Pablo Aslan - Avantango (2004)

Artista: Pablo Aslan

Álbum: Avantango
Año: 2004
Género: Tango Fusión / Latin jazz
Duración: 50:55
Nacionalidad: Argentina

Lista de Temas:
01. Derviche (Pablo Aslan)
02. Deus Xango (Astor Piazzolla)
03. Vuelvo al Sur (Piazzolla-Solanas)
04. Sabateando (Pablo Aslan)
05. Escualo (Astor PIazzolla)
06. Malena (Demare-Manzi)
07. Amadeo (Pablo Aslan)
08. Beto (Pablo Aslan)
09. Verano Porteño (Astor Piazzolla)
10. El Enchanter (Pablo Aslan)
11. Muchacha (Ojos de Papel) (Luis Alberto Spinetta)
12. La Calle 92 (Astor Piazzolla)

Alineación:
- Pablo Aslan / bass
- Leonardo Suarez Paz / violin
- Dario Eskenazi / piano
- Hector Del Curto / bandoneon
- Diego Urcola / trumpet
- Oscar Feldman / tenor sax
- Roxana Fontan / vocals
- Gustavo Casenave / piano

Tango fusión, tango contemporáneo, tango de proyección, jazz-tango, nuevo tango... como quieran llamarlo. Ese es el estilo del contrabajista y compositor argentino radicado en Nueva York Pablo Aslan, cuyo trabajo ha tenido reconocimiento en el exterior pero no es conocido por estas pampas:

Argentine-born Pablo Aslan is in demand for his skills as a producer, bassist, and educator, and for his knowledge of traditional and contemporary tango. He is an energetic and charismatic performer who has taken his unique brand of jazz-infused tango to stages around the world. His most recent album as a leader is Piazzolla in Brooklyn (Soundbrush Records), a tribute to the late Nuevo Tango master. His previous CD, Tango Grill (Zoho Music), was nominated for a 2010 Latin Grammy Award for Best Tango Album and a Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album.
Aslan recorded Tango Jazz: Live at Jazz at Lincoln Center (Paquito Records 2010) with Cuban maestro Paquito D’Rivera and toured Europe the following year as music director of D’Rivera’s Tango Jazz Septet. Other recent productions include “Todo Corazon” (Jazzheads) by flutist Mark Weinstein, and “Romance” (Soundbrush Records) for pianist/composer Fernando Otero.
Aslan has performed and recorded with Yo-Yo Ma, Lalo Schifrin, Joe Lovano, Denyce Graves, Osvaldo Golijov, Pablo Ziegler, the New World Symphony, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, among many others. He has produced over a dozen albums for the Soundbrush label, including the 2007 Latin Grammy Winner Te Amo Tango by Uruguayan bandoneonist Raul Jaurena.
An active educator, he has produced educational programs for Lincoln Center Institute, Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concerts, and Arts Connection in NYC, and lectured and taught at several universities throughout the US, including Harvard, Yale, and UCLA. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Reed Tango Music Institute in Portland, Oregon.

Con canciones propias, e interprestaciones de tangos clásicos, de composiciones tanto de Astor Piazzolla como del Flaco Spinetta, con interpretaciones realmente brillantes.

Bassist Pablo Aslan is the leading exponent of the vibrant New York tango-jazz scene. With Avantango, the native of Argentina and prodigious talent features his ensemble -- Avantango -- on an assortment of original compositions and exceptional covers that heighten his diverse musical repertoire with fresh interpretations. Aslan offers his listeners several excellent renditions of Astor Piazzolla's most revered compositions including "Deus Xango," "Vuelvo Al Sur," "Escualo," "Verano Porteno," and "La Calle 92." On "Deus Xango," he leaves the arrangement in the original key and adds a brilliant tenor saxophone solo by Oscar Feldman. Vocalist Roxana Fontan is superior on the bluesy "Vuelvo Al Sur," and gives a memorable performance on the duet with Aslan on "Malena," that should remind listeners of duets heard from bassist Avishai Cohen and Chilean vocalist Claudia Acuna when they performed together on a regular basis. With "Escualo," which Piazzolla wrote for his favorite violinist Fernando Suarez Paz, Aslan gives listeners the opportunity to catapult their imaginations and re-live Suarez Paz's infamous violin virtuosity by receiving the gifts through Fernando's son, Leonardo Suarez Paz. Leonardo plays with the same intense passion and clarity heard a generation ago on his father's recordings. Pablo Aslan's note-for-note jazz bass artistry is on display throughout the CD, but on "Verano Porteno," Aslan's theme is pure milonga. This arrangement is an adaptation of Piazzolla's classic quintet version. Aslan's bass work also stands out on "La Calle 92," and Dario Eskenazi gives a brilliant piano performance. The balance of the CD features original compositions written by Aslan that were inspired by memories of Argentina or his current environments in New York, alongside covers of revitalized classics that the ensemble plays with verve and enthusiasm. Avantango gives listeners 12 great reasons to add this to their tango-jazz collections.

Paula Edelstein

The exotic and romantic combination of tango and traditional jazz is distinctively expressed on Buenos Aires bassist Pablo Aslan's new recording. With energetic tension, the music on Avantango is performed with a style that is quite refreshing. An ardent musician and composer Aslan is at the pinnacle of his field and has earned accolades from performances on Broadway's 'Tango Argentina' and similar musical ventures with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and singer Julio Iglesias. The Avantango live experience includes musicians as well as dancers, poets, and singers who are dedicated to interpreting the art form.
Aslan's sextet consists of top Argentinean musicians in the New York area, with instruments including violin, bass, trumpet, saxophone, piano, and the accordion-like bandoneon . The percussive and rhythmic flair of the music more than compensates for the absence of a drum section. Aslan is an accomplished bassist who delivers powerful notes as well as impressive bow string skill. His sextet is in fine form, keeping the music authentic yet fresh. The jazz influence is acknowledged with subtle swing, tight horn arrangements interspersed with solo spotlights.
Odd tempos and staccato lines are in abundance throughout the recording, as one would expect with tango music. The music features highly orchestrated pieces such as 'Beto' and 'Sabateando,' with heavy instrument interplay, to more simple and melodic lines of 'El Chanter.' The outstanding offerings of violin and bandoneon gives the music a timeless aura and on the uplifting 'Esualo' and 'Verano Perteno.' Tango vocalist Roxana Fontan adds a warmth and richness on the beautiful 'Velvo Al Sur,' which showcases her lovely voice accompanied by some fine ensemble work; and 'Malena,' which features her in a stirring duet with Aslan's deep bass. With detailed musicianship that is diverse, challenging, and captivating, Avantango faithfully harnesses the spirit of the tango.

Mark F. Turner

Not only masterpieces spark new work. Piazzolla in Brooklyn, the new recording by Argentine-born, Brooklyn-based bassist, bandleader, and producer Pablo Aslan, was inspired by a dreadful album. Take Me Dancing, a 1959 jazz tango recording by New Tango master Astor Piazzolla, was dreadful. Piazzolla said so.
Recorded in Buenos Aires with a group of musically bilingual Argentine players, including Daniel “Pipi” Piazzolla, the maestro´s grandson, on drums, Piazzolla in Brooklyn updates Takes Me Dancing into state-of-the-art jazz tango.
“I was attracted by the idea of recreating this damned Piazzolla album, through the optic of jazz tango, something that I had spent many years developing for myself,” he says. “I felt there were many places where the music could be opened up and developed further. I began to imagine which aspects of the pieces could use a more extended formal treatment, which ideas just went by too fast and could stand further elaboration, and where the solo sections could occur. That was the Eureka moment, when I realized that the material in this record had a potential that just needed to be unleashed.”
Aslan has been working on jazz tango for the past 20 years. He grew up in Buenos Aires in the 1960’s and 70’s, but moved to the United States to study music. After graduating from the University of California Santa Cruz, and attending Cal Arts, and UCLA, he headed to New York City in 1990. By then he had ediscovered tango and had become “the tango guy.” He played traditional gigs, for dancers.
For years he was a regular feature in milongas (tango dance halls) around the United States and in concert performances with Raul Jaurena, Pablo Ziegler, and Yo Yo Ma’s Soul of the Tango. But he also started to probe the possibilities of jazz tango.
Early on he formed a trio with the late saxophonist Thomas Chapin and pianist Ethan Iverson (The Bad Plus), “without really knowing what I was doing. I just formed this band,” he says. “ I put some charts together where everybody could solo and improvise. Interesting stuff would happen, but I couldn’t necessarily say that it was real tango, which is what I was trying to do.”
But the hard work paid off in recordings such as Avantango (2004), Buenos Aires Tango Standards (2007) and, most notably, Tango Grill (2009) an album that earned GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY nominations.
As he began planning the follow up to Tango Grill, Piazzolla’s Take Me Dancing was just a curiosity. “I had heard all the infamous stories about this recording, so when I saw Take Me Dancing in a record shop in Buenos Aires, I snatched a copy,” he recalls. “And it played exactly as I expected: it was awful. It was just as Piazzolla had presented it.” There was very little jazz and a simplified, clunky Piazzolla played to a guiro-and-bongo beat.
How much of this was due to artistic ideas, commercial considerations or some mix of both is open to discussion. In 1959, Piazzolla was back in New York, where he had spent most of his childhood, looking for a
fresh new start for a sputtering career. Take Me Dancing was his most ambitious gambit. It was a recording of originals and standards interpreted, by an ad-hoc Jazz Tango Quintet, comprising electric, guitar, vibes, piano and bass, plus small percussion. (One of the percussionists was Dominican bandleader, musician, and producer Johnny Pacheco, who would go on to develop salsa and co-found the influential Fania Records.)
Piazzolla had high hopes for the record — but it sank without a trace.
Artistic experiment or commercial ploy, at the time Piazzolla thought of Take Me Dancing as “marvelous.” For the rest of his life, he denounced it as “an artistic sin” and worse. But when Aslan read a critical reevaluation of Piazzolla’s career (Diego Fischerman and Abel Gilbert’s study Piazzolla El Mal Entendido, Piazzolla The Misunderstood) and the comments about Take Me Dancing he was intrigued into giving it a second listening. “And I really liked what I heard,” sounding still surprised. “In a way, it sounded to me like it was undiscovered Piazzolla. The rhythmic approach obscured the writing. The themes and ideas were actually very strong and original, but the percussion made it sound monotonous. And while this was called a jazz tango album, frankly there is virtually no improvisation in it, and what improvisation there is, it occurs in some isolated moments, generally against a written out background, and very briefly.”
What Aslan also heard in Take Me Dancing was a challenge and an opportunity. He went back to Buenos Aires and called on Gustavo Bergalli, trumpet, Nicolas Enrich, bandoneón, Abel Rogantini, piano, and “Pipi” Piazzolla, drums, players as knowledgeable and comfortable with the vocabulary, syntax, and rhythms of tango as they are with jazz.
“I needed these players for a recording like this,” explains Aslan. “Piazzolla in Brooklyn is about taking chances, dynamics, interaction, spontaneity, even some messiness,” he says. “It’s a personal view, and it’s spontaneous, created by the musicians in the moment.”
The transcriptions by Aslan, Enrich, and Rogantini of the original arrangements by Piazzolla for nine of the pieces in Take Me Dancing became the road map for Piazzolla in Brooklyn. “La Calle 92,” which opens the record like a scene setter, is the only track here that is not from Take Me Dancing. It’s a piece by Piazzolla titled after the New York City street where he and his family lived during this period.
Two of the tracks are jazz standards, “Laura,” and George Shearing’s classic “Lullaby of Birdland.” The rest of the pieces are a mix of original compositions that would never become part of Piazzolla’s repertoire, older songs in a new guise and also hints at the Piazzolla to come. “Counterpoint,” with its fugal structure, later developed fully in pieces such as “Fuga y Misterio;” “Dedita,” a piece written for his then-wife Odette ‘Dedé’ Wolff; “Show Off,” a new spin of “Para Lucirse,” a tango he had already arranged for tango master Anibal Troilo’s orchestra. And then there’s “Triunfal,” the piece that, in Piazzolla’s lore, he showed to fabled teacher Nadia Boulanger who then, impressed, encouraged him to continue writing tangos. Ironically, Aslan points out, the piece here becomes “almost hard bop.”
“I did not set out to re-harmonize or change his writing at all, or to add any of my ideas,” he explains. “That was a self-imposed limitation — but also I did not need to. The objective was to reformulate the arrangements so that the individual contributions of each musician were allowed to flourish.”
For Aslan, Piazzolla in Brooklyn was a chance to finally address Piazzolla in his own terms. “He was a model and an inspiration for my work,” he says. “But I also systematically avoided his music. I always felt that it was too strong and defined, and that his own interpretations very rarely have been surpassed. In Piazzolla In Brooklyn I found my own way into Piazzolla’s music, a place where I could create my own world and actually interact with him.”

www.pabloaslan.com

Para que conozcan un muy buen trabajo de grandes músicos que andan repartiendo buen música por todo el mundo. Que lo disfruten.