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About the Live Set
"Listening to Tango No. 9 tackling Piazzolla classics such as "Adios Nonino" and "Marron y Azul," it was easy to see that this ensemble has indeed fallen head over heels in love with tango."
About the CD
"Tango No. 9 has released a dazzling debut album. Perhaps the most passionate debut I've ever heard. And passion is what Tango is all about...every track on the disc breathes emotion ... Tango with a hint of jazz."
THE NAPA VALLEY REGISTER Thought to have come out of early West Indian dances like the habanera and tangano, the tango first gained popularity in Argentina in the early 20th century and subsequently in both Europe and the United States. We've all seen it - a slow ballroom dance step in duple meter maintained against a frequently syncopated melody. With long gliding steps, the dancers often engage in intricate movements and striking poses. And while we recognize the dance, most Americans - and I dare say those who enjoy this terpsichorean pastime form Buenos Aires to Helsinki - know very little about the music that makes it all happen. There's a talented Bay Area foursome hell-bent on correcting that. Tango No. 9 is dedicated to performing tango music, plus compositions that lend themselves to both spirit and instrumentation compatible with this Argentine treasure. Earlier in the week, Tango No. 9 offered an enlightening as well as entertaining performance at Copia, as part of the American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts diverse music series this month. Forsaking the traditional guitar, and with the trombone replacing the standup bass, Tango No. 9 celebrates the tango in all its guises. Playing the instrument that provides the tango with its unique sound, the bandoneon (relative of a concertina), is the quartet's familiar face, Odile Lavault. A native of France, she performs throughout the Bay Area as a member of the group favoring the bal musette. Lavault was joined by a sensational, dynamic violinist, Clune; fleet-fingered pianist Mark Wyman; and, on the non-traditional trombone, Greg Stephens, providing an up-to-date accent for a number of the arrangements. The evening consisted of a number of compositions by noted Argentine composer/performer Astor Piazzolla, quite a few composed in the 1950s while Piazzolla was a student in Paris. Of particular note were the composer's tribute to the City of Lights famous landmark, "Rio Sena" and another that expressed his obvious sadness at returning to his native country, "Chau Paris." The quartet also featured a sensational medley of Nino Rota songs, taken from scores of such films as Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" and "Amarcord," and Francis Ford Coppolašs "The Godfather." There were easy waltzes, happy "milongas," a jazz tango ("Sea of Tranquility") by noted Bay Area flugelhornist Dmitri Matheny, as well as modern pieces based on the tango. The best thing about a contemporary work written by trombonist Stephens was that it was mercifully brief. A most appreciative audience really got into "La Muerte de Angel," one of Piazzolla's modern tangos, and the composer's signature song, "Adios Nonino," a musical tribute to his father that Piazzolla often performed and recorded. The only thing missing at Monday night's were the tango dancers. By the time the passionate, indefatigable quartet launched into a fiery, frenetic "Libertango" to wrap things up, I half expected to see some in the crowd engaged in some fancy footwork off stage left.
Pierce Carson
LOS ANGELES TIMES Is the Conga Room a good venue for a tango concert? Friday at the popular salsa club, San Francisco's Tango No. 9 ensemble did its best to woo its scarce audience with a repertoire composed mostly of tunes by Astor Piazzolla, the genre's undisputed master. Problem is, every time a new patron came into the room, the opening of the door broke the mood by ushering in the seductive sound of Afro-Cuban music coming from the venue's other room. And because there's a tendency with American audiences to think of tango as a cliche of Latin exotica - music meant to be heard in a restaurant setting while consuming expensive entrees - most of the patrons Friday talked noisily while the quartet attempted to conjure up the dead-serious spirit of the real thing. Listening to Tango No. 9 tackling Piazzolla classics such as "Adios Nonino" and "Marron y Azul," it was easy to see that this ensemble has indeed fallen head over heels in love with tango. Ironically, the group's playing is a bit too polished and elegant to capture the essence of Piazzolla, who happens to be the darkest and rawest of tango composers, embracing tragedy and death with unflinching determination. Yet the ensemble shone on more conventional fare such as Anibal Troilo's "La Ultima Curda." And its decision to incorporate the unusual sound of a trombone to its lineup is brilliant. Ernesto Lechner
SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN If you're convinced that you were meant to live the spicier life of, let's say, Marcello Mastroianni, then Tango #9 will help keep your delusion alive. A lustful style of music and dance that developed among European immigrants in the brothels of 1920s Argentina, tango gave expression to everything that could - and eventually would - go wrong in love. Maybe that's why tango dancers look so afflicted. Tango #9 looks to the early music of the great innovator Astor Piazzolla, who fled Argentina for Paris in the 1950s with his exquisite and thoroughly modern tango nuevo - a music for dreaming rather than dancing. On a recent Saturday night at the cozy and luminescent Radio Valencia, bandleader-violinist Catharine Clune (Club Foot Orchestra) took the band through fiery, old-style tango numbers as well as doomed Russian folk songs and quirky, familiar Nino Rota film scores. But it was the sophisticated Piazzolla sound - somewhere between classical and jazz - that set the evening's tone. Pianist Alla Gladysheva provided minor-key staccato rhythms that were augmented by the evocative, scratchy timbres of Greg Stephen's trombone. Odile Lavault's bandoneon (mini accordion) melodies captured an American's idea of Euro-romance culture. Piazzolla's "La Misma Pena" featured descending melody lines over military chop-chop rhythms, suggesting a bittersweet existentialist worldview. His "Tzigane tango" found the musicians involved in a tense relationship - just like classical tango dance partners. "Chao Paris" had a strange, lilting quality that culminated in a steamy trombone solo. And Piazzolla's most famous "Adios Nonino" opened with a wrenching violin piano duet and proceeded to reach for that pitch bespeaking exile and longing. La dolce vita, indeed.
Adam Savetsky |
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