Tanda of the Week 04 / 2011 - Adolfo Carabelli

1. Adolfo Carabelli / Alberto Gómez - "El trece" 1932
2. Adolfo Carabelli / Carlos Lafuente - "Pa' que lagrimear" 1933
3. Adolfo Carabelli / Charlo - "Cuatro palabras" 1931
4. Adolfo Carabelli / Carlos Lafuente - "El pensamiento" 1932

18.10.2014 - I am in the long and slow process of updating the early tandas in the blog with the playlists for Spotify and Deezer. You can check for how that work is going by clicking on the Updates button on top. I just updated this tanda with the Spotify and Deezer playlist for you to listen to and might as well say a few words about the tanda and music of Adolfo Carabelli. Let me quote Héctor Ángel Benedetti and his article on Carabelli on TodoTango:

"Carabelli (1893-1947) was an outstanding pianist, composer and orchestra leader often described as one of the musicians of most complete training that appeared in the tango field but also one of the most underrated.

...The real amplitude of Carabelli's capacity is evidenced as from 1926 when Victor hired him as artistic director of the label, and at the same time commissioned him to form an orchestra which would play either jazz or tango music.

...Around 1931 his was an outfit completely identified with Buenos Aires, having players like Federico Scorticati, Ciriaco Ortiz, Luis Petrucelli and Carlos Marcucci on bandoneons; Elvino Vardaro, Manlio Francia and Rossi on violins; his brother Orlando Carabelli on double bass; and himself on piano, conduction and arrangements.

...Even though his name was not on the record labels he also led the renowned Orquesta Típica Victor. Carabelli's talent brought an identifiable personality to this orchestra placing it among the best of its time, and many times using the same players that Carabelli summoned for his own aggregation.

...Like many other orchestras published by Victor, and like the Orquesta Típica Victor itself to which he wrote arrangements, Carabelli's only existed for recording discs; its members were leaders or outstanding players of other groups and were reunited only to make recordings".  

Nowadays I play more rarely music from the early 1930's but I have been getting back to playing some Carabelli again. And the reason is really the amazing talent of his orchestra and the arrangements as well. The list of musicians in Carabellis' orchestra is truly spectacular and you can hear it in these songs having such a lot of good energy for dancing and for example the amazing bandoneon solos.

For more Carabelli you can check out the other Carabelli tandas on TOTW as well as purchace the Sweet Little 16 compilation from TangoTunes.com. 

Enjoy!

Carabelli, Adolfo - TOTW - Todo Tango - tango.info - iTunes Store - TangoTunes