“Soñando El Charleston” is a song recorded by the Carabelli Jazz Band circa 1926,[1] and is one of a handful of songs featuring the Charleston rhythm (and including the word in their titles), recorded at Victor’s Buenos Aires studios in the mid-1920s. The orchestra’s leader, Adolfo Carabelli, was a classically-trained Argentinian pianist who had been introduced to jazz in 1917, and who soon thereafter began to devote himself to the new music; in 1926, Victor hired him as artistic director (presumably of Buenos Aires studios), shortly after he had begun issuing dance records for the label, leading a studio orchestra of prominent musicians from other “real” orchestras.[2]
The overall sound of the performance and the song itself are remarkably similar to what one might hear on a U.S. dance band record of the mid-’20s—the arrangement, instrumentation, orchestration, and even the melody would sound perfectly at home on a U.S. label of the same era. Starting at 2:34 in the video, one can hear a trumpet that somewhat resembles the trumpet solos mid-’20s records by such U.S. dance bands as Nathan Glantz’s and Ben Selvin’s orchestras suggesting that Carabelli or his musicians may possibly have been aware of and influenced by specific American dance bands. As Adolfo Carabelli first encountered jazz more or less on his own terms, outside of a recording situation, it seems likely that this recording provides an example of a Latin American dance band willingly adopting U.S. musical styles.
[1] Discography of American Historical Recordings, s.v. “Victor matrix BAVE-1035. Soñando el Charleston / Carabelli Jazz Band,” accessed December 15, 2022, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/600005308/BAVE-1035-Soando_el_Charleston.
[2] Héctor Ángel Benedetti. “Adolfo Carabelli.” Todo Tango. https://www.todotango.com/english/artists/biography/89/Adolfo-Carabelli/