Tango Articles

At  approximately  the same time, around 1900, two musical art forms were generated in the American continent :   j azz in North America and  t ango in South America. These genres  have come to be  instantly recognisable and internationally acclaimed and are the definitive music of the countries  where they developed . Both forms grew in the poorest areas of the cities :  New Orleans  for jazz and  Buenos Aires and Montevideo  for tango. B oth were initiated by the influx of immigrants.  Immigration into North America was the result of the slave trade which started in 1501 and was only made illegal in 1833 in England and  in  1865 in  the  USA.  Over that period, countries such as  Portugal, Spain and   England  transported an estimated total of  12  million  negroes from all parts of Africa to the Caribbean  and the southern States of America.  They were destined  to be slaves  working in  the sugar industry  ( to satisfy the developing sweet tooth of  Europeans)  and to the southern

Bob Murray There were no records in my house, as I was growing up through 40s and into 50s, until I purchased Hi-Fi equipment; a Goldring turntable and arm and a Quad valve amplifier. As a family effort we built a folded horn speaker enclosure that used an 8’x4’sheet of 1” chipboard!  The first record I played was my brother’s 10” LP of the 1940 Ellington Orchestra. The sound of the orchestra, driven by Jimmy Blanton’s Bass, was so different from pre-1940. When I came home from school I played it while lighting a fire. Even now when I hear the Da Da Dah of muted trumpets in KoKo I can smell the fire getting hold!  The first record I bought was Fontessa by the Modern Jazz Quartet. All my vinyls are long gone as well as the Quad amplifier (that was a big mistake!) but when i recently streamed (Apple Music) the MJQ, I could remember every track as clearly as yesterday. In the sixth form at school, I earned £1 a week as a laboratory technician and spent it going to the Flamingo Club in SoH

Access to Traditional Tango Music Bob Murray (dr.robert.murray1@gmail.com) Just as, if you want to improve your dancing, you need to practice, if you want to gain the benefits of dancing to the traditional music that shaped the dance, you need to do some work. You need to read and to study. Books - the best book to start is Michael Lavocah’s  “Tango Music Secrets” available from Amazon but cheaper from his web site www.tangomusicsecrets.co.uk  Michael has authored books on Pugliese, Troilo and Di Sarli. Getting to know: Twenty Tango Orchestras by David Thomas www.tango-journey.com Tango 500 by Clive Harrison 500 tracks arranged in tandas. Although written for DJs, it is a good read and so much music listed. Streaming - if you subscribe to Apple Music or Spotify, there need never be silence in your house. Nearly all of the music listed in the above books, you will be able to find and play YouTube - it is simple to enter the names of the big orchestras a

THE BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF ARGENTINE TANGO - A REVIEW By Bob Murray (dr.robert.murray1@gmail.com) It has become accepted that dancing (and Argentine Tango in particular) are beneficial for a range of conditions including dementia, Parkinson’s Disease and even old age! I have summarised a number of papers that involve a proper scientific study of the effects of dancing.. The list is far from exhaustive and I welcome information about other studies. Tango starts with a hug. Veronica Rue has said “If you don’t like hugging people, don’t dance Argentine tango”.  I will start this review with a consideration of hugging. Dr Joseph Mercola writes popular articles on a range health issues. He has numerous valid qualifications and is a member of several professional bodies. His views on hugging are spelt out on his website (1) and the following is a summary:- A consensual hug is beneficial to both parties. An optimum time is 20 seconds. Oxytocin (the “love” hormone) is an