Cuarteto

The title of this article is ambiguous. See also: El Cuarteto de Nos .

Performance by Carlos "La Mona" Jiménez , one of the most famous Cuarteto singers

The cuarteto , also cuartetazo or cuarteto cordobés , is a form of pop music that originated in the Argentine city of Córdoba and its surrounding area in the 1940s . It is based on a simple piano - accompaniment patterns that with the onomatopoetic term tunga-tunga is described which is used also as a synonym for the style of music.

Originally a folk music from the immigrant colonies in the rural regions of the province of Córdoba , influenced by European dance styles, the cuarteto developed into an urban music style with an epicenter in the city of Córdoba itself and also underwent a strong musical change. Today it is closely linked to the youth culture of the city's working class and slum youth , but is commercially successful throughout Argentina and some neighboring countries.

meaning

The Cuarteto is one of the pillars of popular culture in the city of Córdoba and its surrounding area. It is often described as important to the local cultural identity of the city and region. It is also an important branch of pop music commercially. The protagonists of the style mostly publish on major labels , often they reach national chart positions and the concerts, called bailes , are now mass events with usually thousands of guests that take place in Cordoba almost every day of the week. The cuarteto is particularly popular with working-class youth and from the slums, but has been popular across social classes since the late 1980s, with audiences varying from band to band.

Cuarteto has also been part of the Bailanta scene in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires and the littoral ( Santa Fe province and Mesopotamia ), which is also called Música Tropical and otherwise mainly includes the local variants of the Colombian cumbia , since the 1990s .

Musical characteristics

The cuarteto is based on a fast dance rhythm in four-quarter time. Originally the line-up consisted of double bass , piano , violin and accordion - hence the name Cuarteto (Spanish for quartet ). Today, other instruments such as guitar , wind instruments, synthesizers and a rich percussion arsenal have been integrated into the music. The dance is a couple dance, the figures of which are based on an even triple step with hip swing.

The "Tunga-Tunga"

The basic rhythm of the cuarteto is marked by the piano, which plays a very simple accompanying pattern. The term tunga-tunga alludes to the sound of this pattern. In the modern cuarteto, the piano is often replaced by an electric piano or keyboard.

A typical cuarteto piano pattern:

The left hand plays the bass line, which emphasizes the whole beats (quarter notes) and consists largely of a simple tonic - dominant change. Especially in the early days of the cuarteto, this bass line was played very loudly and amplified by doubling the octave, as no percussion instruments were used and so the piano and the double bass were given the role of dictating the rhythm of the steps to the dancers.

The right hand plays a tonic triad on the unstressed beat .

Instrumental framework

Modern cuarteto band with percussion and brass ( Banda Centro )

The bass (originally double bass, today mostly electric bass ) supports the piano on every quarter by reinforcing the pattern of the left hand played portato . As a variation, either the last quarter of a bar is tied together legato with the first of the next bar , or isolated decorations are incorporated, especially in the modern cuarteto. An influence from the cumbia has also flowed into the bass figure of the cuarteto: the quarter - eighth - dotted quarter - eighth note pattern, which gives the rhythm more dynamism.

The characteristic melody instrument is the accordion, which often imitates the vocal line in an echo-like manner or otherwise plays a harmoniously matching sub-figure. The extensive wind section has a similar function in the modern cuarteto and merenteto .

The singing in the cuarteto fluctuates between purely melodic, song-like lines and driving, ecstatic calls and spoken chant , which is similar to toasting in ragga and dancehall .

Percussion instruments have only recently found their way into the cuarteto (from around 1975). The parts are mostly based on the merengue .

Structure of the songs

Already at the time of Cuarteto Leo a typical structure of the Cuarteto songs began to develop, which was largely adopted by the orquestas características . First, as an introduction, there is an instrumental variation of the main melody, followed by the sung verse and the chorus . This structure survived the numerous musical developments in the cuarteto and has been largely retained until today, so that it represents the characteristic element of the cuarteto in addition to the tunga-tunga rhythm.

Sub-genres

The Cuarteto Merenguero (also Merengueto or Merenteto ) is a mixture of Cuarteto and Merengue, which was already hinted at in Chebere's songs around 1975 and became very popular among the bands of Cordoba from the mid-1990s, particularly influenced by the Dominican Jean Carlos and later bands like Banda XXI and La Barra . The typical basic rhythm of the tunga-tunga, which continues to form the basis of the arrangements, is here temporarily interrupted by the complex piano patterns typical of the merengue. The importance of the winds in the Cuarteto Merenguero is greater than that of the accordion.

Another variation on the style is what is known as Cuarteto Comercial or Comercial , a mix of Cuarteto and traditional pop music. Comercial is slower than the traditional cuarteto (mostly 120–140 bpm) and has less percussive elements, but a rock- like emphasis on the second quarter of each bar ( backbeat ).

history

The development of the cuarteto was decisively influenced by the political and economic situation in Argentina and Cordoba in particular. Jane Florine identifies six stages of development of cuarteto music: the beginnings as folk music of the immigrants in the agricultural colonies (1943–1955), the appearance of the cuarteto in the city (1955–1968), favored by internal migration through the industrialization of Cordoba, the popularization ( 1969–1973), the musical realignment with influences from Caribbean musical styles such as the merengue (1973–1976), the ban by the military dictatorship and the move to the underground (1976–1983) as well as the new beginning and nationwide popularization after 1983.

The beginnings as folk music (1943–1955)

The development of the Cuarteto was largely determined by a single band, the Cuarteto Leo . It began in agricultural colonies in the area around Córdoba, the colonias de inmigrantes . In these dance balls, the bailes de campo , were held regularly , at which European folk music styles in particular were performed by local groups, the orquestas características .

The Cuarteto Leo, actually a quintet, was founded in 1943 by Augusto Marzano, the double bass player of the Los Bohemios group. Although the group began with a repertoire of folk dances, it had several peculiarities compared to other orquestas típicas : unlike most bands of the epoch, it consisted of only five members - in addition to the singer, the piano, violin , accordion and double bass  - which was him brought high mobility. Second, Marzano's daughter Leonor Marzano , who took over the piano part in Cuarteto Leo and who gave the band its name, invented the Tunga-tunga pattern as a musical innovation, which gave the band another unique selling point. A third special feature was the presence of the accordion. These elements led to the very high popularity of Cuarteto Leo, which made its first appearance on the radio in 1943.

Cuarteto Leo toured permanently through numerous cities in the province in the following years, but could not reach the audience in the city of Córdoba until 1956. In 1953 the band recorded their first album.

The transition to the city (1956–1968)

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the cuarteto slowly became popular with the city as well. The fall in the price of agricultural goods after the end of the Second World War and the rapid industrialization of Cordoba in the second period of Juan Perón's government led to a wave of internal migration . The immigrants from the rural areas also brought their musical preferences to the cities, and the Música Tropical - or Bailanta movement - arose around the same time in Buenos Aires .

In 1956 the Cuarteto Leo first appeared in a sports club in a suburb of Cordoba. However, it took until the second half of the sixties for music to establish itself there. In 1967, the Cuarteto Berna was founded, another successful formation that marked the beginning of Carlos Jiménez's career and consisted only of young musicians.

Popularization among the urban lower classes (1969–1973)

In the sixties, the music scene in Argentina went through a dramatic change, which was mainly shaped by the arrival of numerous foreign genres such as beat and rock music , but also Caribbean styles such as calypso and bolero . This favored a greater openness in the urban youth culture, so that the Cuarteto Leo and other bands also benefited from it. At this time the cuarteto finally established itself in the central part of Córdoba; however, other cities remained untouched.

After the early days of the musical style were almost monopoly dominated by the Cuarteto Leo, numerous groups and first soloists have now emerged. Carlos Rolán , who won a competition for the best imitator of Cuarteto Leo in 1964 and temporarily integrated this band, started a solo career in 1971, where he began to modernize the sound. However, this was limited to minor changes, such as replacing the piano with an electric piano .

Musical realignment (1973–1976)

During the brief third presidency of Juan Perón and his successor Isabel Martínez de Perón , Argentina enjoyed a brief period of cultural bloom, although repression increased again towards the end of this period. The Cuarteto enjoyed great popularity in Cordoba and began to change musically.

The Chebere group , which was founded in 1974, played a major role in this . In the beginning they had mimicked the sound of the traditional cuarteto, but they quickly began to incorporate new elements. As a joke, the band had one of their instrumentalists sing a "tropical" song during the breaks between concerts to entertain the audience. This mainly meant merengue titles, but also cumbia and other Caribbean music styles. Due to the positive feedback, Chebere soon began to mix the music styles. You are considered the inventor of the merenteto or cuarteto merenguero . They also incorporated rock influences and a large arsenal of new instruments, wind instruments, electric guitar and, above all, the previously frowned upon drums and percussion, whereby they were also the first to have their instrumental sets professionally arranged. This new, heterogeneous style quickly caught on with most of the other Cuarteto groups.

At the same time the rise of Carlos Jiménez began. After leaving Cuarteto Berna, he briefly joined the Cuarteto de Oro in 1971 , but from 1973 he became active as a soloist.

Prohibition and going underground (1976–1983)

The military dictatorship of the process of national reorganization put an end to the first heyday of the Cuarteto. As with rock music , public appearances were drastically restricted and broadcasts on radio and television were banned entirely. On the occasion of the Football World Cup in 1978 , all records by Cuarteto groups were removed from the shops in Cordoba so that tourists would not hear the music, which was regarded as inferior. The cuarteto was pushed underground.

Some of the bands, including Chebere, tried to adapt to the repressive rules musically enough that they were no longer considered to be cuarteto and could therefore continue to work economically. In particular, the accordion, which was considered the symbol of the cuarteto, was forcibly banned by many bands. The ban particularly affected the traditional ensembles that were based on Cuarteto Leo. These had to resort to private secret concerts.

New beginning after 1983

After the return of democracy, the restrictions on cultural policy were lifted so that the cuarteto could venture a fresh start. This time was mainly shaped by Carlos Jiménez, who started his comeback in 1984 with a new band. His aim was to get closer to the roots of the cuarteto ( cuarteto-cuarteto , this doubling emphasizes authenticity in Spanish, so it can be translated as “real cuarteto”) without ignoring modern developments. He integrated elements such as extravagant, glamorous costumes into the scene, which slowly became more heterogeneous in socio-economic terms, also due to his influence.

The cuarteto finally gained popularity across the country from 1988, when Carlos Jiménez performed for the first time in Buenos Aires. Hit the headlines around the same time, a scandal at the Folklore Festival of Cosquín , had occurred at the Jiménez and his followers had taken care of riots. In 1989 the rise of the singer Rodrigo began , whose music represented a new edition of the traditional cuarteto with a strong presence of the accordion, enhanced by pop elements and synthesizers and who thus finally established in Buenos Aires and the rest of Argentina, even if the success in Córdoba was less failed. In the second half of the 1990s he was at times the most played on the radio in Argentina until after his accidental death in 2000.

The cuarteto also continued to develop musically, so Carlos Jiménez experimented with a mix of hip-hop , cumbia and cuarteto on his album Raza Negra in 1994 and brought one of the most famous percussionists in Latin America into his band, Miguel Miranda (known as Bam Bam ) . Jiménez, however, continued to use the more traditional style cuarteto-cuarteto . In addition, Latin rock bands such as Kapanga , Los Auténticos Decadentes and Los Caligaris, popular in Argentina from around 1990, integrated the cuarteto into their repertoire and fused it with rock, heavy metal , ska and punk influences.

Reception outside Argentina

The leap to neighboring countries began around 1995. From the second half of the 1990s, the Cuarteto also achieved chart successes in Bolivia , Chile , Uruguay and Paraguay .

In Europe, Cuarteto has remained a little-known genre to this day. A small scene has existed since the mid-1990s in Italy , where the Argentinian José Spitale was able to achieve some respectable successes from 1997, and Spain , where the band Los Chicanos del Sur and the soloist Luis Divotti regularly perform and release albums.

Cuarteto as a culture

Especially in the city of Córdoba itself, but also in the entire central northwest of Argentina (besides Córdoba, especially in the provinces of La Rioja , Tucumán and Catamarca ), the cuarteto is an important youth culture . The devotees gather on the Bailes de Cuarteto several days a week . The fan cult around the successful singers and bands is huge, a lot of money is made with merchandising items.

Most of the members of the Cuarteto youth culture - they call themselves cuarteteros or negros cuarteteros , alluding to the high Indian - and mestizo proportion among them - come from the lower class and the slums , but this does not apply to all bands to the same extent as they do La Barra is a popular band, especially among middle and upper class youth . Many have been fans of a certain band or several bands since childhood and learn the dance steps on television as early as kindergarten, especially in the Suquía channel , where almost all cuarteto is played.

Especially in terms of fashion and the socio-economic origins of the followers, there is a lot of overlap with the Cumbia fans from Buenos Aires and southern or eastern Argentina.

Cuarteto dance

The cuarteto dance is a couple dance . It is based on a simple sequence of steps that follows the bass line of the piano and double bass in quarter notes. The body is held straight. The distance between the partners is often varied, and there are also various rotating figures.

Texts

Already at the beginning, characteristics of many Cuarteto texts were the ambiguity and the relationship to everyday topics. The sometimes explicit, but mostly ambiguous erotic humor began to find its way into the Cuarteto texts in the 1970s, especially through the influence of Chebere.

An important theme in the Cuarteto is local patriotism, especially in the case of the city ​​of Córdoba itself. Many texts describe the supposed positive qualities of the city. A popular nationwide hit with a local patriotic text, for example, was Soy cordobés (German: I am from Córdoba ) by Rodrigo. Many texts also deal with local topics in an auto-referential manner, such as certain districts, the local football clubs Belgrano and Talleres or slang words known only to locals .

Consumption ritual

Since the 1970s, the ritual of attending a cuarteto concert has been linked to the consumption of alcohol. Red wine in particular was one of the typical drinks at the beginning. After 1990, Fernet-Cola also became a popular drink in the scene. Many Cuarteto lyrics also have alcohol consumption as a theme, the best known example being Quien se ha tomado todo el vino from “La Mona” Jiménez. The choripán , a sandwich with a pork sausage, is also associated with the cuarteto ritual.

Movies

The documentary Popular y cordobés was created in 2010 about the Cuarteto music and scene and won first prize in the Nosotros competition of the national film institute Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales (INCAA).

Part of the cuarteto scene is the gangster and romantic comedy De caravana (2010, director: Rosendo Ruiz, also known under the international title Clubbing ), which shows the contrast between this scene, which is dominated by the lower classes, and the culture of the middle and upper classes.

Relationships with other genres of music

Since the 1970s, influenced by Chebere, there has been an exchange between the cuarteto and other musical styles. Cuarteto is particularly closely associated with the merengue from the Dominican Republic . According to jazz and cuarteto percussionist Miguel Antonio Miranda , who plays for Carlos Jiménez, among others, both styles are based on similar European dances such as tarantella , paso doble and ranchera ; however, as a result of the Afro-Caribbean influence, the merengue used percussion instruments and thus developed in a different direction. Mergers between cuarteto and merengue are among the most successful sub-genres of cuarteto.

There are now diverse relationships with rock music . While the electric guitar can already be found as an instrument at Chebere in the 1970s, the boom in fusions between cuarteto and rock occurred around 1995, when bands such as Kapanga , Los Auténticos Decadentes and Los Caligaris released numerous songs that mixed both directions. Usually these fusions are rhythmically similar to Ska-Punk . There are also fusions of dancehall , reggaeton and reggae with cuarteto.

The cuarteto scene also has a point of contact with pop music : the mixed form comercial , which is more electronic and shallower than the actual cuarteto. Many Cuarteto bands also composed pop ballads to loosen up their shows, but stylistically these have little to do with Cuarteto.

There are fusions of cuarteto and electronic dance music in the form of dance remixes of the cuarteto hits, which are often played in discos but are frowned upon on Bailes .

Cuarteto in the media

There is a Cuarteto magazine called Todo Cuarteto , which was founded in 2002, as well as several online portals on the genre of music. In Córdoba there is also a television station specializing in Cuarteto ( Canal Suquía ) which mostly shows recordings of various bailes and video clips; However, it can only be received via cable and only via one provider. There are also several radio stations that only play Cuarteto.

Controversy arose at times because of the violence at the Cuarteto events. There were riots with seriously injured people several times, including at concerts by Carlos Jiménez. After being accused by politicians of contributing to the violence himself, Jiménez announced his preliminary resignation in 2005, but reversed that decision a few days later.

Characteristic songs

• Rodrigo - La mano de Dios
• Carlos "La Mona" Jiménez - Quien se ha tomado todo el vino
• Walter Olmos - Por lo que yo te quiero (Cover by La Mona Jiménez )
• La Barra - Tu me verás (example for Cuarteto Merenguero )
• Rodrigo - Amor Clasificado (Example of Comercial )

Important bands and performers

• Luis Divotti
• Banda Express
• Banda XXI
• Ulises Bueno
• Chébere
• Cuarteto Leo
• Jean Carlos
• Carlos Jiménez - "La Mona"
• La Barra
• La Fiesta
• Walter Olmos
• Rodrigo "El Potro"
• Sabroso
• Sebastian
• Tru-La-La
• La Banda de Carlitos
• Chipote
• Damián Cordoba
• La Konga

literature

• Jane L. Florine: Cuarteto Music and Dancing from Argentina: In Search of the Tunga-Tunga in Cordoba. University Press of Florida, Gainesville (USA) 2001, ISBN 0-8130-2087-5 .
• Osvaldo Hepp: La soledad de los cuartetos , Editorial Letra, Córdoba 1988.
• Alejandro González: El libro de los cuartetos , El Emporio, Córdoba 2006, ISBN 987-1268-21-1 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m} Jane Florine, El desarrollo musical del cuarteto cordobés , PDF version ( Memento of the original from June 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Cuarteto Leo (band biography). (No longer available online.) Tungatunga.com.ar, archived from the original on February 22, 2009 ; Retrieved March 16, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Osvaldo Hepp: La soledad de los cuartetos , Editorial Letra, Córdoba 1988, pp. 59-65
4. ^ Biography of Carlos Rolán. (No longer available online.) Tunga-tunga.com.ar, archived from the original on February 22, 2009 ; Retrieved March 17, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ Rulo (band biography). (No longer available online.) Tunga-tunga.com.ar, archived from the original on February 1, 2009 ; Retrieved March 17, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ Alejandro González: Así se baila el cuarteto , excerpt from El libro de los cuartetos
7. ↑ Bien ahí , Revista Quilombo
8. ↑ History of the Cuarteto (kuarteto.com)
9. ↑ Un documental bien cuartetero , Día a Día, October 11, 2011
10. ↑ El cuarteto y el merengue son parientes ( Memento of the original from March 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Interview with Miranda, CMJ.com.ar (originally published in La Voz del Interior )  
11. ↑ Quinto aniverario de la revista "Todo cuarteto". (No longer available online.) Tunga-tunga.com.ar, November 20, 2007, archived from the original on June 14, 2010 ; Retrieved March 17, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ↑ Diagnóstico de la las industrias de producción audiovisual de Córdoba ( Memento of the original of September 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Study on the local television industry in Cordoba, PDF; 175 kB)  
13. ↑ La Mona Jiménez no se retira. Terra.com.ar, September 21, 2005, accessed March 17, 2009 . 

Web links

• Cuarteto portal with information on history and artists