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More than two to tango

Getting back to a classic's multicultural roots
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By Tony Ozuna
For The Prague Post
October 8th, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Daniel Melingo's voice matches his rough-hewn looks.
Melingo


When: Friday, Oct. 10, at 7:30
Where: Pálac Akropolis
Tickets: 385 Kč, available through Ticketpro and at the venue

A former rocker, Daniel Melingo, with his group Los Ramones Del Tango, has revived tango for a new generation both at home and beyond his home base of Buenos Aires. Yet his sound isn’t electro-tango, seeped in samples and club beats like Gotan Project or Bajofondo Tango Club. Instead, Melingo, 51, who as a singer is often compared to Tom Waits and Serge Gainsbourg, looks deeper to the roots of this universal, enigmatic dance music with a rough, gravelly voice.
Though tango is typically associated with Argentina and in particular Buenos Aires, it has no true homeland. Its roots are in the cultures, nationalities and languages of at least two continents. Thus, when Melingo declares, “Paris is the Mecca of Tango music” on a French video promoting his new album Maldito Tango, he is not being ironic or facetious.
Tango’s story begins in both Argentina and Uruguay (the River Plate region), where it arose from working-class emigrants — in particular Italians but also Greeks, Russians, Poles, Gypsies, Germans and Jews from throughout Eastern Europe. These cultures came together in the 1880s and ’90s with their own music and dances, influencing the country dance music of the gauchos, the “cowboys” of Argentina, and the Creoles, who were half-Indian, half-Argentinian. There was also a profound influence from African music in the mix, from the slavery trade.
Tango evolved slowly from this volatile mix. The original songs were sung in Lunfardo, a dialect of the lower-class neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, which mixes slang words from Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Greek and Roma (caló). It was a local hybrid with a specific purpose. “The Lunfardo was the language spoken by the prisoners to prevent the guards from understanding what they said,” Melingo says.
Melingo sings with a tango quartet typical of the turn of the 20th century, with guitars, double bass and the bandoneon. Such ensembles began to play tango in the brothels of Buenos Aires, where it was initially dance music among men only, since the ladies of the evening did not dance the tango.
Beyond the working classes, tango was not popular in Buenos Aires. But when the first singers went to Paris to make records (because the recording technology there was the best in the world), and the upper classes heard their music, it became a craze.
From Paris, the cultural capital of the world in the early 1900s, tango quickly spread in the 1920s and ’30s to major cities throughout Europe, then to the United States and throughout other parts of South America. Eventually, even Asia and Africa followed suit.
Tango has been called “a war between legs,” and it’s true; this dance can be challenging even for its deepest devotees. The language of tango, with its songs sung in Lunfardo, adds another enigmatic layer to the music.
The importance of the voice in tango tends to be overlooked. But an unusual voice —deep, rough, full of soul and pain — is integral. This is what Melingo brings back to the music.  
Maldito Tango, recorded in Buenos Aires and Paris earlier this year, is thus both a new direction and an important step back to the roots of tango. At times, Melingo’s band hits modern tango grooves better than any remix. So their concert at the Akropolis should be a milestone in local music events this year.
Tony Ozuna can be reached at features@praguepost.com

Tony Ozuna can be reached at features@praguepost.com


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