Astor Piazzolla | Artist
Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger born 1921 in Mar del Plata, Argentina. His works revolutionised the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. A virtuoso bandoneonist, he regularly performed his own compositions with a variety of ensembles. In 1925 Piazzolla moved with his family to Greenwich Village, New York City, which in those days was a violent neighbourhood inhabited by gangsters and immigrants. He grew up listening to his father's records of the tango orchestras and was exposed to jazz and classical music. He began to play the bandoneon after his father spotted one in a New York pawn shop in 1929. At the age of 11 Piazzolla composed his first tango "La Catinga". The following year he took music lessons with the Hungarian classical pianist Béla Wilda, a student of Rachmaninoff, who taught him to play Bach on his bandoneon. When 17 years old Piazzolla moved to Buenos Aires in 1938 where he joined the orchestra of the bandoneonist Aníbal Troilo, which would become one of the greatest tango orchestras of that time. Apart from playing the bandoneon, Piazzolla also became Troilo's arranger and would occasionally play the piano for him. By 1941 he was earning a good wage, enough to pay for music lessons with Alberto Ginastera, an eminent Argentine composer of classical music. In 1946 Piazzolla formed his own Orquesta Tipica, which gave him his first opportunity to experiment with the orchestration and musical content of tango. That same year he composed El Desbande, which he considered to be his first formal tango, and then began to compose musical scores for films, starting with Con los mismos colores in 1949 and Bólidos de acero in 1950, both films directed by Carlos Torres Rios. Piazzolla spent a lot of time listening to jazz and searching for a musical style of his own beyond the realms of tango. He decided to drop the bandoneon and to dedicate himself to writing and to studying music. Between 1950 and 1954 he composed a series of works which exhibited his unique style: Para lucirse, Tanguango, Prepárense, Contrabajeando, Triunfal, Lo que vendrá. He effectively broke the mould of the traditional orquesta típica and created a new sound akin to chamber music, without a singer and with jazz-like improvisations. Piazzolla's new approach, nuevo tango, made him a controversial figure in his native land both musically and politically. However, his music gained acceptance in Europe and North America. Piazzolla would go on to become the world's foremost composer of Tango music, although early on he struggled to make a living until his music was finally recognised worldwide. Standout albums include Tango moderno: Octeto Buenos Aires (1957), Concierto de Tango en el Philharmonic Hall de New York (1965), Adiós Nonino (1969), Libertango (1974), Tango: Zero Hour (1986), The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night (1988), and La Camorra: La soledad de la provocación apasionada (1989).
Artist Website: wikipedia/Astor_Piazzolla
Featured Albums: Astor Piazzolla
Related Artists: Octeto Buenos Aires, Kronos Quartet
Video Clips: Libertango, Adios Nonino, Bandoneon Concerto
