Piazzolla, Astor - Tango: Zero Hour
SKU
28-NNS79469.2
"This is absolutely the greatest record I've made in my entire life. We gave our souls to this record."-Astor Piazolla.
Astor Piazolla was a Argentinian bandoneon (button accordion) player and composer who took the tango - the music of his homeland - and pretty much single-handedly turned it into art music. The first album to gain major attention for him, this features his fabulous New Tango Quintet [Astor Piazolla-bandoneon, Fernando Suarez Paz-violin, Pablo Ziegler-piano, Hoaracio Malvicino, Sr.-guitar, Hector Console-double bass] and is a nicely recorded album of some of his greatest pieces and this blew my mind when I first heard it in the mid/late 1980s.
The sound isn't really like anything else, but imagine a jazzier variant on Univers Zero without drums playing 'art-tango', and that will at least give you an idea of what this sounds like. I saw them play at the National Press Club within a few years of this album and they were beyond magnificent! And, man were they a serious bunch; not a smile on Astor's face, no matter how much applause they received.
"Astor Piazzolla lived and died as tango's bad boy, having almost single handedly invented the music's vanguard, the form known as tango nuevo. It took Piazzolla decades to reach his unequivocal apex, which is captured flawlessly on Tango Zero Hour. When this recording was cut in 1986, some of the compositions Piazzolla and his quintet cued up were standards for the band. Whether it was an epiphanic period or not, the recording captures an ensemble alchemically transforming seriously complex works into goose-bump-inducing electricity. Pianist Pablo Ziegler brings his jazz background into the mix with jarring urgency, just as violinist Fernando Suárez Paz makes quavering classical inflections sing amid Piazzolla's here tender and there blistering bandoneon. For a peak experience in music that challenges the ear to dance and the body to fully listen, look no further than this recording." --Andrew Bartlett
- LabelNonesuch
- UPC075597946925