The Rough Dancer And The Cyclical Night (Tango Apasionado)

Performer: Astor Piazzolla
Artist: Paquito D'Rivera
Producer: Kip Hanrahan; Astor Piazzolla
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Personnel: Astor Piazzolla (bandoneon); Rodolfo Alchourron (electric guitar); Fernando Suarez Paz (violin); Paquito D'Rivera (clarinet, alto saxophone); Pablo Zinger (piano); Andy Gonzalez (bass). Engineers: Don Hunerberg, David Baker, Roger Moutenot. Recorded at Radio City Studio, A&R Studio and Sorcerer Studio, New York, New York in August and September 1987. Includes liner notes by Fernando Gonzalez and Kip Hanrahan. The follow-up to Astor Piazzolla's 1986 masterpiece TANGO: ZERO HOUR, THE ROUGH DANCER AND THE CYCLICAL NIGHT ranks alongside its predecessor as one of Piazzolla's finest achievements. With help from his proficient band (comprised of violin, piano, bass, and electric guitar), guest Paquito D'Rivera on alto sax and clarinet, and producer Kip Hanrahan (who helped craft TANGO: ZERO HOUR's soundscapes), Piazolla turns in another superior avant-tango outing. THE ROUGH DANCER is somewhat different in feel than its precursor. As Piazzolla puts it in the liner notes, TANGO: ZERO HOUR "needed the clarity of a vision; this record need the darkness of a nostalgic dream. It's music meant to be played by half-drunk musicians in a bordello." There is, in fact, a strain of looseness and fun here, though the whole is still shot through with the lonely and bittersweet sound of Piazzolla's bandoneon. The compositions are among the master's best (and were used, incidentally, as part of TANGO APASIONADO, a stage production about the history of tango). Overall, this is an excellent album, and an essential purchase for Piazzolla fans.

CMJ (4/17/00, p.18) - "...Hearkens back to the days when tango was played in brothels and bars, which is exactly what Piazzolla intended."

While tango had long been associated with the dancehalls of Buenos Aires, Astor Piazolla reinvented the music for the concert stage. In the 1950s and 1960s, he infused tango with the oblique harmonies of jazz and classical music, as well as new instruments such as electric guitar, and although he may have alienated traditionalists, he gained a worldwide audience seduced by his music's exotic beauty. Over the course of five decades, Piazolla continually expanded the scope of the tango--or "tango nuevo," as his music came to be called--to produce a wealth of inventive, emotionally rich music. He died in 1992.

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