Guido Vanzina Pacheco

Real name: Vanzina Pacheco, Guido
Nicknames: El vigilante
Pianist, leader and composer
(1893 - 17 April 1940)
Place of birth:
Rosario (Santa Fe) Argentina
By
Héctor Lorenzo Lucci

was born in Rosario, province of Santa Fe, where he began to study music while he worked in a German company. When World War I broke out the enterprise left our country and when he found himself unemployed he decided to devote himself to music as a professional.

He was member of several outfits until he put together his own in 1918. He succeeded in reaching the recording studios of the Columbia label between 1919 and 1920 with a series of tangos that anticipate, if we look for comparisons as for his piano style, the great Francisco De Caro. We have recordings of “Mosca muerta”, composed by Juan Carlos Cobián, “La viudita” and “Tata Dios”, written by Vanzina himself, Francisco Canaro's “Los indios”, and “Amasijo”, a composition by Alcides Palavecino, his violinist.

He played since its inception and, on several occasions, in the Orquesta Típica Victor. He as well played in theater orchestras.

As composer he left numerous titles, but those that stand out are the ones he wrote in the period from 1915 to 1920. None of them transcended its time. Reviewing sheet music copies we can mention, as a curiosity, “La pandorga”. Even though this word has different meanings in each country of Latin America, here it refers to a kite, but in fact it was a movement of one's arm holding it flying high in order to strike another neighboring kite. It origins come from an old game with the same purpose: the clumsy fellow was struck on one of his arms.

Other tangos of his were: “Cachimbita”, “Carbonilla [b]”, “El porrazo”, “A la francesa”, “Trigo limpio”, “Así es”, “Pichicho”, “Convidá con alcohol”, “Convidá con chocolate”, “Que hacés de noche” and “De contrabando”.

He was nicknamed El vigilante because he was a police officer for several years.