Tango (flamenco)

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Inocencio Medina Vera: Tango. Madrid Cómico, 1901

The tango has a special form in flamenco and in this form is one of its most important and most varied palos .

Character and shape

According to Fernando Quiñones , tango can express an immeasurable range of moods: it can be gloomy, friendly, slow, monotonous, indifferent, broad, exuberant or moving.

Most likely, the tango in flamenco, also known as Andalusian tango, and the tango music form , which is better known outside of Spain, have common roots. Rhythmic similarities are also obvious: Both have an accentuated two-part rhythm, and the typical cradle rhythm of the habanera often shimmers through in tango flamenco .

Apart from that, however, the Andalusian tango is subject to the realities of flamenco:

  • The instrumental accompaniment is always provided by the guitar, the rhythm is supported by clapping hands, and occasionally also by the cajón and other percussion instruments.
  • The singing is rough with melisms , but mostly syllabic and not as distinctly melismatic as in the Seguiriya or Soleá, for example .
  • The difference in dance is particularly noticeable. In flamenco, the tango is often a solo dance, more rarely a group or couple dance, entirely shaped by the conventions of flamenco, and completely different from the Argentine tango or the tango as a ballroom dance . This can be seen, for example, in the posture of the dancers, the flowing arm movements, the clothes, especially the women, and the pronounced foot technique with the obligatory zapateados .

Like many other palos, tango flamenco can be performed without dancing.

history

The American Tango

Tango reached Spain at the end of the 18th century. It probably originated in the Afro-American population in Havana and the surrounding area. The lyrics were richly flavored with personalities. Tango quickly became popular in Spain and spread under the name Tango Americano . The word tango also referred to a social association of the residents, a kind of mutual insurance. These associations used to organize parades in the streets of the Caribbean on all sorts of occasions.

The oldest song text in which the word tango appears can be found in a tonadilla from 1779:

Los andaluces,
en sus tangos graciosos,
sus chistes lucen ...

The
Andalusian jokes shine
in their funny tangos ...

From around 1830 on, bailiff singers spread their tangos americanos, their habaneras and their seguidillas in the country. At the festivals in Cadiz , tangos could be heard almost everywhere. This went so far that in 1846 the city authorities issued rules to separate the local tango gaditano from the tango americano . In those years the tango began to cause a sensation at festivals, for example in Madrid in 1848 and in Paris in 1850. Both times it was interpreted by María Loreto Martínez , an African American from Havana. With her “powerful and beautiful” alto voice and her own accompaniment on the guitar, she delighted both critics and audiences. He also became a frequent part of the program on the theater stages, although the American origins were generally known. Also under the name Tango de los Negros , Tango of the blacks, was often found on the program posters. Slipperiness in the texts was probably no longer common back then. At festivals in Triana and elsewhere, specially composed and composed tangos became popular items on the program.

Tango americano and Tango flamenco - continuity or break?

In 1867, Baron Charles Davilliers reported on a festival at which a young Gitana "with copper-colored skin, long hair and jet-black eyes" danced the tango with extraordinary grace. Manuel García Marcos sees this as a key event for the transition of tango into the music of the gitanos.

Tango peaked in popularity around 1870. It was danced, sung, composed to the accompaniment of guitar and violin, performed by music groups and individual artists such as Meric, el famoso mulato , and Enrique el Mellizo . And it found its way into the café cantantes .

The years between 1870 and 1890 were a phase in which many elements of today's flamenco were only formed. In tango, the artists saw an excellent opportunity to express their ideas - the two-piece rhythm being an exciting contrast to the three- and twelve-beat measures of the other palos. Two variants developed: The Tango gaditano , now known under the name Tanguillo , and the Tango americano , which was then also called Tanguera . Under the influence of the artists before and around the turn of the century, the tango finally developed into a genre of flamenco. This tango flamenco that we know today is very different from the tango that was sung and made music until the second half of the 19th century. Shortly after 1900 the name Tango Americano and the general awareness of the American origin of this musical genre were lost.

Some authors, namely Ricardo Molina and Antonio Mairena , rejected this hypothesis that the tango flamenco developed from the African tango. Tango flamenco is rooted in the musical tradition of the gitanos and is alien to Afro-American tango. In contrast, Ángel Alvarez Caballero refers to the above-mentioned account by Manuel García Marcos, which builds a plausible bridge between the American tango and the Gitanos tango.

The 20th century

In the first half of the 20th century, La Niña de los Peines was an unsurpassed interpreter of tango. The song from which she owes her stage name, Péinate tú con mis peines , is a tango. She was able to sing tangos for hours without repeating herself. Other well-known tango singers were Manolo Vargas , Manolo Caracol and Juanito Mojama .

In Extremadura is a special type of tango emerged. With the Andalusian tango he shares the same rhythm and the special suitability for festive days. However, the tango extremeño is particularly rich musically. It is characterized by variable melisms, slow cadences and a characteristic change of rhythm towards the end, which arouses associations with Jaleo .

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I. Signatura Ediciones de Andalucía, Sevilla 2010, ISBN 978-84-96210-70-7 , p. 211 .
  2. ↑ a b c Miguel Ortiz: Tango. In: flamencoviejo.com. March 15, 2010, accessed January 5, 2016 (Spanish).
  3. ↑ a b c Compare the video examples at the end of the article.
  4. ↑ José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, S. 211-212 .
  5. ↑ José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, S. 212-213 .
  6. ↑ a b José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, S. 213 .
  7. ↑ José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, S. 213-214 .
  8. ↑ José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, S. 214 .
  9. ↑ José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, S. 215 .
  10. ↑ José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, S. 217-218 .
  11. ↑ a b Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El cante flamenco . Alianza Editorial, Madrid 2004, ISBN 978-84-206-4325-0 , p. 121 .
  12. ↑ a b José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, S. 218 .
  13. ↑ from Cádiz
  14. ↑ a b José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, S. 219 .
  15. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El cante flamenco . S. 122 .
  16. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El cante flamenco . S. 249 .
  17. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El cante flamenco . S. 251 .
  18. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El cante flamenco . S. 269 .
  19. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El cante flamenco . S. 283 .
  20. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El cante flamenco . S. 298 .
  21. ↑ belonging to Extremadura
  22. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El cante flamenco . S. 322 .

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