In late January, I had the great pleasure to be at the Garua milonga in Seattle. One of my DJ friends asked me how to build a good tanda around Poema, the masterpiece interpreted by Francisco Canaro and Roberto Maida in 1935. It's a tough one because Poema is one of these instantly recognizable tangos that gets everybody off their chair and on the dance floor. You have to be careful because if you start a tanda with a masterpiece like this one, you better be able to deliver two or three strong tangos right after. Otherwise, a few dancers might sit after just one (yikes!). Here is my solution to the problem:
1. Poema (Canaro/Maida) - 1935
2. Invierno (Canaro/Maida) - 1937
3. Copos de Nieve (Canaro/Maida) - 1937
4. Todo Corazon (Canaro) - 1936
In this tanda, I am mixing three songs with one instrumental, which is fine. In addition, all tangos have similar speeds (around 120 beats per minute), are from the same era, and have the same "feeling". I have used this little gem many a time at the end of an evening with a lot of success. Try it and tell me how it goes for you. If you have other suggestions about this topic, feel free to comment below.
Happy dancing!
EL
Poema is what I call an orphan tango, I love it but I never play it. And I will explain why:
ReplyDelete1- There are no tracks of Maida/Canaro with similar sound/sonority to my taste.
2- There is always a special dancer for every kind of orchestra or combination of singer/orchestra. There is always a partner that you like the most to dance milonga, other for waltz, other Di Sarly and other one for Arienzo. Therefore DJs should propose a certain continuous sonority within the same tanda. In my opinion the last 30 seconds of track should not be that different from start of the consecutive next tango track ….
3- There is enough of Maida/Canaro around to make any kind of combinations regulating energy up, down, up-down-up and down-up down. Actually a well-done combination of Maida/Canaro could be the “best tanda” of the milonga.
4- Poema is one of those highly emotional charged tango and I would never combine it with other highly emotional tango like Invierno.
5- I don’t have problems of mixing instrumentals and singed tangos… but looking the sonority issues almost never do it… and Poema stays always out because beautiful tandas can be build using Canaro instrumental alone or Maida/Canaro alone.
6- The all regulation of energy of a dance floor seems to me a lot more important then regulating the energy of tracks in a tanda around Poema….
But this is a my very personal point of view…
Personally, I enjoy your choice here, Eric, with one caveat: I tend to prefer Poema last in a tanda, as I see it as reaching a pinnacle with the song, that one builds to. (That said, if it is to be the last tanda, I can see some rationale for not wanting to end with Poema, in order to resolve the emotional intensity of the song by the end of the milonga.)
ReplyDeletePerhaps I have something to learn about it, but I presently don't concur with the previous writer's aversion to using Invierno with Poema in one tanda. Using Invierno, I would be inclined to also put it right next to (in my case immediately before) Poema, as you have. I think this kind of building of emotional energy is exactly what we want, and Invierno serves this role well.
An alternative to Invierno, in my mind, is Soledad. Or possibly Soledad could work well as the second song in this tanda, with Invierno third.
Building up to these with the first two songs, I'd certainly consider your choices in this order:
Copos de Nieve
Todo Corazon
Another set of choices for Poema with Soledad, which I have used, is:
Gran Hotel Victoria
La copla porteña
Soledad
Poema
Cheers,
Timothy Shaw
Obviously you can pass Poema with the others Maida/Canaro and add some instrumental!
ReplyDeleteObviously you can have Poema and Invierno in the same tanda!...
I just don't do it, because I think there are better to offers... and this is a personal choice....
Artur Paulo
Thank you Artur and Tim for your comments. I am not surprised to read different opinions. If you ask 5 DJs about something, you will likely get 9 points of view ;-). Tim, I agree that Poema could easily be played last because it would leave the dancers will a great lasting impression of the tanda. I decided to play it first because everybody knows it and it gets people off their chair. When I DJ, my mission statement is "Make them dance".
ReplyDeleteBest Regard,
Eric Lanoix