[Tango-L] Piazzolla "Alternative" Music?

[Huck Kennedy]

Astrid writes:
> Sean writes:
> > Huck is dead on right about Piazzolla. It is absulutely
> > alternative music. If you try to dance tango to it, IMHO,
> > you will look even more foolish than the people who try to
> > dance nuevo to it. That's not to say that it can't be
> > danced to, just to say that those very few who can dance
> > that well are not to be found on this list. (Unless they
> > are lurking.)
>
> May I guess that includes you and Trini?
> Piazzolla is not "alternative" as it not something other than tango and
> alien to the genre, it was born from tango as a further step in the
> development of musical history.

     Actually, what Huck said was to disagree with
"m i l e s" that Piazzolla was "a staple diet of
golden age tango music."

     I said, "Huh?  No it's not," and it isn't.  But
just because it isn't golden age or played as much as
golden age doesn't mean that it isn't tango.  Most of
it I really wouldn't personally care to dance to, though.

     So is Piazzolla "alternative?"  That's a loaded
question.  Let me put it this way:  Much as I adore
sitting down and listening to Piazzolla, and much as
I consider it to be brilliant, if anyone played more
than a couple Piazzolla songs in an evening (a tanda
at most), I wouldn't be back again to that milonga.  

Huck

PS  Btw, I once saw a brilliant pas de deux by the
principal dancers of Bolshoi Ballet to at least
a solid 20-30 minutes of varied Piazzolla.  I thought
ballet worked a whole lot better than your typical tango
dancers' attempt to dance to it.