When the terms Cortazar and music relate one usually tends to think of jazz, in figures like Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker o Earl Hines, as shown in Hopscotch or in “El perseguidor” de Secret Weapons. But Cortázar was not simply the typical South American based in Paris, cradle of european culture, and uprooted from his own country, who decided definitively for civilization in the classic contest of Latin America between civilization and barbarism.
Cortázar, like many other South Americans, as Miguel Ángel Asturias, Alfonso Reyes, or especially Alejo Carpentier -where the conflict is developing more strongly-, is a South American who is torn between love for his homeland and European cosmopolitan culture. This conflict takes place in Hopscotch, and we must not forget that for Cortázar Argentina it was the side here and Paris was the side over there.
Perhaps it is because in Cortázar the references to its heritage culture are scarcer than those we find, for example, in Borges, who always had in mind Buenos Aires and the culture of the gaucho. It cannot be said, of course, that Cortázar completely forgot his homeland, and a good example of this is his story “Torito”.
And of course, Cortázar did not forget the tangos either. In 1953, being in paris, some friends left Cortázar a victrola and some Carlos Gardel records. From that experience Cortázar evokes Gardel in a beautiful text full of longing and tenderness. For Cortázar there is only one way to listen to Gardel, not live, but through an old victrola, On worn discs caressed by the pick, on summer nights, and priming mate.
The first tangos I heard completely captivated me. They were "La cruz del sur" and "Veredas de Buenos Aires". Now I know that these two tangos will accompany me all my life. Of course before, as everyone, I had had my flirtations with Gardel, with the Gardel of My dear Buenos Aires, as everyone. Soon after I learned that those two tangos that had fascinated me so much were written by Julio Cortázar, And of course, my surprise was not small.
I discovered that Cortázar has a tango album, edited in the year 80 and reissued in the 95 called Trottoirs of Buenos Aires. I wanted to get that album, but at the moment it seems an impossible task, since beauty is always strange. At the moment I could only get these two tangos. Investigating more about tangos in general, I have realized that the important thing for a tango to be really good is for it to have magnificent lyrics, as in these two cases -the tangos without lyrics do not quite please me-.
By the way, Cortázar kept saying about Gardel in 1953 the next: Young people prefer the Gardel of The day you love me, beautiful voice supported by an orchestra that encourages engolarse and become lyric. Those who grew up in the friendship of the first records we know how much was lost "Flor de fango" to "Mi Buenos Aires querido", "Mi noche triste" to "Her eyes closed". I have once again set out to follow Cortázar's advice, which has been my main guide in the jazz world -which I have begun to love so much-, and explore that lesser known Gardel, to that of the first epoch.
Here are the two wonderful tangos from Cortázar:
THE SOUTHERN CROSS
Julio Cortázar lyrics
Music by Edgardo Cantón
You see the Southern Cross
And you will breathe the summer with its smell of peaches,
And you walk at night
My silent little ghost,
For that Buenos Aires,
For that always Buenos Aires.
I miss the Southern Cross
When thirst makes me raise my head,
To drink your black wine, midnight.
And I miss the corners, with sleepy warehouses
Where the perfume of the grass
Tremble on the skin of the air.
I miss your voice
You walk with me through the city.
Understand that this is always there,
Like a pocket where every once in a while
The hand looks for a coin, Comb, keys,
The indefatigable hand of a dark memory
Who counts their dead.
The southern cross, the bitter mate
And the voices of friends
Using with others.
A bitter time hurts
Filled with dogs and misfortune,
The crouching conviction that we will return
It's vain.
Understand that a sea is more than a sea,
That death dresses away,
To arrive little by little, slow, interminable,
Like a melody that finally works out
In smoke of silence.
I miss that alley
That was lost in the field and the sky,
With willows and horses and something like a dream.
And the names of everything hurt me
That I'm missing today,
How it hurts to be so far away
Of your caresses and your lips.
I miss your voice,
Your walk
With me around town.
VERENAS DE BUENOS AIRES
Julio Cortazar lyrics
Music by Edgardo Cantón
From kids we call it: "La vedera"
And she liked that we loved her,
In his lathe suffered we draw
So many hopscotch.
After, more friends, tapping
We turned apple with the bar,
Whistling loudly for the blonde
Out of the warehouse, with her pretty braids
To the window.
One day I had to go far away
But I did not forget the "vederas"
But I did not forget the "vederas".
Here or there, I feel them in the tamangos
Like the faithful caress of my land.
How long I will walk "ái" until I can
see them again…!
Source: lapiedradesisifo.com
