Edinburgh Festivalito: Music - DJ Ewa Zbrzeska

"What a disaster! If I ever sound to you as though I'm considering hearing DJ Ewa again, please remind me that I've been deafened twice by her. My right ear still hurts. I'm so cross with myself that I stayed in the room for 90 minutes.  If this DJ has not already been deafened - and she must be - she surely will be soon."

The milonga was billed to start at 2000. We arrived around 2020, being among the first there, with our choice of tables. I like to arrive early to feel how things develop. Again, I was surprised how unenthusiastic people seemed to be to come out. Despite the delayed start the DJ still did not start the set, clearly waiting for more people, which I felt was disrespectful to those already there past the billed start time.

When it finally came towards 2030 the opening track was a poor choice:  Que lo sepa el mundo entero  which I know but rarely hear, consider a weak choice in Rodriguez and a disaster as an opener to any tanda, never mind the main night of a festivalito.  Embarrassing then - but no surprise - that of the six or seven couples in the room no one danced it.  The DJ watched attentively, looking curious. The remaining tracks of the tanda were great and well matched. I danced from the second one and by the last one everyone was up. 

I felt the bass reverberate faintly in my body like a warning and groaned inwardly.  The DJ desk was behind the speakers, and to the side. In the first or second tanda the DJ checked the sound twice by coming to stand next to, but (oh, wisely) not in front of the two speakers, which were on the floor at one end. This is why the DJ should dance:  one or two tracks now and then - including the cortina - to tell, sound-wise what conditions are really like on the floor. I realised she must be wondering if the sound was too loud and decided (so I could stay) to confirm that to her: "If you were wondering if it's too loud, it is". She nodded and nothing happened for a few minutes, then I thought it came down very slightly but stayed too loud. Perhaps she didn’t hear me. I should have left then but lots of people were arriving including women I wanted to dance with. 

Twice when I danced as the girl I was standing right in front of the speakers during the cortina and that's when my ear got damaged. I will never stay for music that loud again. I know she was aware of how uncomfortable it was because she kept fiddling with the sound, especially when in one cortina I begged my partner to move us on from there and she grinned, looking uncomfortable.

The music itself was much better than the drama this DJ played at the EITF. The tracks this time were mostly good for me.

The set still felt unbalanced being very much on the "strong" side. There was Demare e.g. Mañana zarpa un barca but that I think was the softest it got. Next closest would probably have been the Caló: e.g. Pa' Que Seguir and A Las Siete En El Cafe which is not really what I mean by soft anyway. 

I told my last partner I was leaving early. “I think I’m done too”, she said meaning I think dancing but she was with her friends. I said it was too loud for me and too chaotic in the ronda.  "I feel the same" she said, "and yet" - with a half-shrug - "here I am". I knew what she meant. I said it is difficult when you have travelled far for a milonga and things are not optimal. 

But increasingly, because I am ultimately never happy in milongas that have things wrong with them - a bad floor, poor sound or are too cold I feel one needs a Plan B - friends to leave with and do something else, or even just the pleasure of silence and a good book. At some such places you can outride a difficult atmosphere by watching quietly but it is hard and more a test of will than a good night out. At others like El Quinto where for me the floor wasn’t ideal, the temperature was freezing, the dancing poor and the music had been artificially slowed to undanceable, I stayed for the chat and to see what happened because often, even if you do not dance interesting things happen. But while having travelled I might stay there, they are not places I generally want to return to.

Edinburgh Festivalito: Music, DJ Adrian Costa

I arrived at 2020 to cortina music, surprised that the milonga did not appear to have started at the advertised time. In popular milongas, when DJs are known to be good I find people arrive early.

Still, things started well with two nice D’Agostino tracks. I couldn’t quite place the third one, though I knew it and liked it less. I asked the DJ what is was later. De igual a igual he said. I was surprised because I know this track well. Later, I realised I know it better in the De Angelis version which I think far superior. I hear so little De Angelis these days, still less good De Angelis.

I asked why the tangos were in threes and whether they were going to stay in threes - thinking perhaps he was waiting for more people to arrive. He said they would stay in threes because he didn't know the people and wanted them to dance with more partners, or, I think he corrected himself, to have the opportunity to dance with more partners. 

Then there was dark Caló, which I suppose presaged the moody musical drama on the horizon. They were I believe La vi llegar, Trenzas and Mañana iré temprano. 

The first milongas were very good standard, steady ones - Canaro I think.

Then there was Tanturi-Castillo but I went out to get wine. I didn’t know A Otra Cosa Che Pebeta  well.   I came back during Decile Que Vuelva, good for me and a better opener I think. 

There were the great Di Sarli instrumentals of around 1939-41

There were those wonderful early D’Arienzo vals: Mentias (1937) which I find haunting and Alma dolarida of the same year.

Then things started to slide. Still, I remember the nice Tanturi vals Marisabel (1942)  and there was D’Arienzo. There were tracks like Pájaro Sin Luz (1945) and Si supiera que la extraño. The singer is Laborde who - while still not Valdéz or Bustos - strikes me as among the more dramatic of D’Arienzo’s singers. I don’t hear these often, don’t really know them well enough for dancing and don’t even get that sense I occasionally get, almost like intrigue, that a track you don’t know might be good for dancing once you get to know it but that somehow so far you’ve missed it.  My copy of this last track is poor in sound and indeed I found the D’Arienzo played was particularly poor in sound quality - these and the famous ones he played later of type El Olivo and Humillación. I love these tracks but the sound was so off or the music by this time was too messed up for me that I didn’t fancy them.

I struggled through a Laurenz: Firuletear de bandoneon which I usually hear in DJs I tend not to want to hear often and I thought it a poor opener. There was Quedate tranquilo which I don’t know well and rarely hear, with, bizarrely, Buzón's Al verla pasar tacked on "for fun". Fun for the DJ perhaps but you rightly rarely hear it because the Laurenz version is incomparably better. I danced it because a woman who knew I wanted to dance with her invited me. 

I quit the floor after the first track of a milonga - which had been fine - because I have rarely heard such a weird and dire second (and third) milonga. My experienced partner was understanding - neither had she. We got up instead to a very strong rhythmic tanda of good instrumentals which I think were Troilo. But the cortina cut in loudly part-way through the third track. It was so violent it felt like being crashed into and it was so final the DJ couldn’t have restarted the track so we all walked off the floor. 

Looking back I am surprised I stayed so long.

There was Di Sarli / Podestá type of type Déjame but this was the best track of those. There was late Caló - from the 50s I think, with Podestá which were not for me. There were two Pugliese tandas and the Gobbi: Si Sos Brujo (1953)  which is when I got up to go, and A Orlando Goñi (1949). I might have tried dancing these if there had been the right guy but he definitely wasn’t at the festivalito this weekend.

Of course, a set remembered after the event can only be impressionistic but I found it uneven, remembering no tangos of Donato, Rodriguez, De Angelis, Canaro, Lomuto, Biagi or Fresedo. At their expense I remember repeats of Caló, Di Sarli and Pugliese, possibly of Troilo and of D'Arienzo, though repeats of D’Arienzo are fine with me.

The DJ pre-listened, but not seriously - only with one ear to one earpiece.