[Tango-L] Community Expansion Brainstorming

[Tom Stermitz]

On Nov 29, 2006, at 7:50 AM, Robert Armus wrote:

> Piazzolla was encouraged by Natalie Boulanger to write Tango while  
> he was
> studying composition with her in Paris. ...


I don't think this is correct. Boulanger wasn't talking about tango.  
Rather, Piazzolla went to her on a scholarship to study composition  
and classical music. She asked him what his INSTRUMENT was, and he  
pulled out his bandoneon, somewhat embarrassed. When he played it for  
her she got all enthusiastic, and said THAT was his real instrument.  
I don't know whether she was impressed with the exotic-ness of the  
bandoneon, or his musicianship.

The biography of Piazzolla is quite good and interesting.

Piazzolla was finally asked to leave Troilo's orchestra because his  
arrangements weren't working out for an orchestra oriented to  
dancing. They were too complex, and had lost the dance-drive. You can  
hear this in the mid-forties Troilo when compared with the earlier  
Troilo. Piazzolla really viewed himself as a composer, and that his  
music had no relevance to dancing. He was argumentative, and seemed  
to take some enjoyment from provoking promoters and dancers. So, he  
made some famously extreme comments. I'm not sure that he hated  
dancers so much as his interest was in something completely different  
from dance-tango.

Piazzolla had a lot of trouble getting gigs in Buenos Aires. They  
just didn't like his music. Once he moved on to his classical, jazz  
and rock influenced compositions he spent most of his time in Europe,  
N. America and Brazil (where he had a huge following). He wasn't  
accepted back in Buenos Aires until much later.


I guess we could compare the changes in Tango to the changes in Jazz.

Big band Jazz-Swing music had a big dance following in the 30s and  
40s. But by the 50s much of jazz had no relevance to dancing at all.  
You don't have swing dancers arguing whether or not John Coltrane is  
jazz, although most would agree his music isn't really appropriate  
for dancing lindy hop.

You can dance tango movements to whatever you want, but some music  
calls your feet to the dance floor and other music calls you to sit  
in rapt attention.

I'm trying to imagine a performance Lindy-hop group dancing to John  
Coltrane "A Love Supreme".


Tom Stermitz
http://www.tango.org