Thorry - Tango according to Juan Carlos Thorry

#171;My relationship with tango is old, intimate and sentimental. I was a young kid and then my old man, who used to play guitar, taught me some accompaniments (dominant and tonic chords) with which I began my early «two-four» songs.

«Which melody would I have learned first? I remember, through the distant time, the counter line of “La cumparsita (Si supieras)”, the one that says: «Si supieras, que aún dentro de mi alma...» And then, years later, «Buenos Aires, la reina del Plata...», or «Rechiflao en mi tristeza...», when I became acquainted with Carlos Gardel.

«My first long trousers, the end of my high school studies and the time when I entered the university are very closely linked to my early experiences at dancehalls. We used to go to dance to the venues called then cabarets, which later became boites and thereafter night-clubs and now are boliches. There we held a contest of twists and turns dancing with the best players of the period: Aníbal Troilo, Juan D'Arienzo, Osvaldo Fresedo, Osvaldo Pugliese, Edgardo Donato, Alfredo De Angelis, etc. They caressed our adolescent dreams with the most popular melodies of the time.

«There, at the Florida Club I met and became friend of Osvaldo Fresedo’s, whose friendship still today I have the honor to enjoy, as well as that of the players of his orchestra: the unforgettable José María Rizzuti, “el tano” Muzzi and the wonderful violinist Manlio Francia. Rizzuti was who wrote in the music staff what I awkwardly played for him «by ear» on the piano. A sweet melody, with as well syrupy lyrics which was named “Pensando en ti” and that, to elude involvements, I smartly dedicated on the cover of the Rivarola’s publication: «To her». Fresedo recorded it. That meant to me then the most important event in my life.

«Later, when I gave up my studies and started this blessed career, professional singing on radio or at theaters. I mixed foreign melodies like jazz tunes or bolero airs or French songs with the most famous tango expressions of the time. In 1934 at the cinema theater Paris of Suipacha Street, between Cangallo and Bartolomé Mitre (inexistent today) I appeared at soap operas aired by radio directed by Claudio Martínez Payva and whose cast was headed by Fernando Ochoa. I announced the show and was, furthermore, the jazz crooner in the Rudy Ayala Orchestra. There was a sort of competition between jazz and tango. The two orchestras were the abovementioned jazzband led by Ayala and the Juan Canaro’s tango orchestra. In the latter orchestra the pianist was Rodolfo Biagi.



«Consequently, because of these programs I came to know the beloved Manos Brujas with whom we became friends. During a rehearsal he played for me a tune he had just composed and asked me to write the lyrics for it. There on the piano, I scribbled the first words of “Indiferencia”. Something similar happened, years later, with Edgardo Donato on Radio El Mundo. We agreed that I should write the lines for his number “Mi serenata”. Those two numbers, together with “Vida querida” with music by the unforgettable Lalo Scalise, are my dearest tango gems.»

Themes by Juan Carlos Thorry:
“Bulincito estudiantil” (tango), lyrics and music
“Hasta cuando” (tango), music by Pedro Maffia
“Indiferencia” (tango), music by Rodolfo Biagi
“Mamá yo quiero casarme” (waltz), music by Julio De Caro and Carlos Marcucci
“Mi serenata” (tango), music by Edgardo Donato
“Pensando en ti” (tango), lyrics and music
“Qué importa” (tango), music by Ricardo Tanturi
“Tu amor y mi obsesión” (tango), music by Leo Lipesker "Riel"
“Vida querida” (tango), music by Eduardo Scalise

Published in: Tango. Un siglo de historia, Editorial Perfil, Buenos Aires 1980, page 312.