Re: Candombe and Milonga

[SMC Administracion <adm @SMCAR.COM.AR>]

Hi list !!

Jose A. Contreras wrote:

> Anyhow, despite its origin, Argentina took the milonga and candombe and
made them
> popular. Uruguay is a small country, and Argentina is one south american
giant...
> so Argentina has weight enough to make them known...
>

Candombe has been kept by uruguayan people as one of their folk music.
Argentina
do not make candombe popular. Maybe one of the reasons was the lack of afro
american
natives , who almost disappeared after being used as front line soldiers ,
during the independence
wars from Spain and civil war  afterwards  from 1810 to 1852 . After that ,
a yellow fever in
1898 almost killed all the remaining afro american people .

Milonga was known in the area of the River Plate basin, as a song played in
guitar , both by
argentine and uruguayan people .

The milonga as we know related to tango, seems to begun in 1932 , when Piana
and Manzi
composed "Milonga Sentimental". This milonga was sang by Carlos Gardel .

Maybe some confussion could arise due to the fact that Gardel have a duet
with Razzano before,
and they sang folk music such as rancheras, milongas "old style" , and other
argentinean and
uruguayan music (Razzano was uruguayan).


The famous "Taquito militar" has a first line of drums played as candombe .

The site mentioned by George Drivakos ( www.candombe.com)is excellent, it
has an extremely
good explanation of the african roots ( mainly bantu) of candombe.


Kind regards
Alberto Gesualdi
Buenos Aires