14 - march 02

When commodity springtime arrives and the coffee tables begin to sprout on the sidewalks, the Nueva Compania Tangueros comes again to Italy for a short tour with no less than three different shows interwined: Flores de Tango with the Sexteto Canyengue and the four NCT principal dancers, The Tango Roads (that we introduce in this same Newsletter) and the very new Desdelalma. This show bears a subtitle - Petit Pas de Deux and a bandoneòn - that admits no doubt about the subject. In fact it is the spring collection of choreographic haute-couture by Mariachiara Michieli for sensitive conoisseurs. Surprise music and the Maximo Mori's outstanding arrangements for bandoneòn solo are the soundtrack. The dancers are Silvina Aguera, Sebastian Romero, Silvia Vaccaro, Mariano Suazo. Rocco Boness is the bandoneonist.
This is the full schedule:

The Tango revenged by the others

Several readers are puzzled about a certain french-argentine projet that from the top charts is pretending to avenge the outrages suffered by Tango in all these years.
Wrongs righters or impostors? Pioneers or wise guys? New-converts magnets or usurpers? And above all, is this music for modern milongueros or is this lounge-music for fashion-victims and decoloured goatees?
The tunes at issue look like commercial goods, disco supplies, salòn (peluquero) wallhangings, with even less Tango inside than the Sly Gideon's albums. To sell well doesn't mean nothing in a market controlled by the big labels. Besides, the average musicalizador tours the balls with a briefcase full of masterized Troilo, Pugliese and Calò. So, why steal to angels and give money to these squalid opportunists? Regarding their presumed proselytism, we agree with the Giuseppe Sinopoli's statement about the Three Tenors: they help to spread the Music as much as Asterix promotes the roman history.
But who could answer these questions better than a professional such as Tj Locatelli, the daring Camerlengo of The Catedral de Buenos Aires and La Quinta del Ñato, the right-hand man of MC Ningùn Bobby and Gran Master Felix at the Tangodrome of Saavedra?
Here goes mr. Locatelli:

Un baile a beneficio

In England, Alberto Savinio used to say, compassion and ferocity have often the same face.
As a matter of fact the Lambeth orphanage and the Machester assembly lines, the Charity Maids and the Owners, Uriah Heep and Lady D, were not too unlike. But you only need to reach the Netherlands to find someone who doesn't hesitate to do good, without profiting, without advertising, without telling anybody. That selfish high-society who brought them to play at the Royal Wedding and to sell out largely at the Concertgebouw, is so alien to their true nature that the Sexteto Canyengue will earmark their next two concerts' receipts for the Escuela de Musica Popular de Avellaneda (Buenos Aires). The performances will take place at the Church of Middlebeemster (which is a small village in the Amsterdam province) on March 9.
This appointment in the polder is indeed a not-to-be-missed event with the best Tango Orchestra above (and below) sea level.

Between Tango and Jazz there are a lot of affinities. To start with, their birth in the brothels - which is now a fine-protected truth - to their contemporary contaminations. The Tango Roads penetrate the Buenos Aires docks on the trails of the elegant and melancholy heroe by Hugo Pratt, as well as the New York dark alleys, among the thousand Spanish Harlem's inflexions. A multimedial show made of bandoneòn and saxophones, traditional milonga and improvisation, musics of passion, sentiments inspired by the same Asphalt Muse. On the background: the Pino Ninfa's photos from the immortal Buenos Aires, the drawings by one of the greatest artist in our time and the live set by the Studio Pennisi's image-jockey.