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Story of the tango "Don Juan" |
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  ack in 1898 Ernesto Ponzio, who was known as "El Pibe" (The Kid), was in fact a kid. He was not yet thirteen years old but he was already walking, violin in hand, playing and asking for money wherever he was able to: on streetcars -because the guards pretended not to see him-, in the taverns or in any dancehall that was at hand.
It was in one of these latter places where his most celebrated tango was born. However, oral tradition offers us two different versions of this birth. In 1935 Asdrúbal Noble said that one night a pianist, called "El Negro" Sergio, was improvising some notes on the piano, at Mamita's place("Mamita": nickname of the owner of the local: Concepción Amaya) when Ponzio approached him and asked him: «Won't you go on?». And after the musician's negative, he himself sat down in front of the piano and he continued the melody. «"Don Juan" was born», Noble used to say. However, time makes us mix reality with legend. And we no longer know if things happened like Noble told us or as the veteran violinist Francisco Mastrazzi told us more than a decade ago. According to this player, his brother -also a musician and much older than he was-, affirmed that he was present when Ponzio picked those notes, not from a pianist, but from a guitarist. We can choose the version we find most convincing. In fact Ponzio used an anonymous air for his very popular composition. That same melodic theme was already present in "¡Qué polvo con tanto viento!", a very old tango by the guitarist Pedro Quijano that had been played since 1890, approximately. Later it would also reappear in the initial bar of Ángel Villoldo's "Soy tremendo", in the third section of Enrique Saborido's "Felicia", in the second of Augusto Berto's "El periodista", in the first one of Prudencio Aragón's "El curioso" and similarly in Arturo Mathon's "El rana".
I live near San Cristóbal Some believe that "El Pibe" had acquainted Cabello in "El Tambito", others prefer to think that the encounter was at "Hansen's". In fact the popularity of the tango was, precisely, in the latter place, back in 1900. In 1912 Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi wrote a new lyric that he recorded for Columbia with the title changed into "Mozos guapos". And it was even said that a third text -we ignore it- written by Francisco Bianco exists. It is the first tango committed to record by an orchestra, the one led by Vicente Greco. Also it is played in the first sound movie of the Argentine cinema: "Tango", under the musical direction co-led by the composer and Juan Carlos Bazán. Charlo, Alberto Gómez, Sofía Bozán are three of the interpreters of the initial lyric by Podestá. But, although sung, "Don Juan" has lasted as an instrumental regarded as one of the great classics of the genre. RENDERINGS OF DON JUAN Orchestra Alfredo Eusebio Gobbi, canta Alfredo Gobbi, 1911 |
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