Alfredo de Angelis

Historical background

A late arrival on the tango scene — the orchestra formed in 1941, first recordings only in 1943 — Alfredo De Angelis took over a year to find the duo that would become his signature: baritone Julio Martel, paired from 1944 with tenor Carlos Dante, a guardia vieja veteran on the verge of retirement whom he convinced to return to the stage. According to Michael Lavocah, neither singer individually reached the level of a Francisco Fiorentino or a Roberto Chanel, but their duet, trading off — Martel low, Dante high — became a huge popular success.

His light, romantic music, mocked by detractors as "música de calesita" (merry-go-round music), makes De Angelis an orchestra often seen as neutral: neither particularly rhythmic nor melancholy, a pivot point between contrasting orchestras. De Angelis kept his orchestra active until 1991, but Lavocah places most of its interest in the 1940s recordings with Martel and Dante.

Source: Michael Lavocah, Tango Masters: Tango Stories, Musical Secrets, chapitre 17 « Alfredo De Angelis and the two tenors ».