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See more releases by Astor Piazolla
I can think of no
other musical genre so completely dominated by one individual.
Singer Carlos Gardel dominated Argentinian tango in the 20’s
and 30’s and for many continues to embody it today. But
reality is a different kettle of fish. I’m referring to
bandoneonist and composer Astor Piazzolla.
Born in 1921 in the seaside resort of Mar De Plata, Argentina
he spent his early years in New York City but by 1935 was back
in Argentina, performing a minor role as a paperboy in the Carlos
Gardel film El Dia Que Me Quieras. Although the young Astor’s
musical talent had taken the young bandoneon player in the early
40’s to the role as musical director of Anibal Troilo’s
orchestra, the leading tango group of the day, El Senor Piazzolla’s
ambitions were to be a classical pianist and interpreter of modern
European music. Besides, the musician’s radical multi-noted
style was disturbing the dancers and the conservative tango establishment.
A turning point came when Astor won a scholarship to study classical
piano with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in 1954. When he performed
one of his compositions on bandoneon for the famous teacher, she
said to him “You idiot. Don’t you know? This is your
music. You can throw the rest away.” By the mid-50’s
tango was a dead sterile music in Buenos Aires. Astor completely
reconstructed the music in his own iconoclastic image. People
hated his new music which many found deeply disturbing. Musicians
threatened to kill him. What this genius had done was to plunge
into the centre of the dangerous areas of the tango where the
music threatens to fall to pieces and restructure it with the
elements that made the tango great in the first place…the
heartbeat of the gaucho, the slashing counter-rhythms that contain
elements of the African candombe beat, the flashing ripple of
Italian folk melodies.
Imagine the deconstruction opening the space for jazz, rock, experimental
classical sounds and an ambience that blows the sounds of the
pampas through the dirty streets of Buenos Aires. Imagine you
plopped smack in the middle of this beautiful chaos the greatest
bandoneon player who has ever lived and you’re starting
to get the picture. It’s a type of super-tango which blew
the opposition out of the water and created a new establishment.
Astor Piazzolla’s music is so unique….so confrontational…so
instantly identifiable …so beautiful.. so ugly and yet completely
tango in its emotional conception that even many of his initial
detractors were quickly turned around.
Rough Guide have collected 14 of some of the musician/composer’s
most famous compositions of the latter quarter of the 20th century.
Several are live performances. I’ll try to reduce the hyperbole
to mentioning the achingly beautiful yet eerily spaced out Milonga
del Angel (the Angel’s Milonga) and add that everything
here is on that same exalted level, with a cast of musicans including
stunning violinist Antonio Agri and jazz baritone saxist Gerry
Mulligan on another sublime piece 25 Years Ago . Many people hate
the music of Astor Piazzolla. Even though built up from traditional
elements and generally non-electronic some of it can be very confrontational
stuff for those brought up on a diet of fast-food music. But let
just one synapse fire and the rest will follow on this soundtrack
for the imagination. Astor Piazzolla’s death in July 1992
brought the one-man revolution to a close and in a sense the days
of the Nuevo tango are numbered too, simply because his advances
were so far-reaching that he left little for the competition to
do but mull over the elements that he himself had created. Richard
Jasituowicz
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