Tango developed from a fusion of diverse cultures and art forms that existed in Argentina, and more specifically, the Rio de la Plata region that includes Buenos Aires, and Montevideo, Uruguay. Argentina experienced an economic boom during the middle and late 19th century, with its fertile land, new railroad system, and sustainable port city. It became a destination country in the new world, attracting European immigrants, mostly from Italy, Spain, and Eastern Europe, well into the beginning of the 20th century. This is a good reminder that people were immigrating all up and down the coast of the Americas, compared to the parallel wave of immigration in North America around 1900 to 1920. A wave of mass immigration amounted to a population explosion in Argentina, as it transformed from a small country largely populated by people of Spanish and African descent to a booming displaced European metropolis with the marginalized Afro-Argentine population. Between roughly 1870 and 1914, Argentina increased its total population by seven million, and the capital port city of Buenos Aires went from 180,000 to 1.5 million inhabitants, that's quite a population explosion. During this period of economic and cultural transformation, the growing city of Buenos Aires became a melting pot of cultures whereas the center of the capital, now nicknamed the Paris of South America, housed to the middle and upper classes. Those newly arrived and poor immigrants were housed in cramped quarters on the outskirts of the city center. Many worked in the slaughterhouses that processed beef to be exported abroad. In this Melodyne population, immigrants also blended their own music and dance, and poetic forms from their distinct cultures. Over time, these diverse cultural elements, such as the European musical instruments, the Italian style of the bel canto or beautiful singing, and a lively klezmer rhythms merged together to create a new and unique urban music dance poetry, from now we know as Tango. By the turn of the 20th century, Tango spread from the destitute arrabales, that's the word for the outer slums, to the cosmopolitan city center, and became a part, a popular culture in Buenos Aires. Portenos, as people from the port city are called, began dancing, singing, and playing this expressive art form. Not only in the burdelas or the brothels, but also in cafes, theaters, and neighborhood courtyards. The most important antecedents of Tango include the Ovenera, the milonga, the Bajada, Candombe, and even Klezmer. Beginning as early as the 1850s, the Afro-Cuban habanera rhythm influenced the Argentine milonga, which is Tango's closest relative. This familiar Latin rhythm is a dotted eighth note,16th note, followed by two eighth notes, into four time, and it sounds like this. Two types of milonga relate to Tango, namely, the milonga campera, which means the country milonga, and the milonga ciudadana, which is the city milonga. Often associated with the pumpers, that is the prairies and the countryside outside of the city of Buenos Aires, the milonga campera features a slow tempo in a minor key. In contrast, the urban milonga or the milonga ciudadana moves at a fast tempo with jaunty syncopated rhythms. It was most likely being danced in the burdelas, again that's the brothels of Bueno cities, around the turn of the 19th century by these newly arrived immigrants or the Compadritos. These are the urbanized gauchos that compiled to raise when the Pampas. They were really hoodlums and they're prostitutes. The Payador is the vocal form related to the milonga. Since it also incorporates that classic Latin dotted rhythm sung by a Payador who was an urgent time menstrual and guitarist of the Pampas. These narrative songs told stories in a speech singing style that emphasized the poetic text. Often two Payadors would engage in competitions with improvised song duals in stanzas alternating between question and answer, as they offered expressive interpretation of their improvised poetry. One of the most distinguished Payadors was the Afro-Argentine, Gabino Ezeiza, who lived from 1858 to 1916. Let's listen El Payador sung by Ezeiza while will you will hear the emphasis on the words about the Payador and this simple guitar accompaniment. Here, you can refer to El Payador on the Spotify list. An important antecedent to Tango dance brought to South America by enslaved Africans is the Candombe, an Afro-Argentine, Afro-Uruguayan dance. Dates back to the colonial era. The unique features that Tango borrowed from the Candombe include; the Quebradas and the Cortes. A Quebrada is an improvised jerky contortion, and the Corte is a sudden suggestive pause. Although the Candombe was danced apart, early Tango was danced in a couple's embrace. Yet, they most likely incorporated Quebradas and Cortes that we will see in the dramatic gestures of the Tango dance. In his book, The Art History of Love, Robert Farris Thompson also traces the pivoting dance step, La Viborita, which means the little snake to the grapevine of the Eastern European Jewish Horta. Well, it's really hard to say what came first, Tango dance or Tango music? Mostly likely, they were born together in the shady dance halls, these cafes and brought those in Buenos Aires as musicians improvised to accompany the new dance movements. While scholars have varying opinions on the actual origin of the word Tango, it emerged at the turn of the century, the turn of the 20th century, to refer to an art form marked by the fusion of Argentine, Afro-Argentine in European music and dance genres occurring in the Rio de la Plata region. Portaños claimed this new art form as their own by calling it Tango Criollo. The adjective Criollo indicated a local Argentine form adopted from a foreign one. The earliest musical ensembles included various configurations of flute, guitar, violin, and bandoneon. Here is a bandoneon. It's the German made concertina that probably made its way to Argentina on an immigrant ship. We will explore this instrument more in the next module. Such ensembles were called an orquestas típica criollo, means a typical authentic orchestra. Early tangos retained the milonga rhythm in a moderate to fast tempo. Two of the most important early Tango musicians of La Guardia Vieja, that means The Old Guard, were Angel Villoldo, who lived from 1868 to 1919, and Eduardo Arolas who lived from 1892 to 1924. Known as El Tigre del Bandoneon, the tiger of the Bandoneon, Arolas was a self-taught musician, and prolific composer who refined the Bandoneon Tango style by playing with both hands in parts. In our course spotify playlist, listen to an early recording of Villoldo's famous Tango El Choclo, recorded by the Orquesta Tipica of Arolas in 1913. So pause this video and listen for the dotted rhythm accompaniment that's played by the guitar, and the melody played by the Bandoneon. Well, maybe it's a flute. It's hard to tell with this old recording. The Tango cancion or the tango song took shape in the 19 teens, as it continued in the tradition of the Appoggiatura with the emphasis on melody in words. These early verses depicted the life of the Bordellos, and often portrayed lighthearted or superficial images. Carlos Gardel, who we think was born in 1819 and died in 1935, was probably the most famous singer. He admired the songs of the Appoggiatura. He first performed and recorded traditional Argentine folk songs in the late teens with guitar accompaniment. Just like Appoggiatura. Then when he began incorporating Tango into his repertory, his timing perfectly coincided with the solidification of the new form. In 1917, Gardel recorded what is considered the first Tango cancion called Mi Noche Triste, which means my sad night. The woeful lyrics by Contursi about a woman dumping a man set a precedent for many sad Tangos that followed. Listen to the beginning of this old recording, you will hear how like Appoggiatura performance conforms to a natural speaking pattern of the poetic phrases, and emphasizes the dramatic expression of the poetry. During the 19 teens, Tango traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to France, where it captured the imagination of Parisian aristocracy, and it took on a new face different from its low class origins in Argentina. The Parisian upper-class refined the genre to a smoother style and renamed it Tango Argentino. By 1913, Tango mania had spread throughout Paris, Europe, and North America. Specifically, by such ballroom dancers as Irene and Vernon Castle. All classes of society were dancing Tango, as well as purchasing clothing and perfume named after it. Once Tango took over Europe, the gentry upon societies reclaimed the transformed rescale genre of the Bordellos. All members of society enjoyed it as a dance and as a musical art form in upper-class, dance halls, and neighborhoods social clubs, and cabarets, as well as in the cafes, bars, silent movie theaters, and on the radio. Back home, with the European stamp of approval, Tango became the cultural icon upon societies. Throughout its development as a multicultural art form of music, dance, and poetry, Tango still retains that status today.
