Carlos Di Sarli

Carlos Di Sarli was one of the defining bandleaders of Argentine tango, the genre and accompanying social dance that took shape in the suburbs of Buenos Aires toward the close of the nineteenth century; built around the bandoneón and a clutch of melodic instruments, set in 2/4 or 4/4 time, and carried by lyrics of nostalgia and lost love, it is the music his orquesta típica supplied to the city's dance floors.^[1] An Argentine musician whose life ran from 1903 to 1960,^[2] he is set down in fuller biographical accounts as a tango pianist, composer, and orchestra director, born in January 1903 and dying in January 1960.^[3] Surveys of the genre place him among its principal figures, naming him in the same company as the composers and performers Francisco Canaro, Juan D'Arienzo, Osvaldo Pugliese, and Ástor Piazzolla.^[4]

Di Sarli came to that music from the provincial south rather than the capital. He was born in Bahía Blanca, the eighth child of Miguel Di Sarli, an Italian immigrant who kept a gunsmith's shop, and of Serafina Russomano, daughter of the tenor Tito Russomano.^[5] Baptised Cayetano in keeping with his family's Catholic observance, he later adopted the name Carlos and grew up in a household steeped in music: one brother taught at the Williams conservatory, another sang as a baritone, and a younger brother trained as a pianist.^[6] Carlos himself studied classical music at that conservatory, but in 1916 a workshop accident cost him the sight of one eye and obliged him to wear spectacles for the rest of his life.^[7]

His apprenticeship was itinerant before it was settled. At the age of thirteen he joined a troupe of travelling musicians who toured the provinces with a repertory of popular songs and tangos, and he afterwards spent two years in Santa Rosa, in La Pampa, accompanying silent films and playing at a club.^[8] He returned to Bahía Blanca in 1919, formed his first orchestra, and played in local cafés before carrying the ensemble on tour through several provinces.^[9] In 1923 he and his younger brother moved to Buenos Aires, the city where the genre's recording studios and cabarets were concentrated.^[10]

In the capital his rise was quick. He found a seat in the orchestra of Anselmo Aieta and, in 1926, joined that of Osvaldo Fresedo, who became both a close friend and a decisive influence on the style he was forming.^[11] By late 1927 Di Sarli was leading his own orquesta típica from the piano — the keyboard, rather than a baton, directing the ensemble — appearing in clubs, broadcasting on Radio Cultura, and recording for the RCA Victor label.^[12] Between 1928 and 1931 the orchestra cut forty-eight recorded sides, several carrying the brief sung refrains that estribillo singers supplied during performances.^[13]

In later years his orchestra became a proving ground for several admired tango vocalists. Roberto Rufino, the Buenos Aires singer nicknamed "El Pibe del Abasto," was active during the genre's Golden Age and is remembered above all for his work with prominent orchestras, Di Sarli's foremost among them.^[14] The singer Roberto Florio, who performed under the nickname "Chocho," likewise counted the Di Sarli orchestra among the leading groups of his career — a measure of the standing the bandleader's name carried within the tango world.^[15]