Thursday, October 19, 2006
Alfredo Piro at the Torquato Tasso
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Take a young singer, add two parts tango, one part rock, add band, shake well, place on stage, turn on microphones, then sit back and enjoy! That was the recipe for this great mid-week concert by Alfredo Piro at the Torquato Tasso, one of the best venues in Buenos Aires for hearing live tango music.
Son of tango legends Osvaldo Piro and Susana Rinaldi (who were recently reunited on stage for the closing concert of the tango in the Teatro Colón series), Alfredo brings a certain edginess to his music that began with how he looks: a black on black striped tie, a black, nearly skin-tight dress T-shirt, black jeans, a black belt, and yes, black shoes. Along with his chiseled features and his firm but not overbearing stage presence, Alfredo struck me as something like a cross between the actor Liev Schreiber and the lead singer of Green Day but tanguero. And authentically tanguero at that. It was an interesting mix, to be sure.
That mix could be heard in all parts of Alfredo’s music, too. His repertoire featured well-worked tango classics like as “El Choclo” and “Ventarrón” alongside such decidedly non-tango songs as “So Close to Me” by the British alternative rock band The Cure (which was translated here as “Tan Cerca de Mi”) and a few songs by Argentine rock legend Charly García. Alfredo, alongside his musical director, arranger, and guitarist Hernán Reinaudo, was not only able to find a common musical ground between these seemingly disparate repertoires, but made the space between them feel seamless. El Choclo was treated to a fascinating, extended, and atmospheric arrangement that switched between free time passages and the strict, chomping rhythm familiar to more standard renditions of the song (though even the rhythmic sections moved between single and double times at different moments). The rock tunes were not simply given the tango treatment, but approached with a similarly original between-genre sensibility that brought out tango elements in the songs that sounded as if they must have always been there. And this was not a “fusion” band: the only slightly atypical instrument added to the tango group of two guitars, violin, and bass was the cajón, a percussion instrument which is not entirely uncommon in tango groups today.
That Alfredo and his band could pull off such elaborate genre jumping and have it not come off as pretentious or contrived but as if it were second nature seemed amazing to me. But is it amazing? While these musicians are obviously very thoughtful about how they go about doing what it is they do, almost all of us do exactly this kind of genre switching in our daily listening habits without giving it a second thought. (I recognized the different songs they played, for example.) With that in mind, Alfredo’s music, while strikingly original, is not really experimental or vanguard at all. It is simply the product of what young musicians in Buenos Aires are into today—rock, pop, jazz, and tango. What is really amazing about Alfredo Piro, then, is his willingness to be his complete musical self on stage.
Take a young singer, add two parts tango, one part rock, add band, shake well, place on stage, turn on microphones, then sit back and enjoy! That was the recipe for this great mid-week concert by Alfredo Piro at the Torquato Tasso, one of the best venues in Buenos Aires for hearing live tango music.
Son of tango legends Osvaldo Piro and Susana Rinaldi (who were recently reunited on stage for the closing concert of the tango in the Teatro Colón series), Alfredo brings a certain edginess to his music that began with how he looks: a black on black striped tie, a black, nearly skin-tight dress T-shirt, black jeans, a black belt, and yes, black shoes. Along with his chiseled features and his firm but not overbearing stage presence, Alfredo struck me as something like a cross between the actor Liev Schreiber and the lead singer of Green Day but tanguero. And authentically tanguero at that. It was an interesting mix, to be sure.
That mix could be heard in all parts of Alfredo’s music, too. His repertoire featured well-worked tango classics like as “El Choclo” and “Ventarrón” alongside such decidedly non-tango songs as “So Close to Me” by the British alternative rock band The Cure (which was translated here as “Tan Cerca de Mi”) and a few songs by Argentine rock legend Charly García. Alfredo, alongside his musical director, arranger, and guitarist Hernán Reinaudo, was not only able to find a common musical ground between these seemingly disparate repertoires, but made the space between them feel seamless. El Choclo was treated to a fascinating, extended, and atmospheric arrangement that switched between free time passages and the strict, chomping rhythm familiar to more standard renditions of the song (though even the rhythmic sections moved between single and double times at different moments). The rock tunes were not simply given the tango treatment, but approached with a similarly original between-genre sensibility that brought out tango elements in the songs that sounded as if they must have always been there. And this was not a “fusion” band: the only slightly atypical instrument added to the tango group of two guitars, violin, and bass was the cajón, a percussion instrument which is not entirely uncommon in tango groups today.
That Alfredo and his band could pull off such elaborate genre jumping and have it not come off as pretentious or contrived but as if it were second nature seemed amazing to me. But is it amazing? While these musicians are obviously very thoughtful about how they go about doing what it is they do, almost all of us do exactly this kind of genre switching in our daily listening habits without giving it a second thought. (I recognized the different songs they played, for example.) With that in mind, Alfredo’s music, while strikingly original, is not really experimental or vanguard at all. It is simply the product of what young musicians in Buenos Aires are into today—rock, pop, jazz, and tango. What is really amazing about Alfredo Piro, then, is his willingness to be his complete musical self on stage.
