The TangoTouch
'Latin' and 'Continental' Influences on Music
and Dance before Australian 'Multiculturalism’
(A
brief description by the author)
See
another description at http://www.music.unimelb.edu.au/research/CSAM/review22.pdf
John
Whiteoak © 2008
All reproduction, other
than for an individual user's personal reference, is prohibited without prior
written permission.
The Tango Touch
In place of
a formal education in Australia, I spent my teens and early twenties
travelling the world on ships, motor-bikes and other transport, but mostly on
ships. My love of music came not from the juke-box, radio or concert hall but
from the dockside bars, night-spots or nefarious dance halls that seamen
always headed for as soon as the ship was tied up and all necessary duties
were completed. Recollections of
the very numerous ports visited—Haifa, Genoa, Buenos Aries, Punta Arenas, Lorenco Marques, Bremen, Cape Verde, Kingston
and so on—are somewhat coalesced. What
remains as clear as a moment ago is sitting in small bars absolutely
mesmerised by the music of a virtuosic solo accordionist, pianist or small
ensemble dispensing what I would come to know as Continental music.
This was Latin, 'Spanish-Gypsy', French, Italian, German, Russian,
Jewish or whatever—music that segued between whatever repertoire or style
might sooth, please, interest or excite the international patronage of these
places. To a youth from the Melbourne outer suburb of Reservoir (made famous
as a cultural wasteland by the satirist Barry Dickens) with no previous
exposure to this type of music, or the way it was played, hearing this
exciting and exotically 'different' music was my musical epiphany and the
beginning of a life devoted to curiosity about music. The ports I visited all
those many year ago would be unrecognisable today and old venues long swept
away with the changes. Furthermore, since that time I have arrived at the
important understanding that the pleasure and excitement of observing exotic
musical, terpsichorean or other 'difference' is entirely subjective—it may
well be the opposite to what performers are experiencing, even enduring.
Yet I am glad to have experienced, albeit so subjectively, this
transcendent sense of difference at an impressionable age and I devote this
study to those long forgotten Italians, Jews, Germans, Latinos and others who
unknowingly provided it.
What The Book Is About
It may be best to preface this
explanation with one of the questions that the book sets out to answer.
The excerpt
below is taken from a 1949 entertainment magazine review of a Melbourne
'Continental' night spot, But how does the contemporary reader interpret
this half century old description with its no longer familiar references and
curiously multi-cultured connotations?
When
I arrived this was already well attended by patrons dancing to the tango
rhythm of Guitar Romano which is the "theme tune"
of the Continental Ensemble which plays from 6.30 to 9.30 p.m.
… Barronne Kuva portrayed originality in selecting Nino Alda,
Continental guitarist, as leader. Not
only has this handsome young man developed a beautiful broad tone most
suitable for Continental solo playing, but he is also showing great promise as
an arranger: especially of the more serious music. …he has already aroused
interest by his Zanda Rhapsody for Guitar and Orchestra, and has just
completed an intriguing Oriental Beguine Arabesque.
As a featured artist, the radio star, accordionist Edigio Bortoli, as
always is causing a clamorous sensation.
Making a special feature of classics and yet playing Rhumbas and
Tango's(sic) with brilliant versatility… ….As a special presentation,
Gypsy violinist Paul Steiner, is undoubtedly a great asset to the group with
his Continental library of 2000 arrangements, and a memorised repertoire of
500 compositions and, judging by the applause when playing at tables, it is
obvious that his touring of the Continent has gained for him well deserved
recognition. Evidence of
considerable experience was substantiated by Arthur Knight, who displayed
equal aptitude when supplying the foundation for Dinner Music, or the more
complicated rhythm of Rhumbas and Tango's(sic) which are a speciality of the
ensemble.
The
Tango Touch is, above all other things, an history of what I define
as ‘Latin’ ‘Continental’ and 'Mediterranean'
influences on music and dance in Australia before
‘multiculturalism’ became official government policy, before substantial
Latin-American migration to Australia, and before the nebulous concept,
‘world music’, became a cultural platform and successful marketing label
for the products of multicultural fusion and, to a much lesser extent, the
music and dance of Australian ethnic minority communities.
Yet the book also has important resonances for present-day
Australia in which 'Latin' music and dance and even a 21st century
equivalent of 1930s 'Gypsy-tango' music are only partially or, in the case of
the latter, not at all associated with participants hailing from the specific
nations or peoples that are perceived to have originated these forms.
As a work of historical musicology and dance research, it is informed by
extensive primary source research and personal gathering of rare documentation
such as printed ephemera, published and unpublished scores and sound
recordings—in fact, a similar depth and breadth of foundation research as
was applied to Playing Ad Lib:
Improvisatory Music in Australia 1836-1970 (Whiteoak 1999). It
is further informed by a musical background which commenced with playing
‘Latin’ and other so-called ‘Continental’ repertoire in 1960s
Melbourne night spots that catered largely for European diners and dancers. The bringing together of music and dance research in the one
study comes out of the illuminating experience of editing, researching and
writing for the Currency Companion to
Music and Dance in Australia (Whiteoak&Scott-Maxwell 2003). This
provided a greatly enhanced appreciation of the interdependence of dance
(especially social dance) and musical (especially popular music) development.
As with
Playing Ad Lib, The Tango Touch frames a history based on foundation research within
a cultural and social perspective and approach conceived specifically for its
‘music and dance in Australia’ subject matter. For Playing Ad Lib,
I sought a inclusive conceptual framework (defined therein as ‘improvisatory
music’) that allowed discussion of improvising in music across the totality
of Australian music activity from early colonial times, spanning the
high-brow/lowbrow music divide, but necessarily excluding the traditional
musics of minority ethnic groups present in Australia over this period.
For The Tango Touch,
I sought a similarly inclusive conceptual framework to embrace
discussion of a cluster of related cultural influences on Australian popular
entertainment that I define as ‘Latin’ influences (‘Spanish-Gypsy’,
‘Afro-Cuban’, ‘Mexican’ and others), but also to embrace discussion of
the complex relationship of these influences to ‘Continental’ influences
on Australian popular entertainment, including the once popular ‘Gypsy
tango’ orchestras.
A De-essentialised Story
Although
I had been collecting archival materials relating to this topic for some
years, the determining impulse for writing the book came out of difficulties
encountered in commissioning articles on Latin-American influences for the Currency
Companion to Music and Dance in Australia. Members of Spanish-speaking
(Latino) communities we approached raised various problematic issues of
authenticity, ownership and cultural marginalisation but these understandably
negative responses could not reverse a growing conviction that the ‘warts
and all’ story of musicians and dancers engaging with ‘Latin’ influenced
music and dance before Latin-American migration needed to be told as a
fact of cultural history.
The most
obvious justification for this conviction was the inescapable truism that
Latinos were, with some rare and interesting exceptions, largely absent from
the early story of Latin-American inflected music sand dance in
Australia. What appeared to be required therefore was the story of
non-Latinos like the ABC radio bandleader Harry Bloom who creatively
engaged— not with authentic music and dance forms of other cultures—but
with partly informed imaginings and representations of these forms, and with
little if any knowledge of the cultural contexts from which they originated or
supposedly originated. This
would be a book that—like Ronald Radano's
Lying Up a Nation: Race and Black Music which critiques the
almost sacred belief in a racially specific 'Black' essence underpinning the
integrity and the legitimacy of African-American
musics—deliberately 'de-essentialises' the early Australian history of
'Latin' influence in music and dance.
Tangled
Roots and Routes of Influence
As
research for the book deepened and expanded, it became clear that the story
was much more complex and comprised a number of overlapping and intertwining
narratives, including colonial-era 'Spanish' influence on popular entertainment;
racism and xenophobia in Australian entertainment industry industrial
relations; the popularisation of the accordion and the Spanish guitar; the
influence of Hollywood movies and the British Dance Academy on Australian
social and competition dancing, and so forth. One of the most significant
strands to emerge was the story of the role of non-Anglo
Australians—individuals of Italian and Jewish descent in particular. The
Tango Touch is, therefore especially concerned with revealing how and why
Italians like Dom Caffaro. Angelo Candela, Sergio Fochi, Peter Piccini,
Duo Moreno (the Scartozzi Bros.), Peter Ciani, Lou and Enzo Toppano, Ugo
Ceresoli, Franco Cambareri and very numerous others—along with Jews like
Harry Bloom, Phil Cohen, Abe Walters, Leo White (see jpg at left), Leo Rosner
and lots of others—became so closely identified with Latin-American dance
music and, especially in the case of the latter, ‘Gypsy-tango’ or just
'Gypsy' music. Dan Bendrups
points out in his 2002 study of the music
and dance in Melbourne's Latino community that, even in present-day
Latino bands, Italian-Australians
remain the first choice as vocalists when no Latino is available because
'linguistic similarities between Italian and Spanish facilitate performance in
Spanish' (Bendrups 2002:23). Another relevant contemporary example is
that of Australian klezmer bands who closely identify with and play 'Gypsy'
music.
Yet, it soon also became clear that in certain cases—the case of
Italian-Latin music for example—there was often something more complex and
deeply informed at play than just the representation or delineation of
'others' music. Furthermore, the research revealed a surprising
degree of cross-cultural collaboration in ensembles identifying with
Latin-American, 'Gypsy' or other 'Continental music', even before the Second
World War.
Latin as a Multifaceted Concept
It was
therefore obvious that for the purposes of the study the term 'Latin' had to
be defined in a way that extended very far beyond its most common contemporary
meaning with regards to music and dance. ‘Latin’ is, for example, used as
a metaphor for real and perceived connections and affinities between
pre-modern and modern Italy and Latin-America, such as the fact that the
Romance languages, Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese are descended from
Latin, and also for the wide embrace and cultural influence of the Roman
Catholic church in the Latin-American
and European countries in which respective Romance languages are spoken.
Latin:
'The Italian Touch'
'In
those days, if you couldn't sing and play in four languages and master
Spanish, you would never be employed by the [Latin] clubs.
You don't know anything about Latin-American until you have played in
these venues.'
(Melbourne virtuoso guitarist, composer and arranger, Joe Paparone)
'Latin' is also a metaphor for the actual historical affinity of Italians with
Latin-American music and dance, which is profound and traces back to
mass Italian migration to Argentina, the 'Italianisation' of the tango in
Argentina, and the popularisation of the tango in Europe by returning
immigrants. It is not surprising therefore that Australia's first 'tango
orchestra' leader was Italian (a bandoneon player who had lived in Argentina),
or that early Australian composers of tangos sometimes adopted, not Spanish,
but Italian pseudonyms to give their music authenticity in the eyes of the
Australian public. The section
entitled 'Italo-Hispanic Music and Dance' explores the richness and diversity
of Italian-Australian efforts to replicate the engagement with modernity that
was taking place in post-war Italy through modern Italian popular song, Latin
music and dance, and many other aspects of popular culture. It suggests that the 1950s and ' 60s transplantation to
Australia of various features of traditional and modernised Italian popular
culture was the most influential event in pre-multicultural era 'Latin' and
'Continental' inflection of Australian popular culture and that 'Italianised'
Latin band music of this era was an Italian-Australian genre in its own
right—the product of a self-contained and vigorously self-sustaining culture
and society within Australia.
Exoticised
Imaginings: 'Hispania' and 'The Mediterranean'
Because,
however, the book is substantially about engagements with representations of
cultures of 'others', it became necessary to construct a concept of 'Latin'
that comprises overlapping and semi-interchangeable 'lands' and 'people' of
exoticised imaginings. 'Spain' or España overlaps
metaphorically (and otherwise) with Latin America through the usefully
ambiguous (if sometimes controversial) term 'Hispanic': culturally
related to or derived from Spain, people of Spanish ethnic
heritage or of the Hispanophone (Spanish speaking) countries,
particularly those of South American and the Caribbean. Hispanic
is derived from Hispana, a Roman province that embraced Spain and
Portugal and modern day Portuguese are sometimes embraced by the term,
Hispanic. The
first Hispanic influences in Australia were early nineteenth century
imaginings of Andalusia, Spain, and in particular the ecstatic music and dance
of Spanish 'Gypsies'
(Roma people).
This
notion of intersecting and coalescing imaginings is perhaps best illustrated
by a quote from Michael Frishkopf's chapter, 'Some Meanings of the Spanish
Tinge in Contemporary Egyptian Music', in Geoffredo Plastino's 2003 anthology Mediterranean
Mosiac. In asking Egyptian
respondents why there was a profusion of Spanish and Latin sounds in
contemporary Egyptian pop, Frishkopf states that: 'most respondents pointed to
Andalusia as a key factor in the selection of Spanish (and Latin) music,
indicating the enduring power of Andalusia in the contemporary Egyptian
imagination. …Spanish (and by
extension Latin) music is a symbol that evokes Andalusia…'.(Frishkopf: 162)
While Frishkopf''s chapter usefully points to the common
perception of 'Latin' as equating with Spanish and, compositely, as the
'Spanish Tinge', his article forms part of an anthology about another 'land'
(in this a case a multi-cultured region) of exoticised imaginings that is
especially relevant to The Tango
Touch, namely 'the Mediterranean', extending laterally from the proximity of
Andalusia through the foot of Italy to the (albeit strongly contested)
metaphorical Jewish homeland.
As a more
complex example of the
notion of interconnected 'lands' or regions of imagining,
the title, lyrics, cover art and music of
Isle of Capri (a smash tango-song hit in
Australia in 1936) references most of the 'lands', regions and races of
imagining that are relevant to The
Tango Touch: 'Spain', 'Latin-America' including 'Mexico',
'Italy', 'the Mediterranean' and to an even more overarching concept,
'the Continent'.
To explain this proposal, the tango (which means 'to touch' in
Latin) is a dance and music form perceived to draw origins from Cuba, from
Andalusia, from Argentina (at a time of intense migration from Italy), and,
soon thereafter, from Paris. Its
development and early popularity was also associated with Mexico, especially
though Sebastian Yradier’s famous habanera, La Paloma, composed before
1865, which reached the USA via Mexico and thereon to global popularity.
Perhaps not surprisingly one of the earliest tangos published in Australia was
Miss Mexico (Allans c.1907). The
title and cover art of Isle of Capri is meant to evoke 'Italy' but it
also evokes the Mediterranean as a sunny, mildly exotic holiday playground
(replete with the promise of dark and charming Latin lovers). As with all of these things,
it was set to become an enduring standard of eclectic 'Continental music'
repertoire as played by 1930s and '40's 'Gypsy-tango orchestras', suave
'Continental' dance-restaurant and cabaret bands and so forth to tango,
beguine, or gentle rumba rhythms.
It’s
like a fever, It’s like a plague
It's
swept all Europe, From Moscow to The Hague
You
kiss while you're dancing
The
Continental, the rhythm is driving you wild
The Continental, a meter that isn’t so mild
The concept of
'Continental' as an overarching category of influence-embracing 'Latin' as an
almost integral component-is probably the most difficult to try and convey to
the present day reader. I tread
and stretch most precariously in attempting to describe this multi-level
construct of part imaginings. Yet this concept is the key to understanding how
all the levels relate and how the highest level, Continental influence, is
able to embrace not only 'Romantic language related 'places' and 'the
Mediterranean' but also many
other 'places' of part imagining, such as 'old Vienna',
'Russia' , 'Hungary' or 'The Alps'.
Continental'
as understood in Australia from the early 1930s was, for example, a generic
term for someone from Europe. European
artists who reached Australia, such as the Jewish-German Weintraubs Orchestra
and also the Jewish-German Comedy Harmonists, were often referred to as
'clever Continentals'. The Continental was the sensual rumba song hit featured
in a spectacular twenty minute dance routine from the Hollywood film Gay
Divorcee (1934). In simplified
form, the Continental became the Australian rumba 'Dancing Sensation of 1935'
and brought increased attention to Latin-American music and dance. Continental
was also a generic term for popular music perceived rightly or wrongly to
emanate from or be mediated via Europe. Continental meant imbued with European
style and sophistication, as in Continental décor or cuisine, 'Continental
cabaret-restaurant', or, for that matter, the subdued and sophisticated rumba,
The Continental. It was a mode of
musical presentation and performance as in the phrases 'played in the
Continental manner' or 'presented
in the Continental manner'. It also meant a specific type of repertoire for
listening or dancing at the Continental-style venues that became so popular in
various forms from the 1930s.
Continental music comprised
a mixed repertoire of what patrons perceived to be the evergreen and newer
popular music and light classics of various European countries (and their
'Gypsies'), notably Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian or Hungarian,
and of a type most likely to please an audience of mixed nationalities while
also being mildly exotic to Anglo-Australian patrons. It almost always
included Latin. Other repertoire,
such as American evergreens, jazz standards or newer hits were often
interpolated depending on patronage. Musicians of European background
sometimes referred to their Continental music as 'international music'.
Dancing to Continental music, regardless of dance genre, generally took
the form of so-called 'crush dancing', dancing adapted to small floors.
Gypsies,
Tango Orchestras and Continental Influence
The
basic principle of [the Continental orchestra at the Dorchester] is the
playing of Latin music in its original style, which, coupled with their
playing from table to table of Gypsy melodies, creates an atmosphere of the
Continental cabaret.
From
‘Continental style pays big Divs!’ Music
Maker, Sydney. November 1946
The
‘Gypsy’ of western imaginings provides the best metaphor for the
conceptual overlap between Latin and Continental music, the breadth of genres
the latter embraced, and the manner in which it was presented. Racial and cultural stereotypes of the Roma of Spain were
widely popularised in George Borrow’s influential 1841 travel book The
Zincali: An Account of the Gypsies of Spain, which also discusses the Rom
of other nations and compares them with the ubiquitous ‘Jews’ (as do other
influential nineteenth century writers).
Borrow’s Spanish ‘Gypsies’ or ‘Gitano’ are, for example,
dangerously seductive and ‘dusky’ (un-white) wanderers with dark flashing
eyes and distinctive physiognomy who dance with compelling poise and ecstatic
abandonment to wild and excitingly percussive rhythms, including
‘furiously’ played and ‘demoniacal’ sounding guitar accompaniment. His
Hungarian ‘Gypsies’ or Czigany, ‘are very fond of music, and some of
them are heard to touch the violin in a manner wild, but of peculiar
excellence’. ‘Gypsy’ violin
playing subsequently became as emblematic of Hungarian culture as ‘Spanish
Gypsy’ dance, hand clapping, and guitar playing is of ‘Spain’.
The style Hongrois or Spanish-Gypsy style influenced many
nineteenth century and later solo instrument, orchestral and theatre
composers.
One
aspect of the Gypsy stereotype (with basis in fact) is that the contingencies
of being a wandering race taught Romani people how to take whatever was around
them—including local music—and use it in their own unique manner for their
own advantage. Their ability, and that of professional Gypsy imitators, to
take and embroider popular tunes and styles
'in the Gypsy manner' gave them a reputation in the cafes of Vienna,
Paris, Moscow and Budapest, for example, as performers of a type of
international music that was idiosyncratically romantic, exotic and expressive
but also somehow familiar, and highly responsive to patrons desires: 'many
musical decisions are made on the spur of the moment depending on the
musician's "read" of the customer' (Bellman 1998:85).
What matters here is the historical and metaphorical association between
the early 'Gypsy' or Gypsy-style café performer and the Continental venue
performer of later years in Australia. The
relatively sudden mid-1930s success of 'tango orchestras' (or 'bands')
for intimate Australia venues and radio broadcasts led Australian Music
Maker to publish an article explaining that 'Tango music is almost
universal. France, Spain,
Germany, Spain and South America each have their own individual style of
Tango, although the fundamentals are the same.’
Tango, Gaucho- tango, Gypsy-tango or just Gypsy orchestras in
Australia—despite whatever costumes they wore—played the eclectic type of
Continental repertoire already discussed, providing a successful prototype for
later Continental venue ensembles. The term 'playing in the Gypsy manner' was
increasingly reserved for, say, a fiddler, accordionist or both playing from
table to table in the café tradition of old Europe.
However, the role of musicians in larger Continental venue ensembles,
regardless of actual ethnicity, remained that of looking and sounding
Continental: ethnically 'different' or 'foreign' but in a sophisticated and
appealingly exotic way. For
European migrant patrons, however, a Continental venue was a place of
nostalgia as well as a place for dining and dancing—an imaginary journey
back to a place of happy and sad recollections.
Mediated
Latino Music and Dance: Bolero to Bossa Nova
'On
several occasions the syncopations and cross-rhythm of the tunes were too much
for the musicians and finally a … piano was brought down…to
reinforce the strings.' (a 1914 review of a Melbourne Tango Tea)
Despite
the convolutions and complexities of the extended way in which 'Latin' and its
relationship to 'Continental' are defined for The Tango Touch, a
central function of the book is to trace and describe the influence of
mediated Spanish and Latin-American (mediated Latino) music and dance, as
such, on Australian popular entertainment and related culture from the
earliest known examples to the 1970s. Seminal
events, influences and trends from the 1970s to the present day are surveyed
and compared in the final section.
The
colonial era component of the book follows threads of
Spanish, Spanish 'Gypsy', (and other 'Gypsy') and early Mexican
influences in opera, ballet, variety, circus, Wild West shows and other
popular stage genres, and also in social dance music and broader forms of
popular and art music, including the Colonial era presence of the Spanish
guitar. Beginning just prior to
WW1, it also traces the introduction of the tango as a stage and social dance
craze closely related to the then current ragtime dancing and music craze. Social contexts for tango dancing, such as
the Tango Tea are examined and also how tango dancing was taught and
perceived from a social and moral perspective in Australia.
Imported and locally composed tango music are compared and special
contingencies associated with early Australian ensemble performance of tango
music are discussed. Spanish,
Mexican and other early Latin-American influences (e.g. tango song) on 1920s
stage, silent cinema, and social dance music and dancing are described and
situated within the rapidly shifting cultural and social processes of Jazz Age
modernity ‘down under’.
Throughout the remainder of the book, I pay considerable musicological
and dance research attention to the adoption, synthesis and learning of
successive style of Latin-American music and dance by professional dance,
theatre and radio studio musicians, stage dancers, choreographers and dancing
academies. I also describe
various cultural, social and political changes and developments that were the
backdrop to the emergence of a vogue for Continental and, later, 'Latin'
venues. Such venues provided a window of professional opportunity for talented
non-Anglo Australians, European refugees and post-War European migrants whose
perceived foreignness and affinity with Latin, Gypsy and other Continental
fare offered an advantage in this specialised entertainment field, but not
always beyond it.
The
book is, however, equally concerned with the work of professional musicians
and dancers from the cultural 'mainstream' who, for whatever personal and
professional reasons, engaged with these challengingly unfamiliar forms to
become recognised as practitioners and, in some cases, creators of repute.
A few examples are the 1930s ABC dance orchestra leader, Jim Davidson,
and the 1940s Latin orchestra leader, 'Ernesto
Rittez' (Ernest Rittie), in Afro-Cuban rhythm; guitarist George Golla and
reeds player Don Burrows in Bossa Nova, or Jo Muhrer, multi-lingual vocalist
with the 1960s Italian-Latin Mokambo Orchestra. Among examples in dance are
the sensuous and fiery 'Spanish' dancer, 'Lola Montez', an icon of 1850s
goldrush era entertainment or the influential Latin-American cabaret dancer
and choreographer Jeanne 'Montez' of post-War Australian entertainment.
The former was Irish and the latter Irish-Australian.
Finally, The
Tango Touch, as some may even guess, drew some initial inspiration from John Storm
Roberts’ The Latin Tinge: The
Impact of Latin American Music on the United States. This early work (1979,
1999) comes out of a scholarly ethos that is especially appropriate to the
historical study of popular performance culture in pre-multicultural
Australia. Roberts writes that:
'In reality, the issue of “authenticity” is largely irrelevant in popular
music' and that 'Critics have tended to treat “commercial” popular music
as a nefarious influence on supposedly pure forms. …[Musical forms have]
always borrowed from and lent to other forms; the pejorative and, in the
context, essentially meaningless concept of corruption betrays a basic
misapprehension of musical evolution.' The
same can also be said for dance.
Yet
‘authenticity’ and ‘borrowing' remain
sensitive issues for those who feel they have been borrowed from and had their
borrowings misused. Therefore, an
extensive introduction, that places
The Tango Touch in
relation to various debates, theories and perspectives associated with post
colonialism and those who dare to critique it.
Introduction
Part
One: Ethnicity and Exoticization
Part
One begins with a select historical and demographic orientation to
non-Anglophone migration to Australia relevant to the Tango Touch
narrative. This orientation
called 'Music, Dance and Migration', discusses migration from Spanish,
Portuguese, Italian and German speaking countries, Jewish, Rom, Alexandrian
Greek migration and other significant examples.
Certain music and dance traditions transplanted to Australia as ethnic
community, folkloric festivity or ethnic club entertainment are also
discussed. This orientation is followed by 'Gypsies, 'Gauchos' and Other Part
Imaginings', which overviews the origins of globalized 'Latin' and
'Continental' related music and dance stereotypes imported to Australia.
Part One, among other things, makes it clear that migration from the
real or perceived places of origin of important stereotypes (e.g. Spain) was
often too minimal to have had significant bearing upon local interpretations
of these stereotypes as entertainment products.
Part
Two: 'Castanets, Fiddles, Accordions, and Congas'
This,
the central and most complex part of the book, takes a more mainstream
cultural perspective and traces the influence of imported Latin American and
Continental European music and dance stereotypes and their adoption and
creative interpretation by Anglo and non-Anglo professional music and dance
practitioners in Australian popular entertainment (including colonial opera
and ballet), reference to significant cultural and social overlap with ethnic
community music dance and entertainment culture.
The
first section 'The Hispanic Touch' comprises two sub-themes: 'The Spanish Touch' (mediated Spanish influence in
Australia from the 1850s) and 'Down Argentina Way' (global and Hollywood
mediated Latin-American influence from the tango to the bossa-nova).
The
second section, 'The Continental Touch' examines the relationship of 1930s
Gypsy-tango band concept to later Continental influences, including
'Bavarian', 'Russian' and other pre-multiculturalism ethnic theme venue
entertainment.
The
third section: 'The Accordion' describes the popularization of the piano
accordion in Australia and the special significance of its role in
Continental, Gypsy and Latin music.
Part
Three 'Italo-Hispanic Music and Dance'
This, the penultimate theme of the book, describes how Italian-Australian
affinity with Hispanic music and the Spanish language enabled them to inhabit
the cultural space resulting from absence of Latino performers and, in the
post-war period of mass migration, create a vast and vibrant music, dance and
social scene based primarily around Italianized-Latin music ('Italian-Latin'
band music) and canzone, modern Italian popular song.
The second half of Part Three comprised case studies
Part
Four: From Folkloric to 'Counterfeit Gypsies'
The
Tango Touch
concludes with a survey of the effect of relevant later developments including
mass migration from Latin-America, official multiculturalism and the world
music scene. It explains
the demise of the Continental and 'Italian-Latin' venue scene but also
describes some present-day continuities, such as an Australia-wide web based
collective of Italian-Latin era composers, the continuing popularity of
Italian-Latin dance music in Italian community social life, surviving remnants
of Continental venue entertainment, and reconstructions of the Gypsy-tango
concept in Australian klezmer and world music.
Discography:
A
discography of all known recordings of Latin and Continental music (recorded
in Australia), including piano rolls.
Some
Sources Referred to or Drawn Upon for this Book Description:
Bellman, Johnathan. 'The Hungarian Gypsies' in
J. Bellman (ed) The Exotic in Western Music, Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1998
Bendrups, Dan. 'Melbourne's
Latin-American Music Scene' in Perfect Beat: the Pacific Journal of
Research into Contemporary Music and Popular Music
5(2) Jan 2001
Born, Georgina and David Hesmondhalgh (eds). Western Music and Its
Others: Difference, Representation and Appropriation in Music, University
of California Press, 2000
Borrow, George. The
Zincali: An Account of the Gypsies of Spain 1841
Kartomi, Margaret, John Whiteoak and Kay Dreyfus, 'From Berlin to
Bondi: the Flight of the Weintraub Syncopators' in Heat 6 2004
Radano, Ranald. Lying Up and Nation: Race and Black Music, Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 2003
Roberts, John Storm, The
Latin Tinge: the Impact of Latin American Music on the United States, New
York, Oxford University Press (2nd ed.) 1999
Scott-Maxwell, Aline with John Whiteoak) 'Multicultural Ideals and
Editorial Realities: Intercultural (Mis) Comunnication and Cultural
Representation in the Making of a Reference Work' Journal of Intercultural
Studies
Whiteoak, John. 'The
Birth and Death of an Early Australian Popular Music Industry: Dance Orchestra
Music' Denis Crowdy, Shane Homan, Tony Mitchell (eds), Musical
In-between-ness: Proceedings of the 8th Australia- New Zealand ISAPM
Conference, Sydney, University of Technology, 2002
Whiteoak, John & Aline
Scott-Maxwell. Currency Companion to Music and Dance in Australia,
Sydney, Currency House, 2003
Whiteoak, John. Playing
Ad Lib: Improvisatory Music in Australia, 1836-1970, Currency Press, 1999
Whiteoak, John. 'Mambo Italiano: Ugo Ceresoli
and his Orchestra Mokambo' in Italian Historical Society Journal
vol.15 2007 Online at http://www.coasit.com.au/IHS/index.html
Whiteoak, John. 'Italo-Hispanic Popular Music in Melbourne before
Multiculturalism' in Joel Crotty et al. (eds), Melbourne Victorian
Historical Journal 78(2)
Whiteoak, John. 'Australian Music: Music
of Place or Music of a People' (feature article) Review:
Centre for studies in Australian Music 21 Online at http://www.music.unimelb.edu.au/research/CSAM/review22.pdf
Whiteoak, John 'Making Gemütlichkeit:
Bavarian-Style Music and Dance in German-Speaking Community and Commercial
Popular Entertainment' in Dan Bendrups (ed.), Music on the Edge:
Proceedings from the 2007 Australia/New Zealand IASPM Conference, University
of Otago, University of Otago/IASPM (in press)
Whiteoak, John. 'Play to Me Gypsy: Australian
Imaginings of "Gypsies" in Popular Music and Dance Before
Multiculturalism and World Music', Ian Collinson (ed.) Whose Popular
Music? Selected Proceedings from the 2006 IASPM Australia/New Zealand
Conference, IASPM Australia/ New Zealand & Perfect Best
Publications/IASPM, 2008
Whiteoak, John. 'Family, Friendship and a Magic
Carpet: the Music of Franco Cambareri' in Italian Historical
Society Journal vol.16 2008 Online at http://www.coasit.com.au/IHS/index.html.