(10-CD SET) LA YUMBA
THE GREATEST TANGO PERFORMERS

"La Yumba" is a name to conjure with on the international tango scene. The legendary pianist, arranger, bandleader and composer Osvaldo Pugliese was the author of this tango, one of the most famous ever written. The onomatopoeic term stands at one and the same time for invitation, introduction and welcome, and is synonymous with a culture of music and dance that took the world by storm at the start of the 20th century. In the years before the First World War, Paris had succumbed to an early attack of tango fever. While the elegant salons of the French metropolis buzzed to the rhythm of the Tango Argentino, polite society in Argentina turned up its nose at the tango. Dances with tango music were definitely "not on", as they were held in the taverns and brothels of the suburbs and the harbour district. It was in the mid-Twenties that the capital cities of Europe were caught up by a second great wave of tango, once again centred on Paris. Where tango music was concerned, the cultural capital of the era was almost a European outpost of the Buenos Aires scene, where the upper crust now regarded the tango as fashionable. From its late-19th-century origins in the Rio de la Plata estuary, the Tango Argentino spread ever further afield. This compilation illustrates the development of the genre, from the "Golden Twenties" to the mid-Fifties, when Astor Piazzolla created the Tango nuevo. Recordings from 1927 to 1957 showcase the great names of the tango, including the "King of Tango", the world's most famous tango singer, Carlos Gardel; bandleaders and instrumentalists like Piazolla, Pugliese, de Carlo and Troilo; and female vocalists such as Libertad Lamarque and Nelly Omar.