Customer Reviews

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I already own more than fifty Piazzolla CDs and so was more than a little curious about what new material could be gleaned from this ambitious box set. What I found is that despite thinking that my collection must be nearing completion, my collection is far from complete indeed! While most of the songs are very familiar, at least eighty percent of the arrangements are not.
The songs within are mostly from the late 60s-70s period of Piazzolla's long and glorious career. There are some live recordings, some recordings in Portuguese, some in Italian, and some recordings made with some of the more obscure Piazzolla ensembles as well as a modest number of arrangements as presented on recordings I already own. In short, this is a veritable treasure trove of some of the twentieth century's finest compositions. After hearing this set for the first time, I wondered just how many more of Piazzolla's recordings have yet to be released.
There are no favorite songs here, they are all good. This box set is an incredible bargain-do the math-which belongs in every music lover's collection. In addition to 10 CDs, the buyer gets an informative booklet. Get it while it is still available, it is one of the best deals I have ever gotten.

While there are several repeats of songs (works) in the 10-CD set, they are recorded at different periods in the late Astor Piazzolla's musical life, with different groupings of musicians. There is an incredible amount of song material in this set for such a small amount of money. The recording quality is variable, no doubt due to the quality of the original recordings, but it is still very good overall for the collection as a whole. For anyone just newly learning about Piazzolla, this is a very good collection to have as a starter set, at a very low price. And, for an oldtimer like me who already has a lot of CD albums of both Piazzolla performances and those of others who have covered his work with different instrumentation, I still added a lot of new song titles to my Piazzolla song list. I was lucky enough to have seen Piazzolla perform in concert in Miami about 1-2 years before his stroke, and 3-4 years before he died in 1992. I was also lucky to have heard and learned about his work before that time, even though it was long after he became famous (I never owned a Piazzolla record). It would have been nice to have an explanatory booklet ("liner notes") about the various works, even if the set cost a couple bucks more, which is why I downgraded to 4 stars.

My box set didn't come with a booklet, and I'm not sure what kind've information would have been included in the booklet even if it had, but after poking around all afternoon on Piazzolla dot org, it looks like about half of this box set (4 hours 54 minutes out of the total 9 hours and 20 minute run time) is made up of the following previously released material (much of which is otherwise out of print):

[1969] Ástor Piazzolla Y Su Quinteto - Adiós Noniño

[1973] Ástor Piazzolla Y Su Conjunto 9 - El Penultimo (single)

[1974] Ástor Piazzolla & Amelita Baltar - Amelita Baltar

[1976] Ástor Piazzolla & José Angel Trelles - Balada Para Un Loco

[1993] Ástor Piazzolla - Oblivion (compilation)

[1993] Ástor Piazzolla Y Su Noneto - Tristeza De Un Doble "A" (Live, Rome 1972)

[1994] Ástor Piazzolla w/ S.W.F. Rundfunkorchester - Aconcagua * Tres Tangos (recorded 1983)

The rest is odds and ends comprised of mostly complete concerts and orphaned studio recordings.

A certain amount of guess work was involved in compiling this list--the box set is seemingly intentionally laid out in such a way as to obfuscate where the tracks came from. On the flip-side, the sound quality is great and this is a great way to get a LOT of Piazzolla's recordings relatively inexpensively, so I still recommend it.

If anyone can improve on this list, post it in the comments and I'll update my review.

A 10 CD box of always interesting, often great, music by Piazzolla- and at this price? Wow. Though recorded over different years, the sound quality, while not uniform, is always clear, and appears to be true stereo. The company that issued this also has a number of other bargain boxes of great jazz musicians- the others I have are excellent as well.

An amazing musician. It's a great price and a wealth of material to enjoy, study and love. Beautiful.

So many american citizens names what is below Mexico as Banana Republics and confund what is country, capital, state, etc. in Brazil/Argentin/Buenos Aires/Rio/Sao Paulo/Brasilia. Brazil speaks portuguese, its capital is Brasilia, the national music is samba and it won 5 times the Socker worldcup. Argentina speaks Spanish, its capital is Buenos Aires, the national music is Tango and it won 2 times the socker worlcup. There is a lot of competition between the 2 countries, mainly Argentina at the end of WW II was the 4th largest econimy in the world and from this time it has been continuosly lost position, while Brazil in opposite is today the 8th largest economy in the world with all the indicators going up. But the subject is music.

Astor Piazzolla is in my opinion the greatest Argentine contribution for the world music. He in life was hated for some (a lot) purist Argentine because he lived many years abroad and of course shows in his music the influence of others music styles, creating a Fusion Jazz TANGO. Of course what Argentines hate Brazilian will love.

In South America music he is only behind Antonio Carlos (TOM) Jobin, the Bossa Nova Icon.