[Tango-L] Goodbye bs as rentals...welcome Color Tango

[Tom Stermitz]

Do I recall correctly that there two re-incarnations of the group  
Color Tango?

I saw one of the Color Tangos at the Ideal the last time I was in  
Buenos Aires (June of 2005), and it was embarrassingly awful. The  
singer had no guts; the music was off; the mix was off. There seemed  
to be a lot of new, younger musicians, almost like a pick-up band.

I have a more general complaint.

Although I love late-Pugliese, why do so many tango orchestras choose  
to work in the Late-Pugliese and Piazzolla style (same as late- 
Troilo, late-D'Arienzo). Why do the singers always present the over- 
wrought 1950s concert style? What is wrong with 1940s Pugliese? If  
you have an 8-piece or 12 piece orchestra, why not try to sound like  
1940s Di Sarli, or Troilo, or (heaven forbid) 1930s D'Arienzo.

As an organizer, I get bands from all over asking if I'd be  
interested in paying them to come do a concert.  I'd only be excited  
at such an expensive and risky undertaking for something really  
special. We have a local tango quartet (Extasis) that does a great  
job with the late-Pugliese sound (plus some Piazzolla, and etc), so  
yet-another-pugliese-clone is not so special.


In the US there are a lot of jazz bands who love to play in ultra- 
traditional styles of different eras: Rockabilly, Gypsy-swing, Big  
Band era, Bebop. The swing dance revival generated a bunch of young  
swing bands that played swing in an updated style, while still  
honoring the originals. I'm thinking of bands like the Squirrel Nut  
Zippers or Indigo Swing.

It seems to me that if we  want live music, the tango orchestras  
should look to honoring and reviving the styles of the 1930s and  
1940s instead of the 1970s. In the US (I don't know about Europe) 80%  
of the tango audience consists of tango dancers, not jazz or  
classical fans, who consider tango sort of curious rather than  
compelling.


On May 2, 2007, at 8:14 AM, Alberto Gesualdi wrote:

> dear friends
>
> Sticking to tango essentials, yesterday we went to confiteria  
> ideal , since Color Tango from Roberto Alvarez is playing his last  
> performances before going in a two months tour abroad.
>
> It has been some time since I listened live to them, I do have  
> their CDs, but is not the same. The group stand with Roberto  
> Alvarez as director and anchor bandoneon , another bandoneon,  
> Hernan Bartolozzi, Diego Lerendegi in viola, Fernando Rodriguez in  
> violin , that has , has re entered to the orchestra in 2006, he was  
> one of the "historic" members, and is playing as well as ever.  
> Gustavo Hunt at keyboard, Analia Goldberg in piano. And Manuel  
> Gomez in counterbass.
>
> The orchestra has a new singer, Roberto Decarre , he is very  
> young , but  he has been singing since he as 9 years old, so his  
> performance is good.
>
> The sound system at Confiteria Ideal is not the best for voices  
> ( output for live orchestra is reasonable however )