Bernardo Mitnik (4 September 1933 – 18 August 2023), best known as Chico Novarro, was an Argentine singer-songwriter, composer, musician, television presenter and actor. He specialized in

tango Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries from a combination of Arge ...

and

bolero Bolero is a genre of song which originated in eastern Cuba in the late 19th century as part of the trova tradition. Unrelated to the older Spanish dance of the same name, bolero is characterized by sophisticated lyrics dealing with love. It h ...

compositions.

Life and career

Born in Santa Fe, the son of a Ukrainian shoemaker and a Jewish housewife of Romanian origin, Novarro started studying music at young age; as an adolescent he moved to Córdoba to cure his asthma, and there he began playing drums in a jazz band and in an orchestra. In 1956 he joined the jazz ensemble Agrupación Nuevo Jazz, which also included

Gato Barbieri Leandro "Gato" Barbieri (November 28, 1932 – April 2, 2016) was an Argentine jazz tenor saxophonist who rose to fame during the free jazz movement in the 1960s and is known for his Latin jazz recordings of the 1970s. His nickname, Gato, is Spa ...

. In 1961, he moved to

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

, where he briefly joined the jazz band Swing Timers, and formed the duo Los Navarros with Raúl Bonetto, recording an album for

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

. Novarro had his breakout as a cast member of the 1962-4 Canal 13 musical show , which gave him immediate notoriety and made him a teen idol. He soon started releasing successful albums, and authoring hits for other singers including Palito Ortega and Violeta Rivas. Between late 1960s and 1970s Novarro collaborated several times with

María Elena Walsh María Elena Walsh (1 February 1930 – 10 January 2011) was an Argentine poet, novelist, musician, playwright, writer and composer, mainly known for her songs and books for children. Her work includes many of the most popular children's books ...

. In the early 1970s, he collaborated with Eladia Blázquez, who introduced him to the

composition. Another notable collaboration was with Rubén Juárez, who starting from 1983 recorded several of his songs, also duetting with him in "Cordón" and "El último round". Starting from the late 1980s he had a large stage success with the show ''Arráncame la vida''. Among Novarro's major hits were "Carta de un león a otro", the OTI Festival 1979 winner "Cuenta conmigo", "Algo contigo", "El camaleón", "Cómo". During his career he composed over sixty hundred songs, as well as film scores and incidental music. Beyond boleros and tangos, he also composed pop, rock, jazz, and

cumbia Cumbia refers to a number of musical rhythms and folk dance traditions of Latin America, generally involving musical and cultural elements from American Indigenous peoples, Europeans, and Africans during colonial times. Cumbia is said to have com ...

songs. He also appeared in several films, mostly comedies. He died on 18 August 2023, at the age of 89.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Novarro, Chico 1933 births 2023 deaths Argentine singer-songwriters Argentine composers Argentine people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Illustrious Citizens of Buenos Aires People from Santa Fe, Argentina