Missing Carlitos
By Alberto Paz

Sixty three years ago today, a tragic accident on the tarmac of the Medellin, Colombia airport, took the life of Carlos Gardel, singer, musician, actor and an emblematic figure of the Argentine Tango. Much of what has been said, written and spoken about Gardel ever since borders on the mythological, religious and anecdotal aspect. A very large legion of Gardelians hold him above any reproach and revere his name, his life and his artistic career with the intensity of a full fledge religious movement.

On this day, candles will burn, prayers will be said, flowers will surround his image on paper, marble and bronze. Thousands will visit his tomb at the cemetery in the Chacarita district of Buenos Aires. The airwaves will fill with his music, his voice, his story. Everything will be repeated in Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Uruguay, Puerto Rico and many other countries where Gardel has been and still is the quintessential Tango singer.

Historians place the professional debut of Gardel as a singer around 1912 but it was not until 1917 that he began to sing Tangos. Rather, they say, he invented the way to sing Tangos, a process that took about fifteen years to come to fruition.

Symbolically, Gardel is the dream come true for generations of Argentinos who saw the poor immigrant, raised in a poor neighborhood of Buenos Aires, grew up to become a darling of the Parisian society, a wealthy and charismatic individual that never forgot his upbringing and his friends. 

Had he been born in the right place and family, Gardel could have become a celebrated opera singer, but his road to fame began in seedy bars around the tough district of the Abasto, the Central market square block that today is penciled to become a major high rise building community. More than one thousand and four hundred recordings later, he had developed a unique voice to sing the Tango and a personal style that reached the hearts and souls of the most diverse audiences.

Gardel is responsible for adding another dimension to the enjoyment of the Tango. Listening. When he daringly sung the verses of Mi Noche Triste, penciled by Pascual Contursi over the music of a Tango named Lita by Samuel Castriota, in 1917, something new began to brew. 

It wasn't until one year later, when Manuelita Poli sung Mi Noche Triste on stage that Contursi's creation became a huge recording success. Then, in 1923 when Azucena Maizani became the first female Tango singer, Gardel definitely became a Tango singer himself. That year, fifty percent of his recordings were Tangos, among them, Mano a mano. In 1923 also he first traveled to Spain. He went to Paris in 1928. He rapidly was becoming an international figure. Paramount Pictures, set to make an inroad in the Latin American market, saw in Gardel a new Rodolfo Valentino, who could sing Tangos and in Spanish. They brought Alfredo Le Pera to make Gardel not just a Tango singer who sung for Argentinos but a singer who would be understood by Spaniards and other Spanish speaking audiences. The new idiomatic expression of the Tangos that Gardel sung for the movies was created by Alfredo Le Pera.

It was during a tour to promote his latest film that Gardel met his untimely death. He had seen Buenos Aires for the last time in 1933 and he had planned to return and to spend more time with his mother. Singing the Tango, Gardel gave the porteños their best way to express themselves without being aggressive. He also left them an example of hard work and professional responsibility done with joy and dignity. Gardel is the sounding tear where the difficulties of life can be expressed through the simple language of the people sang to the music of a Tango. He is also a winner, a symbol of success, a paradigm of the Tango singer. 

When his remains returned to Buenos Aires in 1936, the city mourned its idol and as his casket moved ever so slowly along Calle Corrientes, all the way from the river shore to his final resting place. From every balcony, from every door, from every window, the people of Buenos Aires cried the loss of Gardel as they showered his last journey through Corrientes St. with thousands and thousands of flowers and black ribbons.

My friends in Tango, let's take a moment today to remember the tragic loss of our friend Carlitos, let's listen to the lyrics of Volver and share the dream of a man who could only imagine the flickering of lights, far away announcing his return.

Tangazos,

Alberto Paz

• CARLOS GARDEL, Biography by Alberto Paz
• Not dancing to Gardel. By Alberto Paz.
• El Firulete, The Argentine Tango Magazine.