Astor Piazzolla with Gary Burton - The New Tango

Recorded within eight weeks of Tango Zero Hour, the recording Astor Piazzolla voted, rightly, as his career's best, this Suite for Vibraphone and New Tango Quintet reaches similar heights of perfection. Vibraphonist Gary Burton made high marks early in his career with the superquartet recording Duster (which featured guitar great Larry Coryell and jazz vets Steve Swallow on bass and Roy Haynes on drums) and the jazz expanse of Genuine Tong Funeral. With Piazzolla's last quintet, Burton creates a stirring, metallic counterpoint to the group's sliding melodies and gut-grabbing rushes of tango sensation. This is certainly no lighthearted dance music, much more brainily reaching for compositional greatness while simultaneously staying physical. All the cylinders were firing during this live Montreux Festival recording. Piazzolla's energy has delicate brushstrokes and sweeping blasts, as does guitarist Hector Malvicino and the quintet's other luminaries. --Andrew Bartlett Amazon.com essential recording

A wise approach respect the poetry of tango!

The New Tango is in few words an authentic and sumptuous masterpiece. Recorded in Montreal Festival, this recital gathers overtly two genuine masters of the music who joined talents to offer us a brilliant display of music and poetry where the tango reacquires a new dimension hued by that overwhelming pianissimos and slender phrasing filled of expressiveness, grace, despair and hopeless.

Nobody as Piazzolla has been capable to express the multiple facets of the meaning of tango with such memorable honesty and conviction.

If you really have one of the most powerful and transcendental recitals of the decade, you should have as soon as possible, this incomparable testimonial.
July 16, 2007

Tango + New Jazz sound yields superior genetic variant

I bought this CD on a whim and was immediately floored by the presentation and quality of composition. This is a live album recorded at the Montreux Festival. It possesses a tremendous audio soundstage putting you right there in the audience for the event. Sweet! The New Tango is infused with a light jazz fusion which is new and joyful while remaining true in theme to its Latin roots.

Piazzolla and Burton immediately create the exotic fluid mood of this CD with their intro piece "Milonga is Coming." This is a CD for pure musical enjoyment and not dancing. Don't let the other reviewers looking for background Tango music confuse the issue. This music is a fusion of Tango and Jazz yielding a sumptuous and thickly romantic sound coupled with an equally irresistable jazz heartbeat. Burton's Vibes provide accenting on and off tempo syncopation that really sends the music into motion. I could not help but be lifted and carried along with the fresh tropical sounds "The New Tango" provides. November 13, 2004

Jazz, Tango-style but with classical underpinnings

This is not, repeat NOT your Argentinian bordello-style tango or even classical tango. This is jazz, with vibraphone and a quintet rather reminiscent of the Microscopic Septet (they do the theme for NPR's "Fresh Air") The late Astor Piazzolla was an Argentinian with impeccable musical credentials; studied with Hungarian pianist Bela Wilda (student of Rachmaninoff), with the great Argentinian 20th Century avant-garde composer Ginastera and later played with one of the most famous tango orchestras, one of the greatest tango orchestras of the late 30's and 40's; the Anibal Troilo orchestra.

From this rich and musically varied background, Piazzolla brings a fresh sense of jazz and a startling sonority that is ultra-modern yet of course rooted completely in the tango tradition. There is a bit of the Ginastera playfulness in his compositions, and a real sense of jazz supported by the classical structure. Piazzola won a prize at Montreaux in 1986.

This CD is entirely Piazzolla compositions, giving a great sense of the composer's light touch, humor and delicacy of arrangement. This is a historic musical album, a must for the student of both jazz and Twentieth-Century "serious" music.

Joanna Daneman April 14, 2004

The New Tango

I was quite disappointed in it. Definitely not for dancing. December 13, 2002

Perfect - Absolutely Perfect!

This is amongst the most beautiful, profound and moving music which has ever been produced from any genre this century. Allying the great creativity and expressiveness of Piazzolla with the more jazzy sensibilities of Burton has allowed the transgressing of musical boundaries to create something wonderful. I won't point out individual favourites because all compositions are brilliant. Oh alright, I will! "Milonga is Coming" is superb - check out how Burton's solo is prepared within the overall arrangement.

Consisting almost entirely of original Piazzolla compositions this entire CD is nothing less than perfect throughout and in many ways represents a peak of Piazzolla's output recorded, as it was, fairly late in his career. In my opinion Piazzolla just kept on improving right up to the end. The later works represent such a creative and broad array of music that he seemed to be able to effortlessly incorporate other influences without ever diluting his searing musical intensity.

Pizzolla, even during his early career in the '40s was an avid arranger and even before he was known as a composer was much sought after by band leaders of that era to make new, innovative arrangements. I reflect on that fact here because of how naturally the vibes of Burton are brought into the overall sounds - this is really excellently handled to the point where Burton sounds as if he had been playing with Piazzolla for decades. Piazzolla's 40+ years of arranging experience was put to excellent use here.

This is very much a quintet and not just Piazzolla and Burton with backing unit. Accordingly it would be ungrateful and churlish not to mention the other great musicians here, not for the sake of completeness but to highlight their key contributions. First amongst these would be Fernando Suarez Paz for his soaring and perfectly judged violin part. I'd also mention Pablo Ziegler for his great contribution on piano. Both of these musicians have gone on to contribute great music since this production.

If you are a fan of either Piazzolla or Burton you must buy this. If you enjoy listening to the best music you must buy this. For the paltry outlay (...)you will be able to listen to this music for the rest of your lives. Now that's what I call a bargain!

Just buy it! November 25, 2001

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