Monday, October 16, 2006
Alfredo “Tape” Rubin at the Centro Cultural San Martín
Thursday, October 12, 2006
I have been a little lazy keeping up with the posts, though my lack of energy somehow feels appropriate given my overall impression of this concert. Alfredo “Tape” Rubin is a middle aged tango singer and guitarist who was accompanied here by two younger guitar players. Their repertoire consisted on mainly original tangos that were composed by the various members of the group. Several were instrumental, though most of them had lyrics which, while newly composed, kept very self-consciously within the topical guidelines of the genre. That is, there were songs about bad women, heartbroken women, beautiful women, young women in love with older men, women who dance tango, disgraced women, women of the night, women who inspire tango songs, lonely women, etc. There was a song about hard life in the barrio and one about tango nightlife in general, too, though I think enjoyment of this concert really depended on one’s endurance for songs on a certain, specific topic.
Musically, Rubin has a nice tenor voice that made each vocal phrase a real journey, and the guitar arrangements were subtly complex and well executed by the ensemble. I especially liked their frequent use of the guitar’s low register for melodic passages and the quick interchanges between Alfredo’s two accompanists. Like the lyrics, however, the music also seemed to rely too heavily on material that came off sounding somewhat cliché. Some songs, like a tango based on blues phrases, were more adventurous, though to my ears the original material as a whole sounded overly familiar.
That sonic familiarity is the symptom of a problem that I think lies at the core of a lot of current tango composition and performance: a problem of over-identification or over-respect for what tango was. While serious study of and respect for the genre is obviously necessary for any successful rendition of tango today, it seems to me that many musicians, especially composers, can be overly enamored with the limits of the genre. Rather than looking for what new or fresh things their particular experiences can bring to the genre, they seem to be focused on creating compositions that are “passable” vis-à-vis the classic tango repertoire. That, of course, is the definition of academicism. While it makes for music that is enjoyable and often lovely, it also makes for music that, like this week-after-the-fact blog entry, lacks a sense of urgency.
Related Recordings
Alfredo “Tape” Rubin, Reina Noche (Acqua Records) 2004.
I have been a little lazy keeping up with the posts, though my lack of energy somehow feels appropriate given my overall impression of this concert. Alfredo “Tape” Rubin is a middle aged tango singer and guitarist who was accompanied here by two younger guitar players. Their repertoire consisted on mainly original tangos that were composed by the various members of the group. Several were instrumental, though most of them had lyrics which, while newly composed, kept very self-consciously within the topical guidelines of the genre. That is, there were songs about bad women, heartbroken women, beautiful women, young women in love with older men, women who dance tango, disgraced women, women of the night, women who inspire tango songs, lonely women, etc. There was a song about hard life in the barrio and one about tango nightlife in general, too, though I think enjoyment of this concert really depended on one’s endurance for songs on a certain, specific topic.
Musically, Rubin has a nice tenor voice that made each vocal phrase a real journey, and the guitar arrangements were subtly complex and well executed by the ensemble. I especially liked their frequent use of the guitar’s low register for melodic passages and the quick interchanges between Alfredo’s two accompanists. Like the lyrics, however, the music also seemed to rely too heavily on material that came off sounding somewhat cliché. Some songs, like a tango based on blues phrases, were more adventurous, though to my ears the original material as a whole sounded overly familiar.
That sonic familiarity is the symptom of a problem that I think lies at the core of a lot of current tango composition and performance: a problem of over-identification or over-respect for what tango was. While serious study of and respect for the genre is obviously necessary for any successful rendition of tango today, it seems to me that many musicians, especially composers, can be overly enamored with the limits of the genre. Rather than looking for what new or fresh things their particular experiences can bring to the genre, they seem to be focused on creating compositions that are “passable” vis-à-vis the classic tango repertoire. That, of course, is the definition of academicism. While it makes for music that is enjoyable and often lovely, it also makes for music that, like this week-after-the-fact blog entry, lacks a sense of urgency.
Related Recordings
Alfredo “Tape” Rubin, Reina Noche (Acqua Records) 2004.
