New Tango composer, player, and bandleader Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) left a challenging legacy.
His music is a lived-in mix of traditional tango, classical music, jazz, and even elements of popular styles such as Neapolitan song and klezmer. It can be lyrical, elegant - and coarse. It might sound logically designed, yet push forward with the bad disposition of street brawler. This music is a Piazzolla self-portrait in motion, constantly remade and reframed; a biography told in winks and nods, fleeting phrases, and unexpected turns.
His New Tango attracted admirers and collaborators from distant regions of the music universe, including classical luminaries such as Yo-Yo Ma, Mstislav Rostropovich, Gidon Kremer, and the Kronos Quartet; jazz masters such as Gerry Mulligan, Phil Woods, Gil Evans, Al DiMeola, and Gary Burton, and even dance music diva Grace Jones, who turned one of his pieces into a club hit.
To play this music, instrumental virtuosity is essential — but not enough. Piazzolla’s New Tango also demands a certain attitude, commitment, fearlessness, and an undefinable quality in the playing that he called roña, grime - the perfection of the imperfect.
For the Quinteto Astor Piazzolla, the repertory ensemble of the Astor Piazzolla Foundation, the nightly challenge is not all on the music stand, but conjuring that spirit in the music.
Now on a tour of the United States, Celebrating 100 Years of Piazzolla, November 4 to 21, the group comprises tangueros and academics, classical and jazz musicians.They all know and speak in various musical languages. They are, in a word, Piazzolla musicians: Pablo Mainetti, bandoneón; Bárbara Varassi Peg, piano; Serdar Geldymuradov, violin; Armando de La Vega, guitar; Daniel Falasca, double bass; and Julián Vat, musical director.
“I am still amazed by Piazzolla’s music, and the more I hear it, the more I marvel at the genius of his synthesis,” says Vat, who has performed, arranged, and directed many performances of Piazzolla’s music in a variety of settings. “What he does with a small group of notes are great works of engineering and wisdom and talent. And it’s music with a big heart.”
Mainetti is one of his generation’s top players of the bandoneon, the expressive, melancholy-sounding button squeezebox that embodies the sound of tango. But he is also a composer, arranger, and bandleader in his own right. From the beginning, he says, the idea was to find the right balance to their interpretations: being exactingly true to the music without turning them into museum artifacts. “I had some versions of these pieces as a reference, but I quickly stopped listening to them so as not to end up parroting them.” Besides, he realized long ago, after spending time transcribing Piazzolla’s music, that "the notes on the paper and what he played on the records were two very different things."
He calls Piazzolla "a brilliant improviser," and points out that he left much room in the music for interpretation.
"When you mention 'improvisation,' most people think of jazz, but there are many ways of improvising,” says Mainetti. “You can improvise in this music – but in Piazzolla’s language.” ~ © Mauricio Velez
Piazzolla was a master of the bandoneon -- but arguably, his great instrument was the quintet.
He organized his first quintet in 1960. Quinteto Astor Piazzolla featured bandoneon, violin, acoustic bass, piano, and electric guitar. It suggested a hybrid of a jazz band, a chamber music group, and a small tango orchestra and proved to be both nimble and powerful.
It was an outfit that raised eyebrows early on. For starters, a quintet brought to mind a jazz group, not your typical tango band -- and the inclusion of an electric guitar peeved tango traditionalists to no end.
Piazzolla led two major quintets, one from 1960 to 1971, the second from 1978 to 1988. Working with a steady group of musicians, even accounting for a few changes along the way, allowed Piazzolla to take chances in his music and write for specific players, not just instruments.
In fact, Mainetti credits much of the energy in Piazzolla’s music to “the great complicity with his musicians in the quintets, especially the second quintet. And that is something that also happens in this quintet. This is a fantastic group. And when we are going for it, it’s a great feeling to know that they are like a net and that if you do one pirouette too many and you find yourself heading down, face first, they will catch you.”
This Quinteto Astor Piazzolla, named in tribute to the original group, was organized in 1998. It was a request to Vat from Laura Escalada Piazzolla, the composer’s widow and president of The Astor Piazzolla Foundation. Since, the Quinteto has released four albums (including Revolucionario, winner of the 2019 Latin GRAMMY ® for Best Tango Recording) and has toured the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
Operation Tango, the new album being released on November 5, via E54 Music, marks a departure from the group’s previous efforts. The repertoire comprises pieces not written originally by Piazzolla for a quintet now arranged for this ensemble. The titles include “Tango Ballet,” an early Piazzolla piece for a film; “Tocata Rea,” and “Fuga y Misterio” from Piazzolla’s “little opera” Maria de Buenos Aires; and “Los Sueños,” from the soundtrack of the film Sur, and the choices stay true to one of Quinteto’s goals.
The idea is not just to focus on Piazzolla’s classics, says Vat. “Part of our mission is putting the spotlight on lesser-known pieces that we believe deserve to be heard.”
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