On June 24 he closed his eyes forever

agamos un dios a semejanza
de lo que quisimos ser
y no pudimos.
Démosle lo mejor,
lo más sueño y más pájaro.
Inventémosle un nombre, una sonrisa,
una voz que perdure por los siglos
como pasándole ases al destino.
Humberto Costantini

(Let’s make a god similar to what we wanted to be and we were unable to. Let’s give him the best, much of dream and much of bird. Let’s find a name for him, a smile, a voice that will live through the centuries as if handing aces to Fate.)


THE MYTH
The myth is a need of the existential world. It is a created, intense and profound corporeal reality. We find the truth that makes it different between the real and the ideal world. When the myth is a personality that possesses a history recognized by the social group it becomes a symbol.

The myth is an image idealized by the feeling that summarizes that need of realization we «all» have. It reveals exemplary models of human activity. It is not an invention, it is an experience lived.

In sum: A myth is an account that refers to a memorable performance in a past time.

THE MAN
The social group is which brings the category of myth, and for that the chosen man has to comply with imperatives which shall forge his destiny...

The concept of myth implies the concept of beauty which is the physical or artistic harmony that inspires pleasure and admiration: The only abstraction that comes to us through the senses... and we mention Carlos Gardel.

Beauty can reach us through our eyes due to the harmonic quality of an object or person, through our ears in a trill, in a word, in a song and we mention… Carlos Gardel.

Beauty is found in his features, his smile is restrained, affable, communicative, a sign of predisposition, a greeting, a way of being with somebody else. Maybe it is in hiding some intimate event that he does not like to be known, a limit. It is, in other words, the smile of the idol created by man to be worshipped and we mention... Carlos Gardel.

Beauty is found in that bunch of elements called «pinta» (look) by the inhabitants of the Rio de La Plata area, which implies clothing, attitudes, smile, showing feelings in his musical interpretations, gesture attitudes which make believable what it is expressed and we mention... Carlos Gardel.

Beauty is found in «the way of looking», that sense makes that the other one may belong to us, then we can capture him and recreate him. The glance of the myth is indulging, transmitting, charming, seductive, keeps his core quiet and accompanies the gesture and the smile bringing subtlety to the voice and we mention... Carlos Gardel.

TWO IN ONE
There are, in connection with Gardelian singing, two in one. We can find the first one in his acoustic recordings (criollo songs) when he knew how to blend metaphor and feeling (“La mariposa (Gorjeos)”) or to evidence cunning wit (“Gajito de cedrón”), it is also in the early Gardel when he dared to face tango and lunfardo: Pascual Contursi’s and Samuel Castriota’s “Mi noche triste (Lita)” (1917), turning into a national singer.

The other, the second one, in collaboration with Alfredo Le Pera, will change his city and its codes, will sign contracts that only admitted a Spanish language without regional expressions (lunfardo), will shot movies that will make him a Latin leading figure. Le Pera was the poet of the tangos with Gardel’s music and author of the screenplays. They were both tied together in life by a successful work and died together in a merciless Medellín.

Le Pera had to write in a language that had to be understood by a Spanish speaking audience and so the singer lost his River Plate code and the «regard» of that public that understood him in his body-language, in his intentions, in commonplaces. The existential problem given in code became universal... «¡Que vachaché, hermano!» (There’s nothin’ we can do, brother!) a porteño would tell his Morocho del Abasto.

Maybe it is the prize for fame which it is not «just what people say», but the creations of the Gardel-Le Pera duo will remain unique and incomparable...

Creations, that touch us, stir up our admiration, made like an offering of our outskirts of town to the world, those same outskirts that would make of him a myth to go on with an everlasting love…