[Tango-L] Community Expansion Brainstorming

[Barbara Garvey]

On one of his two appearances in San Francisco, Piazzolla gave a lecture 
that Al and I went to. He said specifically that his music was not for 
dancing. He did not say it was not tango. He did not reconcile this 
statement with "Maria de Buenos Aires" or other music he wrote for tango 
dancers. He did like to "epater la bourgeoisie" as well as being  
clearly  not interested in tango-dance.

Many of the folks on this List seem to equate Tango (capital T) with 
tango-dance exclusively; in fact tango music, in its 
non-usually-danced-to variations as well as bailable, has an enormously 
greater appreciation base than tango-dance. I am one of the 
fuddy-duddies who think that tango is best danced to tango music of the 
bailable type, which doesn't exclude appreciation of non-dance oriented 
tango music from Gardel to Piazzolla, electronic, whatever, depending 
on  musical quality. As some make distinctions between Pugliese (early, 
middle, late??) and  D'Arienzo, there are, as well,  many  degrees of 
danceablity, as there are many styles of dance, from strict club rythm 
to salon to fantasia to ballet or contemporary dance form.

Tom's comparison to jazz, some written for dancing, some for listening, 
is right-on, of course.

Barbara