| In 1880, Buenos Aires, the biggest port of the country, became Argentina's capital. The Tango took its first
steps. Millions of immigrants arrived and established themselves in the city's suburban slums, mixing with inactive soldiers, gauchos, and others to make up the populations of the "Orilla" (the
outskirts), as opposed to the residential and commercial areas. The Brothel became the most representative institution of the Orilla, with its typical characters-the pimps, prostitutes and the
Madame. Excluded from the rest of society, the Orilla formed its own aristocracy and its own underground world with its own language (Lunfardo), clothing, music and dance-the Tango.
How was the Tango born? Its origins are controversial. The way in which it appeared in the brothels of the Orilla was a new form of expression
influenced musically by the Habanera, the Andalousian Tango and the Milonga. One cannot affirm with certainty that the origins of the term Tango come from the sound of the Black's
drums (tan-go, tan-go).
Some suggest that the influence is from the Candombe (Negro chants from Colonial time) sung acapella or accompanied by the sound of the tambourine. The residents of the Orilla learned the Tango steps from pimps. Men were dancing the Tango in the brothel's salons to pass the time while waiting. Tango was also the music listened to in academias, bistros run by women and in other bars of the popular quarters frequented by lonely men. Soon, prostitutes began dancing with patrons and the men of the upper class who went to the slums for excitement.
The newborn Tango had no set form as yet, its rhythmical and structural shape were not yet fully defined. The orchestration of the music as played in the slums by small bands of violin, flute and
guitar players or in the salons by piano, flute and violin had not yet found its definitive form.
The bandoneon (invented by a German, Heinrich Band) was imported to Argentina in 1866 but did
not really surface until the 1870's. We can say that with the advent of the bandoneon and its entry into the Tango orchestra, the real Argentinean Tango was born. |
