Anyone who’s traveled to the capital of Argentina can tell you that it’s a very different place than other Latin American cities. Buenos Aires is a unique place, suffused with the history of southern Europe, but with the heartbeat of South America. I was lucky enough to spend two weeks there in July, a welcome respite from the North American summer.
Tango is omnipresent in the city, and is not just for tourists. There are a lot of expensive tango shows, but locals are more likely to attend milongas, clubs or informal venues, where crowds of tango enthusiasts cram the floors and dance to recordings or live groups. On my second night in Buenos Aires I sat in the crowded basement of a cultural center, while dancers representing at least three generations of Argentines danced to tangos so old it was possible to hear the hiss of a gramophone’s needle on the restored recordings. A well-coiffed elderly couple at the table next to ours finished their bottle of champagne at around 4am and promptly ordered a round of coffee and croissants. And then they danced until sunrise.
Other popular sounds in Buenos Aires include Colombian and local cumbia, folk music from the plains and mountain regions of Argentina, and whatever dance music is currently popular in London, the result of a sizeable Anglophone expatriate population. A common performance venue outside of clubs, bars or milongas is the street. Like many cosmopolitan cities, Buenos Aires has an overabundance of talented musicians and, combined with the popularity of street fairs in historic districts like San Telmo and Palermo Viejo, the narrow cobblestone streets winding among attractively decrepit older buildings make an ideal podium for both struggling and successful artists.
On one afternoon in San Telmo I saw two or three tango groups, a bossa nova trio doing a pretty good “Corcovado,” a high-energy Klezmer-Gypsy ensemble, and a group of stoned young men strumming guitars in ferocious unison that was the closest thing to non-electric bomba I’ve ever heard. The crowd loved the last band and in five minutes they must have sold fifty copies of their CD.
Now, I live in a city—New Orleans—with one of the highest abundances of quality street musicians per capita in the world. This is partly one of the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina that resulted in the closure of many indoor venues, but New Orleans has always pushed its best musicians out into the street and danced behind them down the block. Buenos Aires, whether for economic reasons or not, seems to be in a similar situation.
The Orquesta Tipica El Afronte is a precocious young tango ensemble, whose leader, Marco Bellini, wears baggy black pants, sports a shock of dyed-orange hair that hangs over his forehead and sings tango’s melancholic repertoire with subdued passion. El Afronte performs frequently on the steps of a church in San Telmo, where I first saw them, but is also a mainstay at milongas. They represent the best of the recent resurgence of tango culture in Buenos Aires, appreciated both by older dancers and recent converts to the genre. They are also consciously hip and play their violins and bandoleons (accordions) with a removed intensity. Below is a track from their album, Tango El Palo, a composition by Vicente Greco. There’s also a video that I shot during one of their frequent shows on Calle Humberto Primo in San Telmo. Argentina, for complex and frequently guilt-inducing reasons, is already a newly inexpensive destination for North American travelers, but before you know it you’ll find yourself placing all your pesos in an instrument case laid out on the street.
Orquesta Tipica El Afronte, “Ojos Negros”
Footage from Calle Humberto Primo, San Telmo
