[Tango-L] Milonga, etc.

[Keith Elshaw]

It's true that, post-Piazzolla, a thinking has crept in that the music and
the dance are not the same thing.

This thinking and retro-view recitation does not make it so.

The dance and the music were integral. Always - until the 1950's.

The people who created it all didn't sit and listen to vals. They danced it.

They didn't sit and listen to milonga. They danced it.

They danced their little asses off. Which is why we have a form. (Any
spectators were just that and not qualified to explain "it").

All the immigrant threads of musical/dance heritage got woven together and
something started to emerge.

All the time dancing.

When the bandoneon showed-up, a new circumstance was created.

The bandoneon players just couldn't play as fast as the other musicians.
It was a complicated little box that took a lot of time to master and
integrate.

In a spirit of collegiality, the other musicians slowed-down to let them
play as well.

Things went from 2/4 and 3/4 to 4/4 sometimes for them.

Tango was born.

Everybody all the time dancing.

Remember: there are no singers/lyrics until 40 or 50 years later (from the
beginnings). It's all music for dancing.

It's laughable to say that milonga for dancing only came to the fore in
the 1930's.

Well - it's at least incorrect to say that.

The cynically rhetorical question, "Was I there?" is beneath me to answer.

Let's just say I've done my research.

And haven't been fooled by latter-day revisionists (who don't seem to be
dancers or musicians, by the way).

Saying that milonga as we know it came along in the 1930's is so untrue,
it should never be repeated.

2/4 is NOT 4/4.

When Piazzolla called something "Milonga" - it was just a word he liked.

Milonga Del Angel is not a milonga in this, the last, or any other
century. It's a beautiful Piazzolla tango.

Tango is the youngest of the genius children given birth by the Rio De La
Plata.

Milonga as we know it is a parent.