1722  Notes from Buenos Aires 22

Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 21:55:46 -0500
From: Rick McGarrey <RICKMCG@FLASH.NET>
Subject: Notes from Buenos Aires 22

Trucho
(Part 2 of 2)

So I was laying in the hotel room, working myself into
a bad mood. Alejandra spends a good part of her time
trying to keep me entertained so this doesn't happen,
but she was having a tough time at Iguazu. She wasn't
able to get the hotel to find us a little space with a
CD player where we could dance (the first time in
about 10 hotels we haven't been able to work out
something), and I was getting tired of beating her at
ping pong, so there wasn't a lot to do. I was
thinking how I don't like trucho things. 'Trucho'
means phony, and I learned about it first hand a
couple of years back when the waitress at Porteno y
Bailarin passed me a counterfeit $50 pesos note. I
was thinking that there are some trucho things in
tango as well, and about how I like to try to find
things that are somewhat genuine if possible, like
some of the old clubs and the people who dance in
them. The 'Leales y Pampeanos' club in Avellaneda
really isn't much to look at, but it's beginning to
seem like home. Cacho keeps a separate non smoking
room for Nestor and Cristina and us, and the last time
we were there, I counted 14 other couples who came in
to dance with us, and some others who just came in to
watch. It's very friendly, and they like to give me
mate. It's part of the show that I make a big face
every time I drink it, and Cacho's standing joke now
is that I will have to perform every time I'm there.

They have some good dancers there, too. There's a man
called 'El Gitano', (the Gypsy) who is a top dancer,
and there is Nestor Serra, who is probably better than
most of the downtown milongueros. 'Milonguero' is a
term that is used so much that it's hard to pin down.
There is a group of around twenty five older downtown
dancers (the numbers decrease every year) that
everyone knows, and who some people like to think of
as the elite milongueros. A couple of them travel and
teach, and a couple are known on the stage, but most
of them just live in the milongas, and dance very good
social tango. I'm friends with some of them, I know
some of the others casually through Alejandra, and
I've filmed many of the best ones. I would say that
while these twenty five guys are not necessarily the
best dancers in the world, they are certainly among
them. I can think of ten or so men downtown who dance
as well, or maybe better, than they do who are not
members of the group. Gerard, who is probably better
than most of them, and 'El Gallego', who is probably
way better (more about him later) would be a couple of
examples. And there are many other milongueros who
are not from the city center, but who dance just as
well, and have as much experience as the downtown
group- but in different places. People like El Chino,
who is famous, and Nestor or El Gitano, who are not,
would fit into this category. They are spread across
the suburbs, and many don't even know each other,
except maybe by reputation. If you are in BsAs keep
your eyes open, because these are the world's best,
and there is a lot to learn from them that is not in
any video or workshop.

I try to keep an open mind, but the surprising thing
for me is that so few of the famous names and
performers that are talked about and idolized in other
parts of the world seem to look very good on the dance
floors in BsAs. Some of them are known, but many of
the stars from the U.S. workshops wouldn't even be
recognized. From what I've seen, they don't really
seem to dance with much passion or confidence in the
milongas. I don't know if they just aren't inspired
unless there is a paying audience, or it's too
crowded, or maybe all of the originality has just been
choreographed out of them. Maybe they need to walk
around so precisely and carefully all the time to
protect their reputations, and there's no energy left
for the music.

The little old man who is the secretary of
club 'Leales y Pampeanos' loves me (I tip a lot).
He's the one who took us upstairs to see the treasures
he guards in his office. The other night he walked by
and quietly gave me an old newspaper. I was showing
it around, but Nestor said I should hide it. I hadn't
had a chance to read it, but when I was sittin' on the
bed in Iguazu, thinkin' there was nothin' to do, I
decided to look through it. It was a club newspaper,
La Carreta, from the 1940s, and the front shows some
gauchos, with an ox cart. It must have been a paper
of record in those days, because it had the Avellaneda
city financial statement for 1945 published in it. I
checked it out, and they seemed to be doing okay, but
there wasn't much else. I was hoping for some type of
neat tango ads, but all I could find were ads for
plumbers and car dealers. I was reading it to
Alejandra, and just when I was about to give up, I
read the headline on a small article that
said, 'Homenaje a Razzano'. Alejandra said, 'I think
that guy was the one who sang with Carlos Gardel in
the beginning.' I read through the article, and it
talked about a lot of the club members, and then there
was a throw away line at the end that said, 'also
present to honor Razzano were Homero Manzi, Julio De
Caro, and Charlo (another famous old time tango
singer)'. So it looks like this modest little place
in Avellaneda is for real.

There are all sorts of fancy clubs, theaters, and
restaurants around BsAs that exploit famous tango
names, and it's hard to know if those people really
even set foot in some of them. But here is a little
hidden place on the side street in Avellaneda in which
the biggest names in tango barely rate a mention in
their monthly newsletter. The secretary wants us to
come down in the day when there is better light in the
dark office, so he can show us more of the history and
papers of the club, and we're going to try to get down
there before we leave. No one seems to go upstairs or
have much interest in the history of the place, so it
would be nice to get some of it written down before he
is gone, and things just slip away unnoticed. For
now, I think it's fairly certain that many of the big
names in tango were intimately familiar with this
little club where Gardel was a member. I'm sure they
worked and played in the old room where the working
people of Avellaneda still dance tango and sip mate
today for $1peso.

End