1. Héctor Varela - "La catrera" 1957
2. Héctor Varela - "Nueve de julio" 1957
3. Héctor Varela - "Mi dolor" 1953
4. Héctor Varela - "Pa' que te oigan bandoneón" 1956
One of my favorite milongas in Berlin is the "Café Dominguez" in Mala Junta on sundays. It is a milonga from 3pm to 9pm and it often ends with such high energy that you think you're in one of the best festivals ever... until you remember it's just the normal sunday milonga. The music is excellent and it's wonderful to finish a milonga when the floor is fully packed until the very last song and many people still have energy enough to continue to the next sunday milonga, Max & Moritz.
Another interesting thing about Cafe Dominguez is that they have a crew of five Dj's taking turns as the musicalizador of the night. This tanda is inspired by one of the last tandas of a set from Dj Frank Seifart in a Cafe Dominguez milonga a long time ago. I have forgotten the actual songs and all I do remember from it was that I was dancing to massive Varela instrumentals and was expecting the tanda to finish with the biggest of them all, "Pa' que te oigan bandoneón", as it did. Mr. Seifart managed to capture the high energy of the dance floor perfectly and got the dancers to give even more. For me, this song trumps even the bigger than life "Este es El Rey" from D'Arienzo. It's not full steam all the way but when the song hits the 1:30 mark you know you're in a tango roller coaster of passion like no other.
I was juggling the songs back and forth to find a right order for them. I like the intro of "Nueve de julio" for an opening of a tanda, but I feel it works better as a second song, as after the intro I get slightly lost in trying to recognize the song and thinking if I like this or not. So therefore I chose to go with "La catrera", which is a fine version of the classic song and I think it starts strong, clear and is more inviting than basically any of the other songs. The massive intro of "Pa' que..." might scare off a lot of people, if I had it as the first song, but by the end of the tanda I believe they're more attuned to embracing all that Varela has to give. And for the people who would rather sit out Varela I hope the first song gives them a clear enough signal to do just that. The third song "Mi dolor" from 1953 takes a small step back from the grand later 50's sound and I feel it gives a small breather before the finale of the tanda.
All comments about the tanda are appreciated. I was making this one watching Real Madrid vs. FC Barcelona and now just danced to the tanda myself and I loved it on both occasions. But, needless to say this tanda is not for every dancer and every milonga.
anyways... Enjoy the tanda!
I came across a good discography of Varela here.
Varela, Héctor - TOTW - Todo Tango - tango.info - TangoTunes - iTunes Store