Le Grand Tango: The Life and Music of Astor Piazzolla [Hardcover]

Marï¿1/2a Susana Azzi (Author), Simon Collier (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195127773 | ISBN-13: 978-0195127775 | Publication Date: May 19, 2000

Astor Piazzolla was a musical genius, a man who used the national dance of Argentina as raw material for a whole new musical genre. In Le Grand Tango, Mar�a Susana Azzi and Simon Collier vividly capture the life of this extraordinary musician--a visionary who won worldwide acclaim, but sparked bitter controversy in his native land.
Azzi and Collier trace Piazzolla's early life from his birth in Argentina in 1921 to his childhood years on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where he first developed a talent for the bandoneon, the accordion-like instrument central to the tango. They describe his return to Argentina at age 16 and his rapid rise in the intoxicating world of tango, where he quickly earned a place with the leading dance band, and then formed his own group. But at the height of his success, Piazzolla decided to take tango music to a new level and studied composition with the legendary Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Combining deft musical analysis and intriguing personal insight, Azzi and Collier show how he created a dramatically new style of tango music influenced by jazz and classical pieces--a tango music meant for listening, not dancing. But they also show that, in the birthplace of the tango, he met fierce resistance. He eventually left Argentina for Europe, where he emerged as an international celebrity.
Since Piazzolla's death in 1992, his influence has only grown. Jazz giants such as Gary Burton and Al Di Meola--and classical stars Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, and Daniel Barenboim--have all recorded albums of his works. Now Azzi and Collier have given us the first biography of this astonishingly gifted musician.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Square-built and accordion-like, the bandoneon is a unique instrument, difficult to play yet adaptable to many musical styles. One of its most famous masters, the Argentine composer and tanguero Astor Piazzolla, is the subject of this fascinating biography. Painstakingly researched, with revealing quotes from Piazzolla's family, friends, teachers and colleagues, the book provides an intimate look at the musician's life. In 1921, Piazzolla was born in Mar del Plata to first-generation Argentines of Italian descent. He was an only child with doting parents; his transient childhood involved numerous moves between New York and Argentina and was marked by his penchant for practical jokes. Piazzolla had a natural knack for the bandoneon, which he began playing at eight years of age, and he appeared on stage for the first time when he was 11. Seven years later, his collaboration with An!bal Troilo's famous orquesta t!pica led to his rise as an emerging tango star, and he was soon writing unique, innovative arrangements that caused a furor in Buenos Aires. His studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris confirmed his love for the instrument, and throughout his travels he incorporated elements of traditional tango, classical music and jazz into his work. The authors concentrate on Piazzolla's relationships with his first wife, Ded? Wolff, and their children, following their breakup and his subsequent marriage to Laura Escalada. Although lacking in deep musical analysis, this captivating tribute excellently portrays the man behind such masterpieces as "Adios Nonino" and "Mari de Buenos Aires." 42 halftones. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Argentine composer and performer Piazzolla (1921-92) updated tango music and brought it to the international concert stage, attracting a large following while angering tango traditionalists. Born in Mar del Plata on the Atlantic coast, 250 miles south of Buenos Aires, he spent most of his childhood on Manhattan's Lower East Side, slipping into Harlem clubs to hear Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. A lover of tango, jazz, and classical music, he created and toured with various ensembles, wrote for the movies, and studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Azzi, a board member of the National Academy of Tango in Buenos Aires, and Collier, author of seven books on Latin America, provide both personal and professional details and musical analysis. This first biography in English, with discography (CD only) and extensive notes, will be valuable for collections focusing on world music or Latin American culture.
-Kate McCaffrey, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 326 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 19, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195127773
• ISBN-13: 978-0195127775
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #75,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Le Grand Tango, August 26, 2000

By 

Terence Clarke (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Le Grand Tango: The Life and Music of Astor Piazzolla (Hardcover)

Astor Piazzolla's music is nothing if not controversial. Among the Argentines themselves, there seems to be two opinions. One was voiced to me some years ago by an Argentine tanguera whose artistic views I always listen to, when she said that "Tango is tango, and Piazzolla is not!" The other is stated just as militantly in favor of Piazzolla's efforts. Wildly so.

Piazzolla died in 1992. But the debate still rages, and there's little middle ground. The reason for it is that Piazzolla remade the Argentine tango in ways that had never been imagined possible before him. He's one of those composers who takes a regional musical impulse and refashions it into a new statement of world-wide interest. Controversial he is, to be sure. But with the possible exception of the legendary singer Carlos Gardel, no one has expanded the consciousness of the world more with regard to the tango than Astor Piazzolla.

Le Grand Tango is the first complete biography of Piazzolla. Born in Buenos Aires in 1921, he spent eleven years of his childhood in New York City, in the East Village. Radio interviews with him reveal that he spoke fluent English with a Lower East Side accent. Even as a child, Astor's talent on the bandoneón, the large concertina-like instrument that is considered by most to be the soul of the tango, was noted. But he was not playing the tango at that time. The boy preferred classical music and jazz, Bach and Gershwin. His father Vicente, a barber and woodworker, pushed Astor to make himself into a true tango musician. But it was only when, at the age of thirteen, Astor met and was befriended by Carlos Gardel himself, that he began his serious studies in the tango.

Returning to Argentina at the age of sixteen, Astor threw himself into those studies and, almost immediately, was offered a job by another great innovator on the bandoneón, Aníbal Troilo. He joined Troilo's band and became one of its principal arrangers. It was at this time that his difficulties began, as some of the tango musicians found Astor's arrangements too complicated and too difficult to play.

That was because he was putting things into the arrangements that were largely unknown to tangueros. Counterpoint. Fugue. Polyrhythmic intensities that turned the more traditional, and simple, tango rhythms on their heads. Bartok. Stravinsky. Ravel. But Piazzolla was also a consummate tango musician, as anyone knows who has heard him play his own slow, lovely tangos. Despite his experimentalism, his abilities as a composer, musician and arranger simply could not be denied.

Azzi and Collier do a fine job describing Astor's artistic fire, and the debate which always followed in his wake. The book is also often quite funny, because Astor was a genuinely humorous man himself. And it sheds light on the difficulty of being so important an artist who must struggle so to be heard. At least when he was heard, he received the praise that he deserved. As one British critic put it, upon seeing Piazzolla play for the first time, "It was like going to inspect an interesting hillock and uncovering an erupting volcano."

The book contains a very useful discography of Piazzolla's work, excellent notes, a fine list of sources and a complete index.

In the end, Le Grand Tango may be of more interest to aficionados of Argentina and the tango than to the general public. But Piazzolla became so well-known that he was sought out by every kind of accomplished musician, from such disparate realms as jazz, classical music, opera and rock and roll, and they are all here in this book. As a chronicle of this very important composer's presence in the totality of world music, and his battles to make his own music heard and appreciated, it is invaluable. _________________________________

(Novelist Terence Clarke [The Day Nothing Happened, My Father in the Night, The King of Rumah Nadai] has just completed a screenplay that tells of the friendship between the thirteen year-old Astor Piazzolla and Carlos Gardel in New York in 1934. [e-mail])

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars El Libro que tanto esperabamos....., June 15, 2000

By 

julio samper (Manizales, Colombia) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Le Grand Tango: The Life and Music of Astor Piazzolla (Hardcover)

Quienes de una u otra forma estamos interesados en la vida y obra del genial maestro, este libro ocupa el vacío dejado por la obra de Natalio Gorin y de Diana Piazzolla.Con una lectura entretenida Azzi y Collier nos van llevando de la mano por los laberintos que Piazzolla tuvo que recorrer hasta ser aceptado, reconocido y admirado en el mundo del tango y de la musica contemporánea;con una excelente discografia, notas y fuentes de investigación, este libro está destinado a ser de lectura obligada para investigadores musicales, músicos, amantes de la música de Piazzolla y público en general

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Piazzolla fans should buy this book!, February 6, 2002

By 

Pablo (Cancun, MEXICO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Le Grand Tango: The Life and Music of Astor Piazzolla (Hardcover)

This is the best and most complete document about the life and work of Astor Piazzolla. The authors inter-link Piazzolla's work with the major events of his life and the artistic and political context of the time. If you are really interested in learning about Piazzolla, you should go ahead and buy this book.