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Book/CD Review from the January/February 2008 issue
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Songlines Magazine, Book/CD Review from the January/February 2008 issue >>
With Bajofondo and Gotan Project transforming tango with new musical concerns and bringing it slap bang into the 21st century, it’s easy to forget that as well as being eternally popular back home, where it emerged in the River Plate region between Buenos Aires and Montevideo, tango has strong ties to other parts of the world. Donald Cohen’s beautifully produced, well-researched book is brought alive by fantastic archive photos. It presents 26 songs ranging from River Plate classics to Greek, Italian, French, German Finnish, Yiddish, Russian, Algerian and Danish tangos in scores arranged for voice and guitar and in recorded form by the original artists on the accompanying CD. Cohen’s compelling introductions, which include full translations, tell the history of each tango, peppering his account with salient biographical information and rich anecdotes. Stories such as 93-year-old Nelly Omar reviving her career wearing a poncho to hide the poverty of her clothing after being effectively blacklisted for supporting the Peronist party. Cohen’s choices are spot on, from Roberto Goyenche’s devastating version of Solanas and Piazzolla’s ‘Vuelvo al Sur’ (surely one of the great songs of the 20th century) to Unto Mononen’s quintessential Finnish tango ‘Satumaa’ (first written as a calypso) via Vietnamese singer Khan Ly’s version of Danish composer Jacob Gade’s ‘Jalousie’. This is a glorious book, one that musicians, tango addicts and those completely new to the genre will find readable and covetable. 01/01/08
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