1933 the last game

After a stay of fourteen months in Europe, he returns to Argentina where he will spend his last season in La Plata, being acclaimed on both shores. He remains almost all year in our country, making numerous presentations in theaters in various cities and being constantly required for radio presentations with great success. He makes an interesting series of recordings with his new guitar quartet that include songs recorded as a duet with himself, something completely new and unprecedented for the time. This intense activity ended on November 7 when the steamer Conte Biancamano cast off from the port of Buenos Aires, to dock fifteen days later at the Barcelona dock. She embarks at 22 p.m. and leaves her beloved Buenos Aires for good. Days before leaving, he is fired with a massive barbecue organized by his friend, the caretaker Francisco Maschio.

Gardel travels with Armando Defino, Alberto Castellanos and Horacio Pettorossi. Defino accompanies him to Toulouse, where they are reunited with Doña Berta and the entire French family.

In December, after his friend Sadie Wakefield entertained him for his birthday at the "Café de Paris", he traveled to the United States. There he meets with Hugo Mariani, director of the NBC network orchestra, being hired for a series of radio auditions.

On December 31 at 22:30 p.m. his radio debut takes place in New York accompanied by an orchestra made up of 19 musicians.

This is a very particular year in the life of Gardel, because after a fourteen-month pilgrimage through Europe, he consumed almost all of 1933 in our country, with furtive escapes to Uruguay.

On March 24, 1933, Gardel made his debut at the National Theater in the musical revue "De Gabino a Gardel", written by Ivo Pelay. It consisted of several paintings with dialogues, songs and monologues, through which the evolution of the national song is shown. In this work intervened, among others, Tito Lusiardo, Francisco Alvarez, Amanda Falcón and Rosa Catá; Gardel closed the show singing the tangos “Silencio,” “Melodía de arrabal”, “Secreto”, “Mano a mano” and the Creole song “El cartero” accompanied by his guitarists Pettorossi, Riverol, Barbieri and Vivas.

The season also included a large number of recordings for the Odeón label, performances on LR3 Radio Nacional in the "Griet" audition space, presentations at the National Theater as the main attraction of Ivo Pelay's musical revue, entitled "De Gabino a Gardel ”, performance at the San Martín Theater, trip to La Plata to perform at the Astros cinema-theater in that city, to Mendoza, where he was a sensation, at the Palace Theater cinema.

On September 11, 1933, he began a series of duet recordings with himself. To make these recordings he recorded the first voice with his guitarists and later, while listening to that take with headphones, he placed the second voice that was coupled with the first on a new plate. This can now be easily done on a home computer, in 1933 it was a technological breakthrough. With this procedure Gardel recorded in different sessions "Cantar eterno", "Rumores", "Medallita de la suerte", "Angustias", "Jujueña", "Mañanita de sol", "Sanjuanina de mi amor", "A rose for me rosa”, “La pastora” and “La madrugada”.

He then traveled to Montevideo where he broke the box office (on September 28) of the 18 de Julio theater and participated in an important evening radio broadcast in the first days of October.

Gardel returned to the country, and appeared at the stud Boulogne, where his friend, the caretaker Francisco Maschio, entertained him for his farewell to the country with a massive barbecue. On November 6 he recorded the waltz "Tu diagnóstico", the style "El tirador plata" and the tango "Madame Ivonne". This would be the last record made in Argentina and also the last for the Odeón label, since in 1934 he signed a contract with the company Víctor, where he recorded all the songs from his films made in the US. Also that day, November 6, Gardel said goodbye to the Argentine public in a radio audition broadcast by LR3 Radio Nacional. After a few words of thanks to the listeners, he closed the program singing the tango "Buenos Aires", which was the last performance he performed in this city.

On the morning of November 7, 1933, Gardel wrote his will, leaving his mother, Berta Gardes, as the sole heir to his assets. In the afternoon the steamer Conte Biancamano cast off from the port of Buenos Aires, to dock fifteen days later in the Barcelona docks. Gardel arrived there with Armando Defino and his wife, Horacio Pettorossi and Alberto Castellanos. Defino and his wife, who stayed in Spain with the intention of visiting Aragonese friends and relatives. The rest of the entourage moved by rail to Paris to stay in an apartment at 14 rue de L'Arcade, in the heart of Madeleine neighborhood.

Since the apartment did not have a piano, the Argentines rented another one for their rehearsals. However, there is a very important detail here: Gardel traveled with Defino, at the beginning of December, to Toulouse. They all met in that French city, and the everyone included Mrs. Bertha who had just arrived from Buenos Aires.

That same December, in Joinville, there was talk of the possibility of Gardel making his next films for Paramount in New York, a fact that spoke clearly enough of the success these films had.

Hugo Mariani suggested a trip to New York to Gardel to introduce him to the North American public. The group of capitalists that financed his films in Joinville, France, had already considered the possibility of Gardel coming to the United States to film. But those talks had not materialized, limiting themselves to vague plans for the near future, with hints of possibility but quite indefinite.

The conversations excited Gardel, who had planned a trip to the United States for December 22. The trip crystallized after the entertainment that she was offered at the famous "Café de Paris" by her friend, Sadie Baron Wakefield. Mariani's invitation overcame Gardel's indeterminacy; suddenly, the plan became real.

It was the last days of 1933. It was unbearably cold. In general, the month of December is not extremely cold in New York. In those days Carlos Gardel, the Creole thrush, arrived from Europe aboard the ship Europa, to seduce the people of the United States with the spell of his art. He came with his small entourage, the writer Alfredo Le Pera and the pianist Alberto Castellano.

In New York, Gardel not only met with Hugo Mariani, director of the NBC network orchestra, who had hired him for a series of radio auditions, but also had to respond to his fame by accepting formal invitations: on December 29, the body Argentine consular in that country entertained him at the Ritz Carlton. That night Gardel went to sleep early because the next morning he had to finish rehearsals for auditions that included something new for him: the accompaniment of a 19-piece orchestra. At 22.30:30 p.m. on that December 350, Gardel made his debut for NBC Some of the songs he performed that night were: “Silencio”, “Cobardía”, “El cartero” and “Buenos Aires”, a tango that he would use to close the presentation. He earned $XNUMX a week and, according to what was certified, never before had a foreign artist been paid so much.

As the series of NBC radio shows continued, negotiations with Paramount progressed. Finally an understanding was reached, the contracts were signed and preparations began for the filming of the first two films “Cuesta abajo” and “El Tango en Broadway”.

But the year was particular not only because of its end, but also because of all the other months that passed in Gardel's last season in Argentina.