...a little something from my homeland: Tangow
-city_zen
Thank you for that. If you have anything else from Argentina that you'd care to share, I would love to hear it.
I'm very sadly lacking in my knowledge of South American music. What little I know has mostly been filtered through Herbie Mann and Dizzy Gillespie.
But once you go beyond a bass player's knowledge of the various dance structures (and the three types of clave 
) I'm totally clueless.
What's good from where you are that we should all be listening to? 
-40hz
Hi, I'm very glad that you liked that small sample of music from my country
As for more music ... Of course! Now you'll have to stop me!
Bear in mind that there are a lot of different types of music being played in Argentina, though obviously most have not originated here. Probably the two best known styles which are typically Argentinian are Tango and a group of styles collectively referred to as Argentinian Folk music (among them Chacarera, Zamba, Chamamé). Other types of music, like Jazz, are played here with a slightly different flavor (more on that later
)
Back to Tango. Oversimplifying a bit (this is a
software forum after all
), Tango has three main genres: Classic, "New Tango" and Tango fusion or electro-tango. The previous clip (Yo-yo Ma playing Piazzolla) was "New Tango". Here's a clip of a couple dancing arguably the best known melody of Classic Tango: "La Cumparsita".
Yes, they actually
are dancing on a quay a few
feet inches from the water
Cool, uh?
The newest trend in Tango is to mix it with very modern rhythms (mainly electronica, hence "electro-tango" or "Tango fusion"). A couple of clips of this style:
First, a group named
Bajofondo, led by two-time Oscar winner
Gustavo Santaolalla (he won in 2006 and 2007 for the music of "Brokeback Mountain" and "Babel" respectively). Name of the song: "Montserrat", performed live in Warsaw, Poland
A somewhat different type of electro-tango is played by the
Gotan Project trio. Song: "Diferente"
I'm sure that by now anyone who has watched the tango clips is wondering what the hell that strange accordion-like musical instrument is. Short answer: it's a
bandoneónwOk, that's a crash course in tango. Longer courses available on request
As for Argentinian Folk music, it's hard to choose a single clip/song (I don't want to flood the thread). But eventually I chose a typical song performed by a very talented group who are one of the "new faces" in folk music:
Los Nocheros. Song: "La chacarera del rancho", performed live at the Viña del Mar festival in 2003. You'll immediately notice how different this is from tango. (Note: the added text with the "Star Wars effect" is awful, I know, but it was the only clip of this song I could find
)
And finally, this post wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention
Gato Barbieri, the best jazz player ever to come out of the
PampaswHere's Barbieri playing "Last tango in Paris" (from the 1972 movie of the same name):
Phew! Writing this post took longer than I thought, but thoroughly enjoyed it.
I hope you enjoyed it too, and that you could discover new musical styles that you probably never heard before.
If you have any questions about the styles or the performers that I mentioned, just ask me.
