Why the tango guitar duo ‘Villareal Crom’ is so popular with dancers When I rang the doorbell on that sunny spring afternoon in North Oakland, the neighborhood that is known as…
Category: Tango music
Exciting stories about the music of tango, the musicians, and award-winning composers.
Here Comes Big Band Tango
Emilio Solla is a very busy man; trying to schedule an interview with him feels like chasing after a hurricane. One day he’s performing on the West Coast, the next time in a tiny town in upstate New York, then he’s recording a new album, performing with his own group – the Trio Solla-Cheek-Labro – or he’s working on a video as part of a fundraising campaign for his next project. And then there’s so much more: teaching, composing a musical, promoting, and creating new possibilities; this Argentine-born pianist and composer seems like a creative volcano.
So what’s with the bandoneon?
The tone always comes out where you don’t expect it!
When I first heard the sound of a dozen bandoneons playing together, I was blown away. It was at the Stowe Tango Music Festival where, at the end of a weeklong bandoneon workshop, the students performed for tango dancers. They played together with the other musicians of a grand tango orchestra: violin, viola, cello, piano and double bass. The bandoneons made the orchestra sound like force of nature. My ears perked up, I stopped my conversation, and leaned towards the stage. I had heard the bandoneon countless times, unwittingly anticipating its characteristic sound in many tango pieces. But this time I was completely unprepared for the gripping sound of twelve bandoneons playing together. It grabbed me from within, sending shivers down my spine on that warm August night. I felt the same excitement that so many tango lovers must have felt before me.
Tango wins a Grammy!
(Photo: STOWE TANGO MUSIC FESTIVAL)
On January 28 the tango world was rocked by a major event: the Pablo Ziegler Trio’s album, Jazz Tango, won the 2018 Grammy Award as best Latin Jazz Album. It was the first time that tango was awarded a prize by the Recording Academy — and the first time the larger music world became aware of the importance of a genre it had previously regarded as marginal. I spoke with bandoneonist Héctor Del Curto — who, together with pianist Claudio Ragazzi and founder Pablo Ziegler, completes the Pablo Ziegler Trio — about winning the Grammy Award. Héctor is one of the most sought-after bandoneonists, having played with Osvaldo Pugliese and Astor Piazzolla among others. Héctor and his wife Jisoo Ok are also the founders of the Stowe Tango Music Festival.
‘Life on the road’ with María Volonté and Kevin Carrel Footer
‘María De Buenos Aires’ it says in black letters on the van. It’s an older model, but well cared for and trust inspiring. All the important parts, such as its shiny wheels and fenders, look new and expensive. White, compact, and sturdy, it has been converted into some kind of multi-purpose mobile home/trailer. The initial passenger space now serves as a tiny stage dressing room or, if needed, as a bedroom. There is a clothes rack with stage costumes, a vanity, and everything the artist needs to transform herself for a grand appearance. This past year there were thirty-three of them in five months.
Le Grand Tango – an updated and expanded biography of Astor Piazzolla
When Astor Piazzolla died in 1992, he was not much appreciated in his native Argentina. The tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger, although well-known the world over, had stirred up a great deal of controversy with his music. The traditional tango world was still predominant in his home country at the time of his death twenty-five years ago, and he was a rebel. “He was hated because he broke a paradigm,” says María Susana Azzi, “and he changed that paradigm.”
Mrs Azzi is the co-author of Le Grand Tango: The Life and Music of Astor Piazzolla, a detailed biography that may represent the most comprehensive work about the composer’s life and work to date. Surprisingly, the book first appeared in the year 2000 in English, published as a hardcover edition (it was a few years before e-books became common) by Oxford University Press. It says a lot about Piazzolla’s reputation in Argentina that a Spanish edition was published only later after many translations into other languages had appeared.