Which Tango Orchestra is known as the "Orchestra of all Rhythms"?

Post date: Nov 25, 2014 11:07:04 PM

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Sharing  an excerpt from a post by Dmitry Pruss about Enrique Rodriguez. It gives a good background to the leader of an orchestra i greatly enjoy dancing to! 

Rodriguez seems to be growing in popularity as over the past few years I have noticed a greater number of Rodriguez songs being played in in both the context of tango social dancing and performances.

"...Another great tango orchestra leader whom the highbrow tango critics loved to hate, Enrique Rodriguez was the true dancer’s musician who understood the rhythms of the dancing bodies like few others.

...decades after his death, Enrique Rodriguez remains shut out from the best dance floors of Buenos Aires; his popularity is the strongest abroad. The supposed “sins” of Enrique Rodriguez include a widespread use of foreign music motifs (he remixed a great deal of classic, popular, and folk music from all over the world into dance tunes), the many non-tango dancing genres he played (earning to himself – oh horror! – the title of El Rey Del Fox!), his eagerness to add strange musical instruments into tango music, and even the supposedly ever-upbeat mood of his music. In other words, Rodriguez is found guilty of exactly the things which make him so dear to my heart!

First and foremost a bandoneonist who played with Pacho and Canaro in the Old Guard days, Enrique Rodriguez was also a fluent piano and violin player, and a wonderful composer. His rhythmic style developed in the mold of Edgardo Donato’s orchestra, after Rodriguez played with Donato in the late 1920s.

When Enrique Rodriguez convened his own grand orchestra in 1936, he pointedly refused to name it a Tango Orchestra. Instead, it was christened “an orchestra of all rhythms” which also played foxtrots, rancheras, pasodobles, polkas for the dancing public which didn’t just tango. Today, we often choose to dance to these very tango-flavored, fast-paced pieces in the rhythm of a spicy milonga. In fact, despite having recorded wonderfully rhythmic tangos and exuberant valses, Enrique Rodriguez’s orchestra didn’t leave us good milonga records … if you want to dance milonga to Rodriguez, you better not be shy about doing it to the sound of Argentine foxtrot!

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If you enjoyed this post you will also enjoy: How to know it's a song by Rodriguez's orchestra