2006  RCA torching of Tango records

Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 16:27:48 -0300
From: Alberto Gesualdi <clambat2001@YAHOO.COM.AR>
Subject: RCA torching of Tango records

Dear friends from Tango list

It is part of local Tango story. An incident happened on the 60s at RCA warehouse in Buenos Aires, when the former manager Ricardo Mejia , torched original disks with tango records. Reasons for this act are still not very clear, but it seems it was related with the need for more room for the rehearsal of the music group that this producer was launching, El club del Clan .

Wether it was for this reason or not, the fact was that unvaluable master records were lost forever.

40 years later, once again RCA premises are mentioned , since a local cable company that moved to the former RCA building, decided to open the abandoned recording studio, as an auditorium for 200 people, keeping some of the old equipment such as the cabin and keyboard for sound mixing, but placing more technological features in lighting and audio facilities, including a stage for performances of musicians from folklore, jazz, tango and other rhytms.

The official opening will be on March 11th, 2004, with a performance of Trio Argentino , a group of three bass(one of six chords and two of four chords ), that play jazz , Bach.... and some Piazzolla :):) .

The date will refer to the 75th anniversary of the original opening of the RCA building in 1929, when this company and the Odeon company were fiercely competing for the local tango singers. Odeon with Max Glucksman have Canaro , Firpo, Corsini and Gardel (but Victor finally take Gardel with them using the support of their mother company in USA). And Victor have Fresedo, De Caro , Rosita Quiroga , and later have D Arienzo and Libertad Lamarque with a huge success.

Unfortunately, most of the original recordings of De Caro were lost with the torching .Although there was a new manager after Mejma , Aquiles Giacometti, that tried to amend the lost of the complete catalog of tango masters, by asking some of the artists to come again and record the tangos lost . Also making new productions for Goyeneche and Piazzolla, and preserving for the future the recordings of Hugo Diaz .
Giacometti also produced recordings for Dino Saluzzi and Sexteto Tango , and his last effort in 1970 was to call D Arienzo to record instead of Palito Ortega, one of the members of the Club del Clan that producer Mejia brought to RCA.

Later RCA was sold to a german label, BMG , and this recording studio was hired to whoever pay for the rental fee. On the last years , there were recording of playbacks only, and the tango singers ( as Goyeneche) , made the printing of their voices over this playback, at other smaller/cheaper studios.

The last official recording was a queer one, the argentine 1978 song for the Fifa Soccer World Cup , made by a band , and produced by Mochin Marafiotti ( the husband of Maria Graqa the tango singer) , for a competitor recording company, a single record .

Maybe on march 11th, 2004, the first sounds of Trio Argentino will finish to exorcize the demons of ignorance and prejudice that have been hanging around so many years .

Warm regards
Alberto Gesualdi
Buenos Aires



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