Osvaldo Fresedo y la Guardia Nueva: Paris and New York and Fresedo

by José Manuel Araque

E. Ray Goetz came up with the idea to bring Francisco Canaro to Club Mirador in New York while visiting Paris in Summer 1925. Canaro had just made a splash there and was playing at the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs and at Club Florida. Goetz, a well known composer and impresario, had traveled to Paris to secure a contract to bring Spanish star Raquel Meller to New York. The expectations for the arrival of Meller in North America had been building up for years after previous cancellations, and nowhere were those expectations higher than in the Spanish immigrant community in New York. Though the plan to bring Canaro was in the works for months, Goetz's central preoccupation in 1926 was Raquel Meller.

In early October 1925 newspapers in the area of Miami reported on a join venture by Goetz and Irving Berlin to bring the Argentine band "now an attraction at the Club Florida in Paris” to a venue that would be built in a boat in Lake Boca Raton. The well-known dancing couple of Marjorie Moss and Georges Fontana would be performing, and Berlin would bring his musical The Cocoanuts starring the Marx Brothers. Florida was in the middle of a real estate boom and architect/developer Addison Mizner was at the center of it. Mizner drew plans for a new city with villas for notable rich people like the Vanderbilts, and hotels along the shore. Berlin would get his own villa in Boca Raton too. The Pirate Ship Cabaret would have capacity for 400, serve French dinner at 7PM and Spanish after-theater supper after 10PM.

On November 6 Mizner sent his brother Wilson, the Secretary of his organization, to get the boat in Baltimore. After Baltimore Wilson, who was well known for his "social skills" and wit, went to New York "to buy lumber and fittings for the project". The construction of hotels soon ran into funding problems and delays, and the Pirate Ship Cabaret was never built. In a few months the Mizner Development Corporation had filed for bankruptcy, a cautionary example of the deals that were made in Wall Street at the height of the Roarin' 20s. Ironically, the plot of The Cocoanuts was centered around people being scammed in the Florida boom. The play was a success and played for months on Broadway and was eventually made into a movie.

Irving Berlin could do no wrong at the time, he was at the height of his popularity, he was called by some The King of Jazz. Goetz and Berlin had been partners for years, first as songwriters and business associates, and then as in-laws when Berlin married Goetz's sister Dorothy in 1912. Tragically Dorothy died just six months after the wedding. In early January 1926 Berlin remarried and went on honeymoon to Europe on the steamer Leviathan. On the same ship was E. Ray Goetz who was going to Paris to make the final arrangements for Raquel Meller's trip to New York. Goetz and Berlin arrived in France on January 15 and promised Meller she could bring her dogs on a ship of her choosing to allay her fears to do the crossing. Raquel committed to go to New York in April.

Maurice had struggled for months to work with Barbara Bennett. It was not even a private disagreement, the press was betting on their eventual breakup. Maurice was not the same either, the pictures of this era show him gaunt and almost frail, his spirit was there but it was evident that the pulmonary incident he had in 1923 had taken a toll on him. And by now he was barely getting any press for his dancing at Club Lido, instead rags like the Daily News reported on his problems with Barbara with glee. Maurice had become a joke. By the end of 1925 the situation was unsustainable, and Maurice knew it. When Maurice and Barbara officially split he had already lined up her replacement, from a list of 250 applicants he selected 21-year old Eleanora Ambrose. Maurice had struggled with the professional costs of the previous breakups, it was said he had a breakup clause that would have forced his former partner Leonora Hughes to pay him 100 thousand dollars. Maurice knew that he could not retain his partners by force, this time around he decided to marry Eleanora right away. The newly-wed dancing partners arrived in Paris on January 9.

Francisco Canaro was in Buenos Aires since November 4 where he arrived from Bordeaux on the Massilia. Canaro was back home to recruit new musicians for his growing enterprise in France and possibly to spend Christmas with family. We think he was also in the studio, and that there are traces of his presence like the recording of the tango Francia by Samuel Castriota. He also recorded the tango Changüí by his brother José Humberto, and Juan F. Baüer's No te quiero más, a very popular tango since. When Canaro returned to Paris he brought with him violinist Domingo Demare and his young son Lucio. In an interview with Osvaldo Soriano Lucio recalled how strict Canaro was as leader of the orchestra and businessman, they called him "Kaiser".

Valentino and his friend Manuel Reachi were at the premiere of The Eagle in London's Marble Arch Pavillion on November 23, 1925. A riot ensued among his fans and the police had to intervene. In London he ran into his old friend from the taxi-dancing days Mae Murray. He then went to Paris for the first time since November 1924, another riot ensued when he arrived at the Gare du Nord on December 13. Rudy then bought a new Isotta Fraschini and drove it to Berlin on December 21, and to the Riviera for New Year's with Reachi and Murray, finally returning to Paris on January 12. While in Paris he went to Mitchell's cabaret and to the Florida, and this time around he danced aplenty, "the boy was mad" said Reachi.

That fabled night at the Florida where the Berlins, E. Ray Goetz, Valentino and Maurice met Francisco Canaro must have taken place on the weekend of January 15-16, after Goetz's arrival from New York. In his memoirs Canaro doesn't quite share details about the conversations other than point out that everyone was in agreement and that Valentino was going to help. He also mentioned that he was offered enough money to do it. Clink! A star-struck Lucio Demare was there too. As fate would have it, it was going to be Valentino's last weekend in Paris. He embarked on the Leviathan on January 19 after signing his divorce papers. Five days days after he arrived in New York on January 26 he hopped on a train to Los Angeles and went straight to work on his next movie.

While GauchoMania was still going, there were signs the pubic was tiring of the same act. The Vaudeville circuits were less busy in late 1925 and early 1926, and yet there were at least 4 different troupes touring the East that claimed to have an "Argentine Orchestra". American dancing couple Owens and Kelley had one, as did Millie Andrée and her partner Jaime Delval, who claimed to be Argentine themselves. Emilia Delirio and Fidel Irazábal brought their Original Argentine Players as they criss-crossed the Appalachians from Birmingham to Boston and Chicago, but there’s no information on those musicians and it’s unlikely they were Argentine at all. O'Hanlon and Zambuni's Cabaret in Cuba was back at B. F. Keith's Palace in New York in December with their "Argentine Orchestra", including two accordions by Peppino and D'Americo.

And then there’s Don Alberto Infantas. In September 1925 Don Alberto and a 6-piece orchestra he named Infantios Serenaders did a small tour of the East with the company of Spanish dancer Pepita Granados. They played at Keith Theaters in Poughkeepsie and in New York (81st Street, Upper West Side), and then moved to Baltimore in November. Two weeks later, when they appeared in Dayton the orchestra had been renamed Tango Symphony Orchestra ("all stringed instruments with the addition of a concertina") and one Elvasco was dancing with the company. Though Infantas had an interest in Classical music and composition, and he surely had experience directing an ensemble, it's hard to believe he had ambitions to transform the Tango orchestra itself, or that he had the know-how. He surely did not have enough players for a "symphonic sound". And there is no evidence to suggest that Juan Carlos Cobián and Don Alberto were working together at this point either. After playing in Pittsburgh in mid-February 1926 Infantas' Tango Symphony Orchestra disappeared. It's striking that none of the Tango orchestras that played across the United States these days had a bandoneon, not one had been seen since Osvaldo Fresedo was in Camden in September 1920. Infantas' "concertina" remains an open question.

The Spanish-speaking population in New York concentrated around the West Village and Spanish Harlem in Manhattan, and Henry Street in Brooklyn. Other than the occasional Broadway show, immigrants stayed around these areas. Pilar Arcos and Fortunio Bonanova's heroic effort to bring zarzuelas, song and music to the community was popular and soon had imitators and critics. In an opinion column written for Cine Mundial writer Miguel de Zárraga savaged the pretentious theater scene in New York, and called the prompter the most important person in the entire company, a dig at the lack of preparation of many of the actors. The lines were repeated over the action, "that's why they pay twice as much for the tickets" sentenced Zárraga sarcastically. Nonetheless Bonanova and Arcos and friends soldiered on through the season. A new company that included Martín Garralaga started playing at the Apollo Theater, closer to Spanish Harlem.

The expectation for Raquel Meller, the choices made by the record labels, the record-shop ads in the newspaper La Prensa, and even the rise of Padilla's pasodoble Valencia and Lacalle's song Amapola clearly point to the Spaniards being by far the most important Spanish-speaking immigrant group in New York. There were others, and there were Argentines, but by and large their presence was not as significant to the theater offerings.

The ads placed by Castellanos for imports from Argentina seem to point to a minor effort to sell Rosita Quiroga's recordings in New York, a little Gardel and not much else. There's barely a mention of Francisco Canaro. Finally, one can barely find points of contact between the few Argentine figures in town and the rest of the Spanish population: Juan Carlos Cobián did not play in Spanish Harlem, Roberto Medrano rarely danced outside of Broadway, and La Prensa rarely covered either artist, it's as if they lived in parallel worlds. Though Cobián and Medrano were not far from the Spanish social clubs they surely were not regulars, and the couples that danced Tango at these places were usually not Argentines.

Cortez and Peggy were on a tour of Europe since 1925. Other former associates of Cobián that were in New York in January 1926 include José Moriche and Juan Pulido, who kept a steady schedule of recording dates with Victor in New York through the year. Alberto de Lima was looking for a new partner and danced with Spanish dancer Trini, with Conchita Piquer and with Maria Montero briefly. Medrano and Donna were busy with their dancing classes, and in February left for Miami where they stayed through the Winter. Medrano was a versatile dancer and on ocassions donned his Gaucho clothes too, Dance Magazine reported him concerned as usual that Tango was "seldom properly performed in America".

It’s very hard to pinpoint what exactly happened to Cobián in the Fall of 1925, yet his "disappearance" is telling in many ways. For one thing we only have two [known] original works from him since moving to New York two years before. Victor, Cobián's old recording label in Argentina, did not invite him to the studio in New York, and neither did Columbia when it invested in the repertoire for their new electric recordings. Cobián may have been sick, he may have taken himself out of the loop for a while, he may have been taking a break. The evidence suggests he still had a group, where he was playing is a very big open question, we think he was in Chicago as Cadícamo suggested. Alas, his disappearance points to an unavoidable fact, he was getting little traction as a name and his great project to conquer the North had hit a wall.

Two years after Cobián's arrival there was no significant presence of Argentine musicians in New York. The numbers are sobering: of the 300 or so tracks recorded by the combined labels that had Spanish artists in New York in 1925, maybe one in ten was a Tango and none recorded by an Argentine. This perhaps left an opening for violinist Hugo Mariani, who formed the Mariani Tango Orchestra to record for pioneering label Gennett. In September 1925 Mariani, who was in New York since 1920, invited pianist Abraham Thevenet, violinist Doroteo Andrada and Francisco Vagnoni from Uruguay. The expanded Orquesta Criolla de Mariani recorded only a handful of tracks for Gennett before February 1926, including yet another version of Ernesto Lecuona's Es un golfo. They also recorded a handful of tangos that were recorded by Pulido or Moriche or others in New York, a few tunes now popular in the River Plate were reaching the North. These include Donato's Julián, Canaro's Sentimiento Gaucho, Pettorossi's Galleguita and Manuel Jovés' Nubes de Humo, which Mariani probably heard first from Rosita Quiroga and Carlos Gardel respectively. Mariani's musicians made a living for a while playing in small places and then split or went into hibernation. We do not know of any surviving tracks from the 1925/26 sessions by this curious group, they probably suffered from many of the quality issues that plagued Gennett shellacs of the era.

In Buenos Aires Osvaldo Fresedo had come to the crossroads in his agreement with Victor. The labels in Argentina were facing some of the same challenges to move to the electric recording technology that had already been adopted in New York. A healthy and optimistic economy drove the labels to invest in the new Tango repertoire. In October 1925 Fresedo left Victor, in his inaugural recordings for Odeon he accompanied the only true King of Tango Carlos Gardel. Soon after, on October 17, Gardel left Buenos Aires for Barcelona with the theater company Rivera de Rosas on the Principessa Mafalda. Canaro was on his way to Buenos Aires on the Massilia, their ships crossed paths in the Atlantic. Some of the tracks that the Canaro orchestra recorded in November 1925 are the same that Fresedo recorded that month for Odeon, including tangos by Raúl de los Hoyos and José María Rizzuti.

Within days of Fresedo's defection Victor had a new orchestra that they named Orquesta Típica Victor, and which included Fresedo's old associates Manlio Francia and Luis Petrucelli. At the moment of the separation neither Victor nor Odeon had electric recordings, but it was only a matter of weeks for the new equipment to be in place for Victor. What drove Fresedo to split? Did Victor decide on creating this "house orchestra" before or after Fresedo left? It's been said that the move to create the Orquesta Típica Victor upset some of the artists in their roster, was this Fresedo in particular? For the first 3 years of electric recordings the Orchestra Típica Victor recorded more tracks than any of the little outfits that Victor allowed to flourish in its shadow, with the exception of Julio de Caro's Orchestra. Victor beat Odeon to the electric race with La Musa Mistonga by Rosita Quiroga recorded on March 1, 1926.

Alas, it was Odeon that invested heavily into Tango in Argentina for the next 3 years, their total number Tango recordings from the late 1920s dwarfs the Victor output. All the big names were really working for Odeon in 1926, Gardel, Canaro, Maglio, Firpo and Fresedo. When a new Tango was deemed to have possibilities, Odeon would release as many as 4 versions of the same, one by each orchestra. There was a tradeoff: while Victor's investment and recording schedule was relatively steady through the decade, Fresedo had to complete thrice as many recordings for Odeon as he used to produce for Victor. What is now seen as an incredibly creative opportunity could also have been a huge burden on the artists. Fresedo was doing this while managing multiple orchestras, with commitments in clubs and milongas all over Buenos Aires. Pianist José María Rizzuti, bandoneon Alberto Rodríguez, violinist Jean Koller and bassist Humberto Costanzo made the move to Odeon with Fresedo. He also brought in new musicians like Carlos di Sarli and Miguel Caló who played short stints with the orchestras, and violinist Adolfo Muzzi who stayed to form part of group that went into Odeon's studios every week. As with previous formations Fresedo made room and encouraged his musicians to compose, and then recorded their works. This was the apex of the Sextet era, yet Canaro and Fresedo clearly show their different approach to the Orquesta Típica. In tracks like Entra nomás Canaro's orchestra enunciates the main theme in unison for at least 30 seconds, by which time Fresedo has already opened his arrangement to allow Rizzuti and others to shine solo.

To understand the fortunes of Tango in the United States in 1926 it's necessary to understand all the distribution channels, and they were multiplying. The year 1926 was truly going to be a make or break year for many performers, and for Tango in the United States. Since the advent of Prohibition in 1922 the nightclub had slowly but steadily risen. For the Jazz and Tango musicians this was a desirable clientele, the pay was high and the crowd was a captive audience. The most exclusive clubs were concentrated in the area north of Times Square and around 7th Avenue, catering to the after-theater crowd. Some were small, some had capacity for 500 people. There was Club Montmartre on 50th Street, Club Lido on the northwest corner of 52nd Street and 7th Avenue, and above it was the Trocadero. Two blocks north was Club Anatole on 54th Street, and Club Richman's on 56th Street on the site of the old Ciro's. On 63rd Street at Central Park West sat the Century Theater, a large building that also housed the cabaret Parisiana in the basement (French chanteuse Lucienne Boyer sang there), and the Café de Paris on the rooftop. Villa Venice sat on 10 East 60 Street, on the opposite side of Central Park. Many of these places shared a common lineage, some of the investors where the same, and Charlie Journal managed a few of them over the years. Their business was seasonal, and sometimes a place would close only to open next season under different management and a new name. These were exclusive establishments of course, membership was required and a cover charge was applied sometimes. There were plenty of hints of Paris, from the name of the clubs to the food and the fashions and Charlie, but the presence of a Tango orchestra is where the similarities ended.

And then there was the Club Mirador, in the basement of the building at the corner of 51st Street that runs the block from 7th avenue to Broadway, and that today houses the iconic Capezio Shoes store, know to all Broadway dancers. The building also uses the address 1650 Broadway, the basement is currently in use by the Iridium Jazz Club. The Mirador opened in September 1924 and from day one was one of the most exclusive nightclubs. Charlie Journal was managing the operations of the Mirador when it opened, the elite went to whatever placed he ran. Some described the clientele of the Lido and the Mirador as "The 400", a sly reference to old money from the Gilded Age in a city where new fortunes being were made every day. It was "the only after-theater dancing place where careful mothers allowed their débutante daughters to enter". Surprisingly in March 1925 the Mirador and at least a dozen other nightclubs were named in an indictment brought about by Federal Marshall Bruckner, many were padlocked and had to close early for Summer.

Of course when the 1925-1926 season arrived new promises were made to the authorities and the clubs re-opened. Through 1925 and Spring 1926 the English dancing team of Moss and Fontana delighted the patrons of the Mirador. Tango was not their main dish, though they did their own Apache which they labeled "El Tango Trágico". Of Moss one critic wrote "she makes everyone else you ever saw seem clumsy".

Since 1925 the new magazine The New Yorker covered the goings in the clubs in Lois Long's column Tables for Two. Emil Coleman's Orchestra provided the soundtrack for years at the Montmartre, the Trocadero and Villa Venice. Since its opening Malcolm C. (Johnny) Johnson held the fort at the Mirador with his jazz sextet. To be sure, these were not the only places to dance in New York, or the only outlets of Tango and Jazz, only the most exclusive. The parties were raging all around town, the latest craze since 1924 was the Charleston and everyone was doing it, even those that complained about the noise and the perceived transgressions. Next door to Club Anatole was Texas Guinan's fabled 300 Club, known for its frequent runnings with the Law. The adventurous went to Harlem to Smalls' Paradise on 7th Avenue at 134th Street. And Barney's, on 3rd Street between Sullivan and Thompson, was called the "Mirador of Greenwich Village". Most significantly, around the corner from Barney's the Spanish restaurant El Chico opened at 245 Sullivan Street in 1925. Its owner Benito Collada was a Spaniard that came to New York from Havana in 1920. In time Collada would start bringing in the music and start his own little cabaret operation.

Ramón and Rosita moved to New York around Christmas 1925, they were already stable economically and brought Mama Reachi from Scranton to live with them. Their transition to the life of dancing in night clubs was perhaps made easier by Anatole Friedman, "the Ziegfeld of Vaudeville". Anatole had opened his own speakeasy on 54th street where he was host and performed in a series of elaborate revues known as "Anatole's Affairs". Starting in late January 1926 Ramón and Rosita, the "Most Exquisite Dance Team in America", joined Club Anatole's revue, and they immediately captured the attention of the New Yorker writer who simply wrote "they are good" [sic].

To be sure, the crowd at Club Anatole was of a certain ascent, wealthy and decadent. In March Club Anatole's Bal Masque was attended by Hollywood stars Mary Pickford and Douglass Fairbanks, and by the head of the National Vaudeville Association (NVA) E. F. Albee. There were monsters too, the notorious Harry Thaw, a convicted killer with perhaps too much money, attended the Bal Masque too.

Goetz returned to New York in early March to put the final touches on Raquel Meller's welcome mat. The same month Spanish tonadillera Amalia Molina announced a 3-year contract to tour the United States, Fortunio Bonanova would sing with her on the initial shows. While the expectation for Raquel was now fever-high, there were signs the market for Spanish acts may have been reaching saturation. After 5 years in New York Conchita Piquer announced that she was returning to Spain, José Moriche sang at her farewell show at the Casino Theater on March 14. Likewise, after returning from Chicago María Montero appeared only a few times in public and immersed herself in the business of her dance studio, and rarely appeared dancing Tango since. Nonetheless Maria's prestige was still on the rise, she formed a partnership with dance teacher Adolph Bolm and returned to Chicago.

On April 5 Raquel Meller arrived in New York with her dogs, then she asked for the opening to be postponed one more day. She finally opened on April 14 at the Empire Theater on Broadway at 39th Street, she was "wildly applauded" according to The New York Times. There were detractors, some were ticked off by the high prices of admission, the tickets sold for 25 dollars each or about 5 times the price of ticket to a good Broadway show. Señorita Meller's eyes were beautiful, her voice ok, and she only spoke Spanish they said. Raquel went to the West Coast and visited several cities, she only had time for a handful of shows in New York. Ignoring the naysayers Goetz negotiated an extension of her tour.

In Los Angeles Reachi's daughter with Agnes Ayres, Maria Eugenia, was born in March while Valentino was shooting The Son of the Sheik. Agnes was co-staring in the new production too, and Manuel gave up his diplomatic career to become "assistant-director", a somewhat fuzzily defined position. Valentino played dual roles as himself and his son, he was going back to one of the roles that made him a legend a few years before. The movie was shot on location in California and Arizona. In a private party in Spring Manuel danced with Mae Murray in a Tango contest with Valentino and Pola Negri, Manuel and Mae won.

Ramón and Rosita had been dancing at Club Anatole for a few weeks when they announced that they were going to be dancing for 3 days starting April 8 at the Loew's State Theater in White Plains, about 30 miles north of New York. The announcement noted that the show was part of the celebration of the 10th National Vaudeville Artist's Week, the NVA was behind it. The events were meant as a benefit for "old age pensioners, unemployed members and invalids of the profession", and to build a sanatorium in Lake Saranac for artists that had contracted tuberculosis. Carlos Cobián and his Argentine Orchestra played for the dancers. A close reading of the announcement reveals that Cobián was playing at Club Anatole since Ramón and Rosita started working there. Cobián was not quite "lost", he still commanded an orchestra and was making music. In April the WMCA station based on the Hotel McAlpin transmitted a few shows from Club Anatole.

In early May Cobián and Ramón and Rosita played at the Riverside Theater on Broadway at 96th Street. The next week the show moved to B. F. Keith's Bushwick Theater in Brooklyn. At the time Bushwick was a neighborhood rapidly filling with Italian immigrants. This show was sponsored by the NVA as a benefit for artists in need. The announcement claimed that Ramón and Rosita already were well known in Europe. This was high-Vaudeville, there was also singing and comedy, as many as 16 acts. There were two clowns, Chaz Chase in a "pantomimic dance novelty", and the legendary Toto, well-known in New York for his work with the Greenwich Village Follies.

That month the NVA published its gorgeously produced yearbook too. While the shows and the book tried to project a sense of optimism for the future, the harsh reality was that Vaudeville as an industry was now in free fall. The confluence of new technological advancements had presented increasing challenges to the power that theater owners had as gatekeepers of success in the performing arts. The shows by Ramón and Rosita at B. F. Keith's theaters that Spring were made possible only after the NVA rescinded its own ban on cabaret performers. The entertainment industry journal Variety reported that the chief booker at the Palace, Keith's flagship theater in New York, had a "total about-face" at the continuing desertion of names to picture houses and cabarets. The numbers were overwhelming, from 1925 to 1927 the Keith-Albee chain's business went from controlling 350 big theater houses to only 12. Historian John Henrik explains it best: "Top vaudeville stars filmed their acts for one-time pay-offs, inadvertently helping to speed the death of Vaudeville. After all, when small time theatres could offer big time performers on screen at a nickel a seat, who could ask audiences to pay higher amounts for less impressive live talent?".

In Paris Harry Pilcer caused a furore when he danced a jazz-syncopated version of La Marsellaise with his sister Elsie. The team was at the Théâtre de l'Empire until mid-March, and then they traveled to Buenos Aires in the company of Elsie's husband Dudley Douglas, a singer. Not much is known about the Pilcers' short trip other than they performed at "l'Opera". On May 24 the Pilcers and Douglas arrived in New York from Buenos Aires. Then on June 14 they opened at B. F. Keith's Palace "plus Carlos Cobián's crack orchestra of 10", they were there all week. Cobián had a ten-piece orchestra! It was Harry's first show in New York in almost 5 years, The New York Times remarked that "in all the years since he was the partner of Gaby Deslys he lost none of his nimbleness and sure-footed agility". On June 29 Harry again sailed to Paris to appear in Edmond Sayag's First Ambassadeurs Show, where Francisco Canaro's Orchestra was now playing with replacements.

Juan and Rafael Canaro sailed for Buenos Aires on the Asturias in late June, they had been away from home for more than a year and presumably wanted a break. We think the orchestra's pianist Fiorivanti di Cicco traveled with them. While in Buenos Aires they must have run into José Bohr who was now recording for Victor with a new orchestra he had assembled in a hurry, and which he planned to bring to New York. We think at the moment Bohr was still recording for Odeon with the Canaro Jazz Band. That Summer Francisco Canaro went on a holiday to Italy to see the home of his ancestors and visit family. Canaro's Orchestra at the Ambassadeurs now had Lucio Demare on the piano. On July 2 the other King of Jazz, Paul Whiteman, opened at the Ambassadeurs, Demare loved jazz and enjoyed every minute of it.

In early July Raquel Meller's completed her triumphant first tour of the United States, and E. Ray Goetz accompanied her and the dogs back to Paris. Before leaving Goetz announced that he was now full owner of the Mirador for the next season. Raquel Meller would come back to New York in the Fall to play on Broadway and at the Mirador, and get an even larger payout than in her previous tour. Presumably Raquel would complement the Canaro offering or the other way around. It was floated that the Mirador was going to add a 5 dollar cover charge. By September the rumor mill had inflated that number to 25 dollars. The signal was clear, the place was going to be made even more exclusive. It was also rumored that Raquel was permanently moving to the United States. In Paris Goetz was joined in late July by his wife, the French singer and Broadway star Iréne Bordoni. The couple then traveled to Évian and Dresden where they stayed for almost 5 weeks taking the cure.

The young Argentine singer Carmen Alonso had been touring the United States the previous year with The Dancing Cansinos, they all came to New York in April possibly to join the events related to Raquel Meller's arrival. Alonso soon was in demand in the incipient theater scene. In July the company of Pilar Arcos and Fortunio Bonanova staged the zarzuela Casta y Pura at the Teatro de la Calle 14 (6th Avenue), Alonso was in the cast. Soon after she joined Martín Garralaga, Concepción Ayala, Conchita Vila and Vincent Martínez at the Apollo Theater, in a series of commitments that ran through the end of the year.

In a sense Fowler and Tamara epitomized the American GauchoMania dancers, they traveled through the land with their fancy outfits and their "South American Troubadours", and brought their own idea of Tango to the masses. They also had big plans for Tango to replace Charleston as the new craze when they went to the American Convention of Dancing Teachers in New York in late July. GauchoMania wasn't quite driving people to the dancing floor, instead it had built the aura of a stage performance around a dance that had its origins as a social act. In an open letter to the newspaper Pall Mall the teacher Alice Vandyck once remarked that Tango was "utterly unsuited to the average English temperament". She added that "the ballroom dancer is not a performer", "he does not want to assume a role and to imitate an emotion or a characteristic that is foreign to him", "his desire is to enjoy himself naturally".

At the convention in New York the biggest preoccupation appeared to be the Charleston, the way it was danced with the feet off the ground and other novelties. Strangely the head of the convention himself, Arthur Murray, praised Charleston because it was helping eliminate some objectionable practices, "the hugging, more passionate part, to be specific". Murray told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that Charleston was a more moral dance because it made people "think more of dancing and less of their partners and the physical contact with them". Murray, famous for his learn-to-dance-by-mail business, predicted that Tango was going to be popular next season. He said society people returning from Paris were showing new interest in taking classes, and paid an ad in The New Yorker to back his words. "The new Tango has only 4 steps - although the best dancers do six" he said, adding that it was "slower than the fox-trot, has a softer melody, and its beats are not so accentuated, with the result that at first it sounds like a waltz". The convention amounted to little really, maybe the dancing teachers did not have the authority they used to have, after all it was an era of new freedoms since the War ended. Murray himself admitted to as much declaring that "it was quite customary for such conventions to issue such public bulls as these, it was equally customary for the public to disregard them altogether".

Jazz had risen after the movement of African American families from the rural South to the big cities in the North of the United States that took place after the Civil War. New York was witness to the "Harlem Renaissance", a cultural movement that changed everything from art to society and the fabric of the country. Paul Whiteman elevated Jazz to new heights in 1924 by recording the original version of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. That same year Charleston had become the new dance craze in New York, it came hand in hand with the rise of the movement for women's rights. Young "flappers" cut their hair in a "bobs", wore short dresses, smoked and drank, and chose who to dance with or not. Of course there was a racial component to the adoption of the new sounds and rhythms, for the first part of the decade it was mostly orchestras of whites that recorded Jazz. Then Josephine Baker became a hit in Paris, and a growing number of radio stations and even Paul Whiteman started playing the Charleston.

The pace of innovation in the media industry was dizzying, even the initial experiments to do television can be traced to this era. On August 6 the movie Don Juan was premiered by Warner Brothers at their theater on 52nd Street and Broadway, one block from the Mirador. It was produced using Vitaphone, an alternative technology to Lee de Forest's sound-on-film that instead looked like a forced marriage of the record industry and the silent-film studios: the sound and the images were captured separately, a contraption tried to synchronize the whole thing. Vitaphone was trying to beat de Forest to the market for the talkies, and it had the advantage of having a major studio behind it. In time sound-on-film did beat Vitaphone, but for the next 3 years Vitaphone made shorts of Vaudeville acts, some of which are very valuable to the history of Tango in New York. In the sum it all spelled the death of Vaudeville.

Son of the Sheik opened in July in Los Angeles, it was a huge hit from day one, Valentino was back on top of the world. To promote the movie Valentino went on a short promotional tour to San Francisco, Chicago and finally New York, where he would presumably be promoting the Canaro show too. On August 2 Valentino took a detour to visit the Casa Valencia, a summer grill that opened at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Atlantic City. Since early July Ramón and Rosita had been dancing at Casa Valencia to the sounds of the Society Serenaders, a jazz band run by rich heir Roger Wolfe-Kahn. We especulate Valentino’s detour had to do with his indirect relationship with Ramón.

Valentino went to Brooklyn's Mark Strand Theater on August 5 to attend the presentation of his new movie. That first week in New York he visited friends and went to some nightclubs. On the night of August 14 Valentino fell violently ill with pain in his stomach, and was rushed to the Polyclinic on 341 W 50th Street. The City kept a vigil in front of the hospital where he agonized for days. Then on August 23 Valentino died. The world was stunned, the greatest movie star of the era was gone at the flower of his youth and the peak of his fame. The City cried as thousands went to pay respects to Campbell's on Broadway at 66th Street. On August 30 his coffin was taken on a hearse down on Broadway to the Church of St. Malachy on 49th Street. Millions followed the hearse across the United States as it was taken by train to the Los Angeles. Manuel Reachi was one of the honorary pallbearers on September 9 when his remains were deposited in mausoleum that is his resting place to-day.

For weeks the City had been transfixed by the tragedy. Too many things happened that August, none of which spelled good news for the Canaro project. Valentino was irreplaceable and neither Canaro nor Goetz were anywhere near New York to assess the situation. Several "tangos" were composed to mark the passing of the idol and they help establish some approximations in the Columbia recording schedule in New York, which unlike Victor's does not show exact dates.

On Monday August 30, in the middle of Valentino's funeral, Juan and Rafael Canaro sailed from Buenos Aires to New York on the Vandyck with Fiorivanti di Cicco and a new orchestra that they assembled for the Mirador show. The formidable group included Luis Petrucelli and Ernesto Bianchi on bandoneons, and Emilio Puglisi and Oscar Scaglione on violins. As before Rafael would play bass, Juan a third bandoneon. María, Juan's wife, came too, and so did the dancer Casimiro Aín, who had not been in the United States since he left for Paris in 1919. Canaro says the 44-year old Aín traveled with his "partenaire". It's curious that Canaro brought Petrucelli, a well known Victor man and a friend of both Cobián and Fresedo. Maurice and Eleanora arrived from France on the Majestic on September 15. Aboard the ship Maurice talked to the press and made one of his pronouncements: "the Charleston cannot last a year, the foxtrot will be popular for 5 years, but the waltz will go on forever". He also sentenced "Americans have not the capacity to appreciate the Tango". Canaro's new Orchestra, their Gaucho outfits and their bandoneons arrived a week later on September 22.

Francisco Canaro arrived from Le Havre on the De Grasse 5 days later on Monday September 27. Canaro travelled in the company of his wife Martha and the singer Ermelinda Spinelli, aka Linda Thelma. Thelma had a career singing tangos since the TangoMania days and had been touring Spain and France when Canaro recruited her. E. Ray Goetz arrived in New York on Thursday September 29 on the SS Paris.

Linda Thelma fell sick on the ship with acute lumbago, and Canaro found himself in need of backup, Carmen Alonso answered the call. It was originally announced that the Mirador would open its season on October 6. Maurice and Eleonora were the headliners, they were getting 3000 dollars a week to be there. On October 9 The New Yorker announced that the opening was postponed "due to Maurice's temperament". When the new date was announced Tables for Two wrote: "Whether or not that coy artist can be persuaded not to disappoint the 7,000,000 members of his adoring public on that date remains to be seen. I am assured solemnly that the opening will take place, that M. Goetz can be relied on to be entertaining, and that the Canaros, a perfectly swell tango orchestra from the Florida, in Paris, is to alternate with Johnny Johnson's Jazz." The Mirador finally opened its doors 6 days late on Tuesday October 12, Dia de la Raza. Buenos Aires most popular Tango orchestra was finally in New York.

The New York Times reported on the opening of the Mirador drily noting that "persons of prominence in artistic and social circles" were present. It was also reported that Maurice came forward to rally the 500 attendees to the dance floor, offering classes before the opening. In his memoirs Canaro noted that Americans were shy to join the dance, respectful but always waiting for others to go to the dance floor first. Canaro goes on to detail the dance instructions that Maurice had distributed at the Mirador, the "new simplified Tango" could be danced after mastering just 3 steps.

There were early signs of trouble. While the actual cover price turned out to be $10, after the first week the price was halved to $5. The journal Variety reported that Maurice and Eleanora "did not click as anticipated". There were also tensions when Casimiro Aín was asked to dance by some ladies that wanted to practice while Canaro was playing. Maurice demanded that Aín's exhibition should not be allowed to upstage him, forcing Canaro to intercede on Aín's behalf. Canaro was harsh in his assessment of Maurice and Eleanora, their "pretensions were bigger than their artistic merit" he said. Maurice himself made a habit of inviting one lady from the crowd to dance with him every night. One night "a very expensively decorated woman" was picked, she had evidently taken classes "back home in the Midwest", and she was terrible. "That in itself was embarrassing enough, but when the ordeal was over and the dancer escorted her to her table, she slipped a $2 bill in his hand. Maurice was so upset he took it."

The day after the opening at the Mirador Raquel Meller arrived again in New York, this time in the company of Irène Bordoni. Raquel came to see the show at the Mirador and asked Canaro to play Enrique Delfino's Milonguita for her. Raquel had visited in Buenos Aires in October 1920, recorded this tango for Odeon and shared the stage with Carlos Gardel there. In the October and November 1926 issues of The Talking Machine World magazine Odeon ran adds with Okeh to promote Raquel's recordings while she toured the United States. Odeon and Okeh had historical ties and were business partners since Okeh's founding 10 years earlier.

Perhaps coincidentally on October 13 the Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) lists three Okeh recordings by one mysterious "Orquesta Típica Argentina". Okeh's would be a studio where the Canaro men would have no trouble playing. José Moriche sang in two of those tracks. Two days later, on October 15 The Talking Machine World reported that Columbia Records had agreed to buy the operations of Okeh/Odeon. Columbia was interested in Okeh's catalogue because it filled a niche in the 75-cent-a-disc market, in the short term both companies benefited from cross-distribution (one master, many labels) and economies of scale. The move followed the template of Brunswick's acquisition of Vocalion in late 1924. For the Spanish artists in New York it's unlikely these moves translated to better royalties.

Date	Title	Genre	Group	Singer	Label	Matrix	Disc	Composer
1926-10-13	Beba	Tango	Orquesta Típica Argentina	José Moriche	Okeh	80165	16229	Donato, Edgardo
1926-10-13	Sácate la caretita	Tango	Orquesta Típica Argentina	José Moriche	Okeh	80166	16229	Cosenza, Luis E.
1926-10-13	Cicatrices	Tango	Orquesta Típica Argentina		Okeh	80167	16231	Avilés, Adolfo R.

La Prensa did not cover the Mirador show at all, maybe the reporter did not have the money to pay the cover charge. Of course La Prensa covered the arrival of Raquel Meller, who denied the rumor that she was moving to town. She was playing at the Henry Miller Theater for only three weeks and would soon take off for South America. La Prensa also covered the customary events at the Unión Benéfica and others to commemorate the Día de la Raza, none of them were attended by Canaro or his men. For the Spanish artists living in New York it's almost as if the show at the Mirador did not happen. Carmen Alonso kept on singing at the Apollo where the dancing by the team of Conchita Vila and Vincent Martínez were praised for their Apache and Spanish dances. At the Daly's Arcos and Bonanova and Juan Pulido staged a production of Don Juan, Concepción Ayala was in the cast and Nilo Meléndez directed the orchestra. In an ironic twist of fate Medrano and Donna danced in a "Vitaphone Night" that took place in Club Montmartre, around the block from the Mirador.

On October 23 Louis Long, of Tables for Two, visited the Mirador and wrote: "The best thing about the evening, however, was the introduction of the Canaro orchestra from Paris - that Tango singing band that will either remind you of the Other Florida in France, or start a new romantic memory." The place was crowded and she had not seen so many people dance Tango in a long time. When Long went to the Mirador Maurice was in his best behavior and surprised her by dancing "a refined Charleston".

In his memoirs Canaro talked about playing at the Argentine Pavilion in Philadelphia's Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition on Sunday October 31. These expos were quickly becoming irrelevant too as new technologies allowed people to enjoy fresh images from far away lands without the need to travel. Nonetheless the Argentine Government spent on a gorgeous building that was completed barely a month before the 6-month long Expo closed. By then the Expo was openly being called a failure, some Latin American nations chose not to participate. Canaro could not come to the inauguration either, his commitment at the Mirador only allowed him to come the day after. Incidentally, Ramón and Rosita were in Philly that season dancing at Club Madrid.

Canaro said that on Friday November 19 he attended the inauguration of the extravagant Paramount Theater in Times Square. The doors opened at 7:30PM and the program, directed by John Murray Anderson of the Greenwich Village Follies, started running at 9PM. At least 8 acts preceded the main show, including Canaro's Orchestra and Maurice and Eleanora. Notables from all walks of life were present at the opening ceremony, including the éminence grise of American technology Thomas Alva Edison. The Daily News wrote: "it needs no strong imagination to picture the crowds, without tickets and without hope of getting any, that will be parked outside the theater".

In his entry sheet at Ellis Island Canaro had declared that he was going to stay 6 weeks in New York, although his contract ran for 8 weeks. In his memoirs he wrote that he left on the SS France, this detail alone complicates the inspection of his itinerary. The SS France departed on November 6, if Canaro left on the SS France then he was not at the Paramount. He would have arrived in France on November 13, in time to take the Lutetia which departed from Bordeaux on November 20, but why would he make such trip only to turn around just one week later? We think it's likelier that Canaro left New York on Saturday November 20 at 1PM on the Southern Cross. For some unknown reason he switched ships in Rio de Janeiro on December 3, arriving in Buenos Aires on the Lutetia on December 4. The evidence at the Centro de Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos (CEMLA) shows that José (Humberto) Canaro also returned from France that day on the Lutetia.

While Canaro was in New York, his orchestra in Buenos Aires recorded Juan Calderella and Alejandro Scarpino's tango Canaro en París. Just a few days later, on November 8 that same orchestra registered Odeon's first electric recording, Edgardo Donato's A Media Luz. It's generally understood that pianist Luis Riccardi directed the Canaro Orchestra in these seminal recordings.

Canaro wrote that he met Cobián who was still working in some clubs, but mostly played interpreter and "cicerone" for Canaro and his men. An unreleased entry in the DAHR seems to point to a recording of Cobián's Piropos by Johnny Johnson and the Club Mirador Orchestra on Brunswick, the studio was one block away from the Mirador. No doubt Cobián shared the sheet of his tango Letanía, which Canaro recorded in February (unreleased) and July in Buenos Aires. It's less likely that Cobián shared with Canaro his new foxtrot entitled "Just a kiss" with lyrics by Don Alberto Infantas.

Perhaps Canaro did not make the splash in New York some expected, his exit was not even reported by a news outlet. In his memoirs he was nothing but positive about the trip though, his expectations were met. He only complained about "Americans still thinking we are indians", and said that Firpo's fight had only made matters worse in this respect (maybe he meant "gauchos"). He also said his men preferred France to the offer of going into Vaudeville in the United States, not a difficult choice at this point. Canaro left his brother Juan in charge to meet the rest of their commitments at the Mirador. It was a perfectly uneventful month for the Orchestra in New York, Puglisi left in mid December on the Vandyck and Texas Guinan's club was closed again for violations. The Canaro Orchestra played their last show at Club Mirador on Christmas Eve. Maurice and Eleanora and Johnny Johnson stayed through New Year's at the Mirador. Petrucelli, Rafael and Juan Canaro, Casimiro Aín, and the others traveled to France, they never played in New York again.

For the entire era of silent-movies both Valentino's and Vitaphone's news were a death knell. It also spelled out the end of GauchoMania. That's when José Bohr returned to New York, this time with a tango orchestra he called "The Gauchos".

Notes

1. These are the names of the members of the Canaro Orchestra at the Mirador

2. These are "the 3 steps" you need to master to dance Tango according to Maurice

1st. The gentleman starts with his right foot and the lady with her left. Take three walking steps and stop on the fourth measure with both feet together, bending slightly.

2nd. Take four steps, the gentleman starting with the left foot, crossing in front of the right, turning with the left foot in front, and stopping on the fourth measure of music.

3rd. The side step -- the gentleman starts with his left foot, the lady with her right, crosses the right over the left, then together, and stops on the fourth measure.

"Turns: as many times as you like. Keeping in time with the music, you can turn right or left in a slow waltz motion, which is part of the tango rhythm.

"There's no fixed routine in tango, just as there isn't for the waltz. All you need to remember is that tango simply means taking three steps and stopping on the fourth. The rhythm of the music will punctuate the dance for you."

3. There's at least 16 entries in the Discography of American Historical recordings (DAHR) that credit an "Orquesta Típica Argentina" in either late 1925 or 1926. Most of these recordings were made by either Juan Pulido or Fortunio Bonanova, and some seem to point directly to Nilo Meléndez. There's always the possibility that Moriche's Okeh recordings of October 13 were made with Cobián. Maybe we'll never know, these are truly rare recordings.

4. Here's Ramón and Rosita in Bushwick

5. These tangos by Rosita Quiroga were popular and recorded by Pulido, Bonanova or Moriche in 1926.

6. After Valentino's death Manuel divorced Agnes Ayres and embraced his new movie career. He was instrumental in connecting Enrico Caruso Jr., the son of the legendary tenor, with Mexican ex-President Adolfo de la Huerta, who was also a tenor and taught Enrico Jr. to sing. Manuel then co-wrote the movie El cantante de Nápoles for Caruso Jr. Manuel went on to direct his own movies in Mexico, and worked with Luis Buñuel.

7. Beyond the question about Canaro's return trip to Buenos Aires, two other maritime questions are still open. First, why did Canaro's men took 3 weeks to arrive in New York? Possible answer: not all ships took 2 weeks to travel from Buenos Aires to New York, different ships traveled at different speeds, some made more stops than others. Second: why did Raquel insist on her fear of the sea when she had already been to Buenos Aires? Some questions may never be answered.

8. If you have better copies of the acoustic tracks used here and would like to share them, Thanks!

9. Free plugin for my friend Pablo Ignacio's novela (in Spanish)