Review of ‘Tango Masters: Osvaldo Fresedo’ in Tangodanza

A great review of Tango Masters, Osvaldo Fresedo in the July 2024 edition of TangoDanza magazine.

Als Tangohistoriker stößt man sehr oft auf sich wiederholende, wenig in die Tiefe gehende klischeehafte Geschichten und Statements, die immer wieder abgeschrieben werden. Eine große Ausnahme bilden hier die Bücher von Michael Lavocah aus der Serie ‘Tango Masters’. Wenige stochern so tief und akribisch in den Quellen, kaum jemand setzt sich so eigenständig und präzise mit einzelnen Tangos auseinander, niemand formuliert so tiefgehend und detailliert und belegt seine Aussagen dann auch noch mit Fußnoten sowie einer umfangreichen Bibliografie im Anhang. Eine große Stärke Lavocahs ist seine Sprache. Präzise, oft bildreich, auf den Punkt bringend und die richtigen Schwerpunkte setzend, lenkt er seine Leser durch den noblen musikalischen Kosmos des Fresedo-Sounds, setzt die Entwicklung des Orchesters kontrastreich in Beziehung zu den anderen Großen des Genres und arbeitet die Meilensteine seines Schaffens wie z.B. Buscándote oder Vida mía heraus.

As a tango historian, you very often come across repetitive, clichéd stories and statements that go into little depth and are copied again and again. The books by Michael Lavocah from the ‘Tango Masters’ series are a major exception here. Few poke so deeply and meticulously into the sources, hardly anyone deals so independently and precisely with individual tangos, no one formulates his statements in such depth and detail and then backs them up with footnotes and an extensive bibliography in the appendix. One of Lavocah’s great strengths is his language. Precise, often rich in imagery, to the point and setting the right priorities, he guides his readers through the noble musical cosmos of the Fresedo sound, contrasts the development of the orchestra with the other greats of the genre and highlights the milestones of his work, such as Buscándote or Vida mía.
– Olli Eyding

In depth review in the magazine. If you are in the EU, buying from Tangodanza is hte easiest way to get the book.

The Hawaiian guitar in Canaro’s recordings

Uptil now we have identified 107 different Canaro numbers which made use of the Hawaiian guitar, beginning with La mujer de anoche in March 1928 and finishing with Locuras in 1932. Steven Thull has built a Spotify playlist of these numbers from the Canaro “Colección Completa” (see below).

This list has now formed the basis for an article in the Argentine press (the authors started with their own list but then found ours) which includes a youtube version of the playlist for those who prefer that. Note that they’ve included Amor que muere twice in their article because there were two takes. My thanks to Svetlana Popović for her help with compiling our list.