Pugliese Night

Pugliese Night

On Saturday 15 August, the Teatro Avenida was host to the “Pugliese Night”. For over two hours, various musicians who accompanied the author of “Recuerdo” at different times in his career, got together to pay tribute to him. The bandoneonist Daniel Binelli opened fire, commanding his quintet, who rendered four tangos. The last was “La biandunga”, a number by Don Osvaldo which, as Binelli said, “was already avant-garde when it first came out,” in 1968.

Then came the sextet of the violinist Gabriel Rivas in which a guest performer shone: Abel Córdoba. The singer was the vocalist of Pugliese’s orchestra from the end of the ’60s until the maestro’s death in 1995. With fine bearing, elegant and glorying in his years onstage, he had the audience in a frenzy with “Sueño querido”, “Triste destino” and “Milonga sentimental”.
Rodolfo Mederos and his typical orchestra followed with their own numbers and some by other authors like Eduardo Arolas and Cátulo Castillo. Afterwards Color Tango appeared, a line-up led by the squeezebox of Roberto Álvarez and cultivating the “Pugliese style”. “Emancipación”, “A Evaristo Carriego” and above all “La Mariposa”, took warm-hearted applause. As too did the versions of “Abrojito” and “Bailemos”, sung by the gentle and expressive voice of Roberto Decarre.

Next, Víctor Lavallén and his orchestra offered a tango set lasting nearly twenty minutes. After that, an anthology as a finale. The bandoneons of Binelli, Mederos, Álvarez and Lavallén, along with Gabriel Rivas, Marcelo Prieto, Fernando Rodríguez and Eduardo Malaguarnera on violins; Patricio Villarejo on ’cello and Guillermo Ferrer and Domingo Diani on double bass, gave a deeply felt interpretation of “La Yumba”. Directed by Emilio Balcarce and this time the piano had no player but rather a red carnation laying across its keys. This re-created the scene that was witnessed so many times in neighborhood clubs and cafés: when Pugliese was detained for his communist militancy, a red carnation would mark his absence. A select group of virtuoso musicians and a fervent audience conspired to show, once again, that Pugliese’s artistic legacy remains alive.

Gabriel Cócaro