aires from Bordeaux. Carlos arrived in Argentina on March 11, 1893, when he was two years and three months old. The decision taken by Mrs. Berta of moving to such a distant place like Buenos Aires with her natural son, amid a family situation so uncomfortable and of incomprehensible rigidity, was, even though she had never dreamed of it, a gift in advance for her son's future. Carlitos began to spend his days no less than in the center of Buenos Aires. It was his first school and where he learned and sang folk songs with his buddies. In those first years of the 900 the musical atmosphere of Buenos Aires was largely spread in a domestic way thanks to the gramophone. The local genres included tango, canzonette and arias of Italian operas. In that musical environment Carlitos lived his childhood. In 1902 the first discs for gramophone were recorded in Buenos Aires. Their diameter was between 165 and 175 mm, and the recordings were carried out by means of a traveling machine sent by the Zonophone company whose proprietor was a close collaborator to Emilio Berliner in the development of the gramophone. For those early Zonophone discs recorded their voices and music payadores and singers like Arturo de Nava, Alfredo Munilla, the orchestra of the Teatro San Martín and the Band of the Police of Buenos Aires, conducted by Félix Rizzuti, the father of the pianist José María. In 1905 the first 10-inch discs (25cm) appeared commercially. They were recorded in Buenos Aires by the same house Zonophone, increasing the number of interpreters: Ángel Villoldo, Andrée Vivianne, Higinio Cazón, Gabino Ezeiza, José Madariaga, the orchestra of the Apolo theater, among others. Already by this year other companies like Odeon, Victor, Pathé and Columbia also existed and recorded in Buenos Aires with the same traveling system, in which tango occupied a preferential place. Then we come to 1910 when the Italian José Tagini, running a bazaar business, sale of discs and phonographic machines, got the license from the Columbia house of North America for recording. He installed at the same place the recording laboratory, on Avenida de Mayo and Perú (Av. de Mayo 601, Perú 25). Among the first characters that recorded those discs for Columbia Record were Alfredo Gobbi, Ángel Villoldo, Gabino Ezeiza, Eugenio Gerardo López, Arturo Mathon, José Betinotti, Flora Rodríguez de Gobbi, Juan Sarcione and many more. Appearing as musical groups we have the Municipal Band, Vicente Greco's tango orchestra labeled as «Orquesta Típica Criolla». This name was for the first time printed on a record label. They were followed by groups like those led by Tano Genaro Espósito and Juan Maglio "Pacho" who, with his magnificent quartet, would become the biggest releaser of Argentine records in 1912.
The body of participants that occupied the catalog of these Columbia Record discs was very extensive and it is then when José Tagini offered the opportunity to a 21 year-old youth, already called Carlos Gardel, to record seven double discs with a repertoire of his choice. The announcement advertising the first four discs recorded by Carlos Gardel was published by the Tagini house in the Fray Mocho magazine on March 28, 1913 and with the following repertoire: T 594: "La mañanita", estilo / "Me dejaste", estilo; T 595 "Mi madre", estilo / "Es en vano", song; T 637 "Pobre flor", estilo / "La mariposa", estilo; T 638 "El almohadón", waltz / "Brisas de la tarde", song. This announcement said: «Carlos Gardel, tenor. Artist of the Teatro Nacional. 25 cm Double discs. $2. m/n (national currency).»
These Columbia Record double discs were cut into matrixes and recorded in North America and they had navy blue labels with golden letters. The three missing discs appeared almost immediately and they were: T 728 "Sos mi tirador plateado", estilo / "Yo sé hacer", cifra; T 729 "Mi china cabrera", estilo / "A mi madre", estilo; T 730 "El sueño", estilo / "A Mitre", waltz. Five years passed for Gardel to record again and this time he made it for the Max Glücksmann house in 1917, accompanied by José Razzano. The recordings were carried out in a small room of a vault of Pathé film tapes, of which Max Glücksmann was the agent.
The first number that the duo chose to commit to record belonged to Ángel Villoldo and was entitled "Cantar eterno", a song released in April of that year, alternating in each double disc the duet with some pieces by Razzano and others by Gardel as soloists. In this first lot of approximately fifty recordings the interpretation of tango as a song is born in a Gardel's solo: "Mi noche triste", a piece elaborated between Samuel Castriota with his tango "Lita" (1915) and Pascual Contursi with his poem "Mal de ausencia" (1917). Gardel put what was missing: the resolution in the interpretation. All these 1917 discs were recorded in wax and they were sent to Brazil for their matrix process and pressing. For that reason you can read on the labels, in very small fonts and in bas-relief, the legend «ind. Brasileira» (made in Brazil).
The recording career displayed by Gardel was uninterrupted from 1919 to 1935. In Argentina Rosita Quiroga was the first female singer that recorded a disc with microphone (electrical process). It was on March 1, 1926 for the Victor Company with Antonio Polito's and Celedonio Flores's tango "La musa mistonga", disc Nº 79.632. Carlos Gardel recorded his first electric disc in Argentina on November 8, 1926 with Nicolás Verona's and Lito Más's paso doble, entitled "Puñadito de sal", Nº 1 (matrix). But in fact, his first electric recording was cut in Barcelona on December 26, 1925 with Eduardo Bonessi's and Enrique Dizeo's tango: "Echaste buena". He continued recording in Buenos Aires until 1927 and in 1928 he recorded in Barcelona again, and in Buenos Aires on June 20 of that same year again. He returned to Paris and recorded from October 11, 1928 to April 6, 1929; in Buenos Aires between 1919-1930; in Paris in 1931; in Barcelona in 1932; Buenos Aires in 1933 and his last recordings were made in New York, from the 7/27/34 to March 20,1935 with "Guitarra mía", a tune by Gardel and Le Pera. Today, ninety years after his first disc for Columbia Record, Gardel continues to be the genuine representation of our national repertoire. |
|||||
 |
n 1899, imported
by the house Enrique Lepage located on Bolívar 375, the first
The machine that carried out these acoustic recordings was the same one that Alfredo Améndola brought from Germany for his Atlanta records in 1912 and that, when ceasing his activity in 1915, was acquired in an auction by Max Glücksmann. These early 1917 discs had a purple color label with golden letters and the inscription «Gardel-Razzano».
In 1919 another cycle of recordings began, now in Disco Nacional, entirely manufactured in our country. On the label, also of purple color can be read: «Manufactured exclusively for Max Glücksmann by the First national factory of records in the Argentine Republic».