LA CACHILA (score & parts)

Eduardo Arolas (1892 – 1924), a prominent pioneer of Argentine tango, had certainly written the original tango La Cachila by 1921, possibly earlier. The dance lent itself beautifully to on-going adaptation in the first half of the 20th century by many of the leading tango orchestras.
The title La Cachila (‘The Pipit’) has mystified tango aficionados. The music does not sound at all avian, but there is an Argentinian bird called La Cachirla which has a habit of dragging one of its feet; musically, this ‘drag’ is plausibly evoked. Arolas was very proud, too, to have owned a car, and in Uruguayan Spanish ‘ cachila ’ means a jalopy, or old banger. There are good musical grounds to support this, too, but as much of Arolas’ life was not well documented, we will never know for sure how the title and the music match.
This arrangement for wind quintet draws on many of the diverse recordings of La Cachila  made in the golden era of tango and employs various tango effects, most notably the ‘ yumba ’ (pronounced ‘dshoomba’).
This technique, developed by the orquestra tipica leader Osvaldo Pugliese adds great strength to the ‘chorus’ sections of the tango structure. Yumba is onomatopoeic. The strong accent on ‘Yum-‘ indicates the roar of several bandoneons (Argentinian accordions) rapidly opening their bellows at full sound onto a strong beat. The ‘-ba’ reflects the closing of the bellows equally rapidly on the off-beat, inevitably with some residual sound. This is physical (not necessarily neat and tidy) and here is emulated by sforzando notes combined with grace notes and extreme dynamic changes in the accompaniment. Pugliese even composed and recorded a tango with the title La Yumba , a good source of reference to fully appreciate this striking and unusual effect. Elsewhere in the piece the grace notes reflect the more subtle glissando effects (known as arrastres ) of the bandoneon and stringed instruments.
This is a powerful and authentic arrangement full of colour and contrast.

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