The geographical boundaries of what we call Pan America are vast. They are irregular, especially when trying to define lines drawn across the Caribe. There are islands, there are jungles, mountains, deserts. It takes around ten hours to fly direct from Buenos Aires to New York City. The breadth, were we to measure from Los Angeles to New York, is 2,790 miles. It’s even greater at 5,400 miles if you extend the measure to London. The bottom line is that Pan America occupies a large area. After all, we are talking two continents plus the sub-continent of Central America.
Over the course of Momentos Musicales 2026, we have considered how music and other arts are dispersed over such a large area. Edmund Chester and La Cadena de las Américas, the vast radio network developed in the 1940s, proved the airwaves to be an efficient and reliable manner of dispersal.
Back to the dimensions of Pan America, we find numerous challenges when trying to move music, dance and other of the arts over those distances, a necessity if we want to interact on common grounds. It's great if we can hear Astor Piazzolla on the radio, or experience him in movies, but what if we want to see, hear, smell, employ all of our senses within the same space as Piazzolla and his band?
Let’s travel the long, but scenic route from Argentina to New York in a thumbnail history of Tango...
It begins in Buenos Aires as dance rhythms emerge from roots which include Afro-Río de la Plata traditions such as candombe, the Cuban habanera, and the rural milonga. Mix into this European dances such as the polka and mazurka, then add a musical cherry on top, that being words, a cue for Carlos Gardel to appear, singing his own "Mi noche triste." The music went out on radios and the musicians were even seen on film, eventually projected onto screens as movie houses became part of the movement. The result was tango canción—tango with lyrics designed to tell a story.
Tango emerged from Buenos Aires and Montevideo, crossing the notorious Darien Gap into Central America, onward to Mexico, where it took on a somewhat different sound, prompting the Mexican tango, including those written by Agustin Lara, to be called Tango Mexicano. Lara, a master songwriter to begin with, showed great respect for the creations of Gardel and the “genuine” tangueros while casting tango, whether Argentine, Uruguayan, or Mexican far and wide over that miracle of communication, the radio. Without a doubt, Radio stations such as XEB and XEQ helped popularize tango, well beyond it's birthplace.
One of tango's most important voices was that of Astor Piazzolla, except it wasn't a verbatim echo of tango according to Gardel or countless others who continued to promote the roots of tango. Piazzolla's was a different tango and it took the world by storm. Piazzolla had a distinct advantage, for he had grown up in New York City. Thus, when he returned to NYC years later, with his fully developed new tango, the crowds were massive as Astor and company entertained at NY's Central Park.
We've come a long way, from tangos early 20th century roots to Piazzolla's Verano Porteño in Central Park, September 6, 1987. I hope you've enjoyed the ride.
