Monday, May 14, 2007
Rodolfo Mederos Orquesta Típica at Parque Lezama
Sunday, May 13, 2007
This was the first in a series of city-sponsored concerts in the lovely if bustling park that lies on the border between the San Telmo and La Boca neighborhoods in the southern section of Buenos Aires. Though sponsored in part by the tourism board of the city, the event felt like it was focused more on making something special happen for the people who live in the neighborhood than drawing the throngs of tourists down the hill from the relentless San Telmo antiques market taking place just a few blocks up the street. It was also a way for the Torcuato Tasso, which is located across the street from the park, to give something back to its neighbors: all three of the bands featured in this series have recently played in the Tasso, where cover charges can range upwards of $30 or $40 pesos. Those are fair prices for the quality of what is heard at the club (and shockingly low if you are a foreign tourist with dollars or euros in your bank account), but they are, unfortunately, much more than many Argentines can afford to pay. This show, on the other hand, was free. With that incentive, and despite the brisk temperatures, a lot of people turned out, and the festive atmosphere of most public events here—vendors hawking sandwiches and sweets, dogs running around, children playing, people huddled together sharing mate tea, etc—was well established even before the band took the stage.
Born in 1940, bandoneonist, composer, and arranger Rodolfo Mederos is what I think of as a “middle generation” tanguero: in his youth he played with some of the genre’s legendary figures, and now, as one of the genre’s living maestros, he has extended himself to a younger generation of musicians who never even had the chance to see those legends play live. That outreach has not always been 100% positive, and Mederos is something of a polemical figure today, though his impact as a performer and educator is undeniable. Even this concert had a bit of an educational slant to it, with Mederos treating the audience to a veritable encyclopedia of tango styles and ensembles. He started the show with a haunting bandoneón solo, followed by a few selections in a trio format with bass and guitar. As he announced from the stage, these songs were selected from the early tango repertoire, circa 1915, and performed in an unadorned style that he believed maintained their brutish urgency. He next invited the pianist and a violinist to the stage and performed a few pieces from his own quintet repertoire with them, modern tangos that were almost dizzying with melodic twists and harmonic modulations yet remained intuitively connected to the repertoire heard just before.
Eventually the full orquesta made it to the stage—thirteen musicians in all—and launched into a long series of classic and original tangos for dancing. Indeed, Mederos made a huge (almost browbeating) point of how tango music is first and foremost popular dance music, and how his return to the orquesta típica format and its danceable repertoire represented a renewed political commitment to that vision on his part. Despite this pontificating, the vast majority of the audience stayed put for most of the show, though several dancers were eventually roused from their seats (the couple that got it started just happened to be passing by, coming over to dance a few songs while on their way to somewhere else). The spontaneous appearance of the dancers proved not only that tango as a popular dance genre is still alive in Buenos Aires, but also that like the music, the dance is not exactly what it might have once been: along with the older couple and the few aficionados, there was a group of two women dancing together, and, even more noteworthy, a woman dancing by herself. Mederos seemed pleased if not exactly happy: “I am glad to see that some people have understood what this is all about,” he said of the dancers/to the rest of us, “next time maybe more of you will.”
Related Recording
Rodolfo Mederos Orquesta Típica, Comunidad (DBN) 2007.
This was the first in a series of city-sponsored concerts in the lovely if bustling park that lies on the border between the San Telmo and La Boca neighborhoods in the southern section of Buenos Aires. Though sponsored in part by the tourism board of the city, the event felt like it was focused more on making something special happen for the people who live in the neighborhood than drawing the throngs of tourists down the hill from the relentless San Telmo antiques market taking place just a few blocks up the street. It was also a way for the Torcuato Tasso, which is located across the street from the park, to give something back to its neighbors: all three of the bands featured in this series have recently played in the Tasso, where cover charges can range upwards of $30 or $40 pesos. Those are fair prices for the quality of what is heard at the club (and shockingly low if you are a foreign tourist with dollars or euros in your bank account), but they are, unfortunately, much more than many Argentines can afford to pay. This show, on the other hand, was free. With that incentive, and despite the brisk temperatures, a lot of people turned out, and the festive atmosphere of most public events here—vendors hawking sandwiches and sweets, dogs running around, children playing, people huddled together sharing mate tea, etc—was well established even before the band took the stage.
Born in 1940, bandoneonist, composer, and arranger Rodolfo Mederos is what I think of as a “middle generation” tanguero: in his youth he played with some of the genre’s legendary figures, and now, as one of the genre’s living maestros, he has extended himself to a younger generation of musicians who never even had the chance to see those legends play live. That outreach has not always been 100% positive, and Mederos is something of a polemical figure today, though his impact as a performer and educator is undeniable. Even this concert had a bit of an educational slant to it, with Mederos treating the audience to a veritable encyclopedia of tango styles and ensembles. He started the show with a haunting bandoneón solo, followed by a few selections in a trio format with bass and guitar. As he announced from the stage, these songs were selected from the early tango repertoire, circa 1915, and performed in an unadorned style that he believed maintained their brutish urgency. He next invited the pianist and a violinist to the stage and performed a few pieces from his own quintet repertoire with them, modern tangos that were almost dizzying with melodic twists and harmonic modulations yet remained intuitively connected to the repertoire heard just before.
Eventually the full orquesta made it to the stage—thirteen musicians in all—and launched into a long series of classic and original tangos for dancing. Indeed, Mederos made a huge (almost browbeating) point of how tango music is first and foremost popular dance music, and how his return to the orquesta típica format and its danceable repertoire represented a renewed political commitment to that vision on his part. Despite this pontificating, the vast majority of the audience stayed put for most of the show, though several dancers were eventually roused from their seats (the couple that got it started just happened to be passing by, coming over to dance a few songs while on their way to somewhere else). The spontaneous appearance of the dancers proved not only that tango as a popular dance genre is still alive in Buenos Aires, but also that like the music, the dance is not exactly what it might have once been: along with the older couple and the few aficionados, there was a group of two women dancing together, and, even more noteworthy, a woman dancing by herself. Mederos seemed pleased if not exactly happy: “I am glad to see that some people have understood what this is all about,” he said of the dancers/to the rest of us, “next time maybe more of you will.”
Related Recording
Rodolfo Mederos Orquesta Típica, Comunidad (DBN) 2007.
