Osvaldo Fresedo

Osvaldo Fresedo (May 5, 1897 - November 18, 1984), nicknamed El pibe de La Paternal (“the kid from La Paternal”) was an Argentine songwriter and director of a tango orchestra. He had one of the longest recording careers in tango history, from 1920 to 1980. Career Fresedo was born into a middle-class family in La Paternal, Buenos Aires, Argentina. His mother gave him the first music lessons. While he was still small, his family moved to a working-class neighborhood, and it was there he began his interest in tango. He learned to play the bandoneón and as a teenager joined several of the most famous orchestras of the era of the Guardia Vieja (“Old Guard”). In 1920 traveled to United States. In Camden, New Jersey he recorded a few albums with a quartet that also included violinist Tito Rocatagliatta and pianist Enrique Pedro Delfino. Back in Buenos Aires, he formed his first orchestra which, from the outset, displayed his trademark style. Although his style evolved somewhat in the following decades, its essence remained the same: his performing group always displayed true elegance. Fresedo was one of the innovators of tango in the early 1920s, along with such other young musicians of t