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The Archive · Treasures

Pugliese at the Colón

Footage: Guillermo Rube. Watch it on its own

For decades his crowds shouted it at the end of every dance: to the Colón! At eighty, he played there.

From 1939, when a crowd at the Café Nacional was first heard shouting it, the people who danced to Pugliese ended the night with the same cry: ¡Al Colón! The opera house was the stage they thought he belonged on.

On 26 December 1985, for his eightieth birthday, it happened. Tickets sold out in a few hours. Musicians who had played in the orchestra over the years came back to play with it that night, and the concert became a double live album, Pugliese en el Colón.

This is the end of the concert: La yumba, the tango he dedicated to his mother.

What to watch for
  1. 0:35La yumba begins: the orchestra on the Colón's stage.6
  2. 2:00Listen for the heavy beat the tango is named for.7
Sources
  1. Osvaldo Pugliese, a 30 años de la muerte de un distinto, La Nación, 25 July 2025The concert on 26 December 1985 for his 80th birthday; the cooperative; the carnation; his words on his mother's dream.
  2. Al Colón, Página/12, Radar, 27 December 2015The cry first recorded on 11 August 1939 at the Café Nacional; his mother; the former members who joined the orchestra that night.
  3. Se cumplen 40 años de la noche en que Osvaldo Pugliese llenó el Teatro Colón de tango, PerfilTickets sold in a few hours; the live album; his mother. The only outlet for the Canal 13 broadcast, which the page therefore does not state.
  4. Osvaldo Pugliese, Wikipedia (es)His imprisonments (1948, 1955, 1956–57).
  5. Osvaldo Pugliese, Wikipedia (en)The orchestra formed in 1939 as a cooperative.
  6. El tango y el Teatro Colón, Wikipedia (es)La yumba, dedicated to his mother's memory.
  7. La yumba, Tangos al bardoFirst recorded 21 August 1946 (Odeon), again 13 November 1952; the 'yum' he hummed to mark the rhythm, as Beba Pugliese told it.
  8. Pugliese en el Colón, Vol. 1 & 2 (en vivo), EMI OdeonThe double live album of the concert.