My favourite artist

I remember with a lot of affection Osvaldo Pugliese, for being an excellent musician and a better person. I always admired him for his coherence in his political ideas and also for his austerity and humility, that made of his life a model for all of us. Around 1954, I went to the “Glorias Porteñas” club, to see the show that would be his public “re-apparition”, since he had been in jail for not thinking as the Government had wanted him to. The club was crowded, and at the door there were a lot of people trying to get in. However, the minutes passed and the orchestra was rehearsing on stage, but Osvaldo didn’t arrive. What had happened? People was told that Pugliese hadn’t been released from jail because some functionary had forgotten to sign some document. They were furious, and kept calling the director’s name. For that reason, the orchestra, commanded by Cacho Herrera and “el Tano” Ruggero, decided to play anyway. It was very moving to see the place where the piano should have been illuminated and covered in red carnations. It was not fair to mix political issues with tango: the first one separated us, and the latter joined us together. For some curious twist of fate, in 1974, when Perón was the president, Pugliese was invited to the Presidential Residence to perform with his orchestra. When Perón saw him, shook hands with him and apologised for the political mistakes that had been committed in the past. Don Osvaldo thanked him and said that, as the pacifist he was, he didn’t take into account the damage that had been done to him, because it was a forgotten subject for him. This was another example of Pugliese’s simplicity, who always acted according to his ideas. By the end of 1985, his friends organised him a well-deserved homage at the Colon Theatre, which I attended. When one of the speakers invited him to address the audience, he thanked everybody for the compliments and, very respectfully, asked the audience if they allowed him to dedicate his following interpretation, “La yumba”, to his mother, since she had been the first person who encouraged him, when he was young and practised at home. He was very touched when he began to play, and the way his voice trembled, made a tear come out of the eyes of many of us, because of that wonderful human being that hadn’t forgot his mother’s support. Some years later I ran into him in the neighbourhood where he lived. I asked him how he was, since he had been recovering from a recent illness. He answered: “I’m much better”. And added: “Every day, when I leave my house (which was on Corrientes street) I automatically look in the direction of the Obelisk, because if I look in the opposite direction (which led to the cemetery), I see “Pichuco” Troilo and Manzi calling me, but I don’t listen to them, because, for the moment, I have no intentions of going there”. Last January, on the anniversary of Carlos Di Sarli’s death, I went to the Chacarita cemetery, to the place where all the statues are. There I ran into Lidia, Osvaldo’s beloved wife, who was cleaning the statue of her husband, as she does daily. I respectfully greeted her and said that Argentine people would never forget his husband for having been a “Tango worker”, as he liked to call himself.

Dear Maestro: thanks for being a life model for all of us. Thousands of tango lovers had admired you for showing us the way of being good people.

With affection

Oscar Mármol