03/2026 Pedro Laurenz y su Orquesta Típica with Juan Carlos Casas - tango tanda
The most epic bandoneon solo award goes to....
Welcome to this week's tanda!
Following the previous D'Arienzo/Bustos tanda from the late 50s and the modern traditional La Juan D'Arienzo instrumental tanda - I'll give you one more tango tanda with that high uptempo energy, but with songs from the late 1930s and early 1940s.
As a massive Pedro Laurenz fan I often surprise myself with how often I do not play this tanda. Fortunately many other DJs do! I guess I keep playing uptempo hits from other orchestras or I play Laurenz milongas, valses or the tangos with Alberto Podesta more often.
Therefore my new years resolution is to fire up the dance floor with these amazing songs as soon as I have the chance. And the chance to hear me play next time is at the Tango Frostbite festival in Helsinki. Hope to see you there!
The Pedro Laurenz & Juan Carlos Casas tango tanda
I like to start the tanda with "Vieja amiga" from 1938. It is the longest of the four songs (giving dancers more time to get on the floor) and starts with enough tempo (at around 64 bpm) but some calm energy as well. The song has the calmest of the bandoneon solos as well and the song finishes with no big fire works.
The energy of the tanda gradually builds up with "Desconsuelo", recorded on May 12th 1940, a song with a rather minimal bandoeon solo in the end.
Now I was not sure if I'd go with "No me extraña" (1940-1-25) or "Amurado" (1940-7-29) next. Both are songs at the 66-67 bpm range and have a massive Pedro Laurenz trademark bandoneon variación in the end. In fact "Amurado", the Laurenz/Maffia/de Grandis composition he recorded later also as an instrumental three times, has one in the middle of the song too!
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Trying to think what would have the most impact on the floor I think having the last two songs in any order would work. But I'll imagine a scenario where I would play them like this:
I'll play "Amurado" as the third song so dancers have the energy to give the song their all. "No me extraña" as the fourth song gives the dancers some time to get their energy back. The song has a long instrumental part and although it's very uptempo, it fairly easy to go with a softer style of dancing to it. Also the vocal part is quite mellow in all it's contained sadness. But... then comes the bandoneon solo out of this world. One that I'd say could be even stronger than the one on "Amurado"!
- Pedro Laurenz & Juan Carlos Casas - Vieja amiga 1938-05-12
- Pedro Laurenz & Juan Carlos Casas - Desconsuelo 1940-02-21
- Pedro Laurenz & Juan Carlos Casas - Amurado 1940-07-29
- Pedro Laurenz & Juan Carlos Casas - No me extraña 1940-01-25
03/2026 Pedro Laurenz y su Orquesta Típica