Tour of tangopolis: a dance through the rhythms of Buenos Aires
Chris Moss
Thu 11 Mar 2021 01.30 EST
This week marks the centenary of Astor Piazzolla, tango’s revolutionary – and the city is filled with the sights and sounds of his music
On a central reservation in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires’ youngest and least atmospheric neighbourhood, stands a strange-looking monument. It’s a twisted, abstract sculpture, in steel, that looks at first glance like the cooling fins from a motorbike engine. It is, in fact, an unfurled bandoneón (button accordion), the fiendishly difficult instrument of German origin that produces the unmistakeable sound of tango: a pained and plangent breath from a broken heart.
The composer, bandleader and musician who made the bandoneón globally famous was Astor Piazzolla, whose centennial in 2021 will be celebrated – or, at least, remembered – by players, dancers, singers and songwriters the world over. “His fingers move about that instrument as though they were snakes,” said jazz legend Gerry Mulligan. For his part, Piazzolla said the button accordion had “a velvet sound, a religious sound”. He was the high priest of that religion.
On 5 March, Buenos Aires’ venerable Colón opera house reopened after a year-long closure with a two-week Piazzolla programme. Here in the UK, scheduled tributes, such as a “¡Viva Piazzolla!” night at the Liverpool Philharmonic, have been either deferred or cancelled. There are, though, virtual events honouring the centennial, including monthly gigs beamed from Boedo in Buenos Aires, lectures and dance classes in Philadelphia and a free Piazzolla “cyber jazz” show from Nottingham .
I’ll be toasting Piazzolla’s memory with a glass of Argentine vino and spinning a few scratchy shellacs on my ancient gramophone. All right, I exaggerate: tango brings out my inner melancholic. But I will take out some vinyls and CDs, not just Piazzolla but his precursors and heirs, and play the songs that changed my perception of Buenos Aires. Unable to be in the city right now – I lived there from 1991 to 2001 and visited at least once a year until 2019 – I rely on tango to transport me there.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2021/mar/11/tour-of-tangopolis-a-dance-through-the-rhythms-of-buenos-aires
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cracks me up or makes me sob.)
