Hugo Diaz - Tangos

RAW AND INTIMATE

A child prodigy whose love of the harmonica began after a blow to the head at age 5 caused him to be blind, Hugo Diaz asked his father for a harmonica and was performing by age 7; shortly after, his sight was surgically restored but the centrality of the harmonica in his life remained. He may have been totally self-taught. I think all of this history is what we hear in his playing.

He was primarily an Argentine folklorist but he recorded several tango records; his playing on this cd is lyrical, passionate, thoughtful and relatively spare. It is not totally clear but it seems that he is, also, the guitarist on this cd.

The recording is very intimate in the sense that it picks up his breathing and his grunts. Some may see this as a positive and others as a negative.

Except for his place as the first cut on the soundtrack of the movie THE TANGO LESSON, I have no other exposure to his playing so do not know how this compares, either in his playing or the recording quality, to his many other recordings that I gather are not easily available. He died, I think, 1977 and so there will not be more from him unless it is some sort of re-issue.

Be aware that there are two musicians playing tango music with the name Hugo Diaz. The other Hugo Diaz plays bandoneon, a kind of squeeze-box instrument, and is from Uruguay. February 23, 2008

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