Song List: All Through The Night Pilgrims' Chorus Little Annie Rooney Anvil Chorus The Campbells Are Coming Glorious Fourth High School Cadets Joy To The World Just A Song At Twilight (Love's Old Sweet Song) Merrily We Roll Along Merry Widow Moonmist (From Symphony #5) Tchaikovsky The Mulberry Bush Music Box Nightfall Oh! Susanna Old Black Joe Old Folks At Home (Swanee River) Our Director March Semper Fidelis Shadow Waltz Silent Night The Skaters (Waltz) The Thunderer By The River (Beachler) Nocturne (Von Blon) Andantino (Lemare) March Gloria (F.H.Losey) London Chimes Pierrot To The Evening Star (Wagner) Amaryllis (Ghys) Indiana State Band March Theme (Rigoletto) Verdi Aria (Il Trovatore) Verdi Melody(Weber's Freischutz)kohler Theme (Haydn) Soldier's Chorus (Auber) Good King Wenceslas Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star London Bridge I've Been Working On The Railroad Wedding March Yankee Doodle My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean Old MacDonald Tango Little Brown Jug William Tell Overture She'll Be Comin' 'Round The Mountain Good Night Ladies Oh, Them Golden Slippers Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here Auld Lang Syne America, The Beautiful Home On The Range Song Of India Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes Jingle Bells Tambourin O Come, All Ye Faithful Nightfall, Op. 7, No. 2

That most sensual of ballroom dances, the tango, originated during the 1880s along the R�o de la Plata, the confluence of the Uruguay and Paran� rivers. It got started among the enslaved peoples and the lower classes, became popular and eventually spread to other countries.
The tango is closely identified with Argentina, and Argentine musician �.G. Villoldo was instrumental in developing the music of the dance. He supposedly wrote this particular tango to celebrate the proprietor of a nightclub, a gentleman whose nickname was ?El Choclo? (in English: ?The Corn Cob?!).
?El Choclo? premiered in Buenos Aires in 1903 and became one of Argentina?s most popular tangos. Dance orchestras recorded instrumental versions of "El Choclo." It achieved widespread popularity in the United States in 1952 when Lester Allen and Robert Hill provided it with English-language lyrics and a new name: ?Kiss of Fire.? A number of singers made recordings of ?Kiss of Fire? that year, the most popular of which was that of Georgia Gibbs; her ?Kiss of Fire? disc reached the top spot on the Billboard chart.
The melody for ?El Choclo? is exciting, stirring, stimulating, electrifying; in other words, perfect for a brass group. In this arrangement Horn in F has the melody throughout much of the piece, but Trumpets, Trombone and Tuba also take turns with the lead. The piece opens in the key of D minor, switches to D major (for the part of the melody that was not in the Georgia Gibbs version) and finally goes back to D minor for the recap of the main melody and a dramatic conclusion. The suggested tempo is 120 but may certainly be played faster. All notes are within the normal playing range of the five instruments. However the Tango rhythm lies mostly in the bass line, so Tuba and sometimes Trombone have frequent octave and octave-plus jumps.
Completed in 2020, performance time for ?El Choclo? runs about 2 minutes, 50 seconds. The arranger, Les Smith, will be happy to provide substitute parts (for example, treble clef baritone for trombone) at no charge; contact him directly at lessmith61@bellsouth.net. For more arrangements by Les, enter "Sweetwater Brass Press" (without the quotation marks) in the SheetMusicPlus search box.