South American music and culture magazine

This is an edited extract from the second edition of the Bradt guide, Argentina by Erin McCloskey (2011). Continue Reading

Ah… Tango! No doubt, the most idealised paired dance in the world. And there’s plenty of reasons for that. The closeness, the intimacy, the cadence, the wordless conversation of the bodies, the acute polarisation of the gender’s roles… All of that and so much more makes tango an extremely rich field of exploration for the brave souls that dare step into it. Because, true enough, it takes time and dedication to harvest the fruits of its practice, but when it arrives their sweetness is such, it can become quite addictive indeed. Continue Reading

We’re over halfway through Argentine month and we’re yet to even mention tango. It’s not that we have anything against it it’s just that it gets its fair share of publicity as it is. I’m not sure our two-pennies worth is really that noteworthy. However, we do feel that one area which needs a little extra light shining on it is some of the new forms of tango that have emerged in the last ten years, with names such as electro-tango, neo-tango and techno-tango, as well as tango nuevo which has been going for a lot longer. With that in mind we decided to put together the Experiments in Tango mixtape.
Continue Reading

They say that every fifteen minutes, somewhere in the world, someone is playing Tango Jalousie, one of the most beloved of all tangos. Dizzy Gillespie jammed to it. The British blockbuster film “The Full Monty” includes it. Tenor Placido Domingo recorded it, as did the Boston Pops Orchestra. But it wasn’t until influential KCRW DJ Tom Schnabel handed music professor, folklorist and retired attorney Donald Cohen a Vietnamese recording of it that he realized few know its story. In his newest book Tango Voices: Songs from the Soul of Buenos Aires and Beyond, (complete with scores, lyrics, and a CD recording), readers have a chance to both hear and learn the stories behind the Danish-composed, Khanh Ly-recorded Vietnamese translation of the English lyricized tango favorite.
Continue Reading