El Rey del Compás

 

Juan d'Arienzo (1900-1976), violin player and famous tango conductor, using a strong staccato with 5 bandoneon' players.

Amazing tango!

Loca!

& an anecdote by Joe Vasquenz of Ohio:

"While reading about your restoration of D'Arienzo's music, I was reminded of a story my dad told me involving Juan D'Arienzo. My dad (Sal Vasquenz) went to the "clubs" on Saturday nights to dance, actually they were huge neighborhood recreation centers that on weekends had live tango orquestras for dancing. The real bands like D'Arienzo, de Angelis, etc., not wannabe bands. Because Buenos Aires was and is so large, and there were so many of these milongueras going on at one time, the orquestra leaders had 2, maybe 3 bands going at one time, in different centers, and he would spend a couple of hours or so at each one and then move on to the next. Anyway, my dad liked to dance valses, as well as tangos. 
This one particular night, D'Arienzo was playing in La Boca, a very rough area at the time (I don't know how it is today), and all the orquestra played were tangos. After D'Arienzo had shown up for a while, my dad went up to him to request a vals. D'Arienzo told him that he would like to oblige and under different circumstances it wouldn't be a problem. Then he asked my dad to take a close look to see the kind of characters that were on the dance floor. Then D'Arienzo said, "Do you know what these guys would do to me and my orquestra if I played a vals?" They both smiled at each other, my dad understanding perfectly that no valses were going to be played that night."