Astor Piazzolla

"Greenwich was my district. I got into my first fights there… I remember how angry I got seeing my mother's sadness, my father's desperation at being out of work, at how cold it was in the house in winter…All of that, plus the violence, is in my music… ", recalled Astor Piazzolla, deeply marked by his childhood in New York. Having emigrated to the United States with his family when he was just five years old, Astor, who was born in Mar del Plata (Argentina) in 1921, would live there for eleven years.
He began to play the bandoneon when he was nine, making quick progress. In 1935, the great master Carlos Gardel, impressed by his talent, offered him a small role in his film "El Dia Que Me Quieras". At the same time, the young prodigy discovered jazz and J.S. Bach through Bela Wilda, a Hungarian disciple of Rachmaninov. A year later, having been forced to return to Buenos Aires, he heard the tango of Elivno Vardaro's sextet on the radio… he was bewitched on the spot ! From that moment onwards, Piazzolla, speaking English a great deal better than Spanish, had just one obsession : to practice, learn music and work on his arrangements.
Engaged by Anibal Troilo's orchestra between 1939 and 1941, the bandoneon virtuoso decided to take control of his destiny and form his own band, with the singer Fiorentino. Unfortunately, faced with the general conservatism in the world of tango at the time, Piazzolla experienced serious difficulties in having his already modern arrangements accepted.
Nevertheless, the tenacious artist persevered and during the 40s and 50s composed classical works as well as original tangos such as El Desbande, Se armo, Se fue sin decirme adios, Llanto negro, Villeguita, not to mention the musical gems Para lucirse and Lo que vendra. Despite being encouraged by an experienced American bandleader, who willingly compared Piazzolla to Ravel or Stravinsky, the efforts of the founder of Nuevo tango to have his work recognised were in vain. The media refused to broadcast or even talk about his music.
In 1954, having received an award for a classical composition, the Argentinean musician obtained a grant from the French government and left to study in Paris with the teacher, pianist and composer Nadia Boulanger. "Above all else, she gave me self-confidence, showed me that I was first and foremost a composer of tango and that the rest, although important, was not the way ahead for me, rather belonging to a different, intellectual and false me". Piazzolla then began a period of intense production, resulting in the Parisian tangos recorded with Martial Solal on piano and the musicians from the Paris Opera : Rio sena, Picasso, Marron y azul, Chau Paris…
As soon as he had returned to Argentina in 1955, still under the influence of his time spent in Paris, he founded El Octeto de Buenos Aires, consecrating the split with the chan-chan tango of the 40s and allowing the influences of Bartok and Gershwin to be come through. His repertory was built around his own compositions or those of other modernists such as Salgan, Stamponi and Federico. With the Octeto, Astor Piazzolla proved that tango needs neither song nor dance to exist and that all musical forms may be applied to it. He composed several hours a day, playing, recording, forming ensembles with whom he experimented various formulas, always giving priority to the purely musical aspect of tango. "I have never liked dancers. What was important was seeing the musicians' heads while they played. If they had a strange expression, it was a bad sign. If they seemed happy, then I was too." With the Quinteto Tango Nuevo, the Argentinean experimentalist took his idea even further.
His ambition was to adapt the canons of European music to tango, also using the work of jazz arrangers. This avant-garde idea led to numerous polemics with his peers. The Tango Revolution album, released following his concert at the New York Philharmonic in May 1965, was a turning point for the genre's aesthetics. A new era had begun for Piazzolla. In 1968, with the complicity of Uruguayan poet Horacio Ferrer, he wrote Maria de Buenos Aires, a miniature opera in two acts and eight scenes for a narrator, singers and eleven instruments. The musician composed longer and longer pieces, closer to symphonic works than songs. During the 70s, with his Quinteto electronico, Astor took on board rock and later contemporary music. Worried about the political situation in Argentina, he decided to return to Europe.
He began to be internationally renowned, which led him to diversify his production. He worked with famous singers, signed contracts with major record companies and recorded albums with baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and vibraphonist Gary Burton. Asked to compose films soundtracks, he wrote for Alain Delon (Armaguedon) and above all Fernando Solanas (Exil de Gardel and Sur). Until the cerebral haemorrhage which left him paralysed in 1990, the highly prolific musician Astor Piazzolla (hundreds of tracks, seventy albums and hundreds of arrangements), widely contributed to making tango known worldwide, lifting it to the rank of "great music" by giving it a modern musical presentation and reconciling tango with new music and new generations.


Jérôme Sandlarz

Artist website