Archivo Digital del Tango and Pablo Aslan Quintet Featuring Paquito D'Rivera at Americas Society

Ernest Barteldes
All About Jazz
March 31, 2010

According to Americas Society music director Sebastian Zubieta, March 23rd is a national day of remembrance in Argentina, marking the anniversary of the 1975 military coup that took control of the country for over a decade, and this was the date chosen to introduce the audience of a landmark project that is seeking to preserve the history of the country's best-known musical genre, the tango.

The evening began with a lecture presented by Ignacio Varchausky, the artistic director of TangoVia, a Buenos Aires-based non-profit organization that promotes tango education and awareness. He talked about the Tango Digital Archive, a project he has led to catalogue the history of the genre, which has not been well documented in his country. According to his presentation, during the late 60s many record labels (including Odeon and RCA Victor) destroyed the masters of tango recordings made during the early years of the 20th century in order to "make way for pop records on their shelves," he declared. He also stated that over 3,000 tango recordings are forever lost due to the fact that many collections have disappeared in the hands of antique shop owners and less-than-cautious collectors. His team is also working in digitally preserving photos, posters, films and other media so that when the work is done the general public will have access to the material.

Varchausky also showed his team's work in digitally re-mastering those records by comparing songs currently available on CD and the enormous difference in clarity that they had after going through his clean-up process. He urged the audience to spread the word and also encouraged those who might have any item related to the history of tango to come forward and allow his team to evaluate the materials for possible inclusion in the archives.

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