2217  Pugliese and Piazzolla

Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 09:31:52 -0600
From: Stephen Brown <Stephen.P.Brown@DAL.FRB.ORG>
Subject: Re: Pugliese and Piazzolla

Adm Bugs (aka Rick from Portland) wrote:

>PS: I'm with Stephen about Pugliese & Piazzolla.

I not sure that Rick and I are quite in agreement here. I deleted
Piazzolla from Melina's posting and offered favorable comments about
playing Pugliese at milongas. I think Pugliese is essential to a good
milonga. I don't think Piazzolla is. As a dj, I don't have any
recordings made by Piazzolla on my playlist. I do have several Piazzolla
compositions played by other orchestras on my playlist:

Carlos Garcia and Tango All Stars -- Adios Nonino
Raul Garello -- Verano Porten~o
Gidon Kremer -- Oblivion
Quartango -- Oblivion
Color Tango -- Zum

Of course, I only play these recordings at moments where they seem
appropriate, which is late at night when the dance floor has thinned out;
if someone engages in theatrics, it doesn't create a navigational hazard;
and the remaining dancers can get into the high emotional content of this
music and have a sufficient mastery of tango rhythms to dance in the
music.

Piazzolla's compositions have an emotional content that is very tango, but
in his own recordings Piazzolla often played in tempos that do not work
well for social dancing. And surprisingly, many of Piazzolla's recordings
are of relatively poor fidelity. The Piazzolla compilation RCA Victor 100
An~os is of exceptionally good fidelity, and I really like it, but I
really don't think of it as music for dancing tango socially.

With best regards,
Steve (de Tejas)

Stephen Brown
Tango Argentino de Tejas
https://www.tejastango.com/

A non-commerical webpage with information about Argentine tango including reviews of instructional
videos, guides to tango music, articles about learning and dancing tango,
extensive links and a listing of tango events in Dallas and Fort Worth,
Texas