TS 1.01 - Instrumental 1949-50

Album
Written By Frank Jin
 
“Unparalleled renditions from the orquesta’s artistic peak now surface in a stunning sonic resurrection.“ — Tango Sparks, 2025

By the close of the 1940s, Osvaldo Pugliese and his orquesta had reached a profound artistic maturity. After enduring a one-year ban from radio and studio activity under the Perón regime due to political ideology, Pugliese was finally “unchained” in 1949 for studio works, channeling his renewed freedom into music with extraordinary intensity.

This album (TS 1.01) is the first release of the “San Pugliese Unchained” series and contains all ten instrumental recordings of Don Pugliese from 1949 to 1950. Listen to the monumental "Malandraca" and "Canaro en París" (1949), as well as the lyrical "Pastoral" and "El Tobiano" (1950), you can finally experience how they could have sounded live.

In 1949, Studio Odeón Argentina shifted its microphones strategy, as an incremental improvement, and probably adopted a lacquer disc intermediary system for editing and mastering by 1950, as a method trying to phase out the well-refined 78-rpm direct-cut process.

These transitional experiments, however, came at a cost. Misalignment between the new microphone techniques and the old coarse-groove system compromised high frequencies. By 1950, while band improvements were evident, the lacquer system introduced a new pitch drift issue.

The widely available versions of these recordings are of dire quality. Despite all the challenges, we have sourced the highest-quality surviving materials and worked meticulously to restore them to their fullest extent. Through careful analog restoration and modern digital rebalancing, the hidden colors and details once buried by technical limitations have been brought to light.

Frank Jin

Date Title Genre Singer Label Matrix No. Pitch Length
1949-05-04ChuzasTangoInstrumentalOdeón172794403:13
1949-05-31MalandracaTangoInstrumentalOdeón173074402:55
1949-08-22Pinta BravaTangoInstrumentalOdeón173954402:46
1949-09-27Bien CompadreTangoInstrumentalOdeón174344403:09
1949-11-28Canaro En ParísTangoInstrumentalOdeón175004402:55
1949-12-07CatuzoTangoInstrumentalOdeón175164402:39
1950-03-29De FloreoTangoInstrumentalOdeón176014402:49
1950-05-03PastoralTangoInstrumentalOdeón176354402:56
1950-07-26Don AnicetoTangoInstrumentalOdeón177314402:48
1950-10-24El TobianoTangoInstrumentalOdeón178464402:59
 
Frank Jin