Monday, February 26, 2007
Rubén Juárez with the Cristian Zárate Sexteto at the IX Buenos Aires Tango Festival
Friday, February 23, 2007
This was the opening concert of the annual Buenos Aires Tango Festival, which is going to keep me pretty busy over the next ten days. The concert took place at the main outdoor stage of the city’s summer music program, a large field near the municipal airport. It was a lovely night, pleasantly mild for what has been a hot summer, and there were at least 1,000 people at the show, perhaps many more.
Everyone was there to hear Rubén Juárez, a near legendary singer and bandoneón player. Juárez is one of the principle figures to carry tango through its slump following the end of the genre’s “golden age” in the 1960s, when many earlier practitioners were passing away or passing into obscurity as other forms of music became more popular in Argentina. The minute he took the stage I instantly understood why Juárez, who I had only seen in videos before, has such a large and devoted following. His presence reached back to the last audience member and probably much further, no small feat given the scale of this performance space. He had equal command of the music, which consisted mostly of songs from the classic tango repertoire that were at once raucous and tender. He did a solo rendition of “Desencuentro” (one of the most heart-wrenching tango songs of them all), and with just his voice and his bandoneón Juárez had the audience hanging on every note, as if afraid to breathe. When the excellent backing band led by pianist Christian Zárate was added to that power, the group could really break the scales.
Unfortunately, the pace of what was becoming an unforgettable concert was interrupted by a small stream of special guests, each of which took the stage and chatted with Juárez at a small table for a few minutes before performing one song with the band. The guests included rock-turned-tango singer Javier Calamaro, blues-turned-tango singer Celeste Carballo—whose rendition of the classic “Nada,” I hate to say, was truly atrocious—and expatriate pianist Gustavo Beytelmann, who is a special guest at the festival. Pianist Osvaldo Belringieri also took the stage for a few songs, announcing that he did not want to talk, he wanted to play. That was more like it. I understand that these and other guests gave the evening a star-studded quality that the organizers must have wanted for the opening of the festival, but for me they only deflated what the real attraction of the evening was.
After all the guests had come and gone Juárez ran down a few more songs before announcing “We’re out of here, I’m hungry!” After a few of the requisite encores, we were off.
Related Links
www.rubenjuarez.net
www.festivaldetango.gov.ar
This was the opening concert of the annual Buenos Aires Tango Festival, which is going to keep me pretty busy over the next ten days. The concert took place at the main outdoor stage of the city’s summer music program, a large field near the municipal airport. It was a lovely night, pleasantly mild for what has been a hot summer, and there were at least 1,000 people at the show, perhaps many more.
Everyone was there to hear Rubén Juárez, a near legendary singer and bandoneón player. Juárez is one of the principle figures to carry tango through its slump following the end of the genre’s “golden age” in the 1960s, when many earlier practitioners were passing away or passing into obscurity as other forms of music became more popular in Argentina. The minute he took the stage I instantly understood why Juárez, who I had only seen in videos before, has such a large and devoted following. His presence reached back to the last audience member and probably much further, no small feat given the scale of this performance space. He had equal command of the music, which consisted mostly of songs from the classic tango repertoire that were at once raucous and tender. He did a solo rendition of “Desencuentro” (one of the most heart-wrenching tango songs of them all), and with just his voice and his bandoneón Juárez had the audience hanging on every note, as if afraid to breathe. When the excellent backing band led by pianist Christian Zárate was added to that power, the group could really break the scales.
Unfortunately, the pace of what was becoming an unforgettable concert was interrupted by a small stream of special guests, each of which took the stage and chatted with Juárez at a small table for a few minutes before performing one song with the band. The guests included rock-turned-tango singer Javier Calamaro, blues-turned-tango singer Celeste Carballo—whose rendition of the classic “Nada,” I hate to say, was truly atrocious—and expatriate pianist Gustavo Beytelmann, who is a special guest at the festival. Pianist Osvaldo Belringieri also took the stage for a few songs, announcing that he did not want to talk, he wanted to play. That was more like it. I understand that these and other guests gave the evening a star-studded quality that the organizers must have wanted for the opening of the festival, but for me they only deflated what the real attraction of the evening was.
After all the guests had come and gone Juárez ran down a few more songs before announcing “We’re out of here, I’m hungry!” After a few of the requisite encores, we were off.
Related Links
www.rubenjuarez.net
www.festivaldetango.gov.ar
