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Tango Bar
Thursday evening last was the “grand reopening” of TANGO BAR at Villa Della Pace, where this weekly gathering of tango singers and musicians had for a time been held on Sundays. This was, in any case, my first time out to the event, which emphasizes tango singing of the most down-to-earth, neighborly, unpretentious, and occasionally…
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Alexandra Castaño Trio
I used to go to the Anyway Café all the time, savoring the house-infused vodkas, excellent martinis made with same, Russian-French bistro food, and classic bohemian atmosphere. But for whatever reason, I fell out of the habit of going there. Until, that is, last Saturday, when the Alexandra Castaño Trio lured me in with several…
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Tangolandó
We all know, or think we know, what tango is, and TANGOLANDÓ, just out as a digital release, has some of the best tango singing by one of the best New York based Argentinian artists, Sofía Tosello. Fewer of us know what landó is: it is a driving Afro-Peruvian rhythm that is instantly recognizable once…
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Tutuma Social Club
The Tutuma Social Club has always been at the top of my list for out-of-town visitors and any in-towners who haven’t discovered it on their own yet, especially on a night when the house band was playing. If the Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian Sextet isn’t the best jazz band you’ve never heard of, then it may…
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Lara Bello
The Spanish singer Lara Bello is one of the more inventive artists I have encountered in New York. Her album Niña Pez was an amalgam of jazz, singer-songwriter folk, flamenco, alternative rock and Middle Eastern vocals. In the title figure she created a sort of alter ego for her own persona. Bello is a storyteller,…
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Nathalie Pires
The basement “tavern” in the Portuguese restaurant Alfama is the only place I know in New York where you can go on a weekly basis, Wednesdays at 8pm, to hear fado. I made a point of going on the occasion of the restaurant’s one-year anniversary at its current location. The distinctive lilting melodies, which have…
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Tango Conspiracy
On a late Wednesday night in the Malbec Room at Novecento, I listened for the first time to Tango Conspiracy, a band fronted by the guitarist-singer Jimena Fama whose music is self-described as “Electro Dub,” “Funk,” “Tango,” “Lounge,” and “Bassa Nova.” My prejudices for dancing tango bend toward the traditional repertory, but I must say…
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Tangolandó
I spent Thursday night at Terraza 7 Train Café, where, as this vertiginous view suggests, Tangolandó sent me reeling. It was not just the boldness of the sound, which backs tango, sung in its own time by Sofía Tosello, with the Afro-Peruvian rhythm known as landó, arranged by the guitarist and impresario of the project…
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Irène Jacob
The double life of Irène Jacob. Her performances in the films of Krzysztof Kieślowski are indelible in the modern cinema, and her grace and intelligence have persisted in the work – all too little of it – that I have been able to see since. I have known her only as an actress, so I…
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Camila Meza
Camila Meza has once again executed the rare feat of both singing the standards and playing the guitar, this time at the Cornelia Street Café’s downstairs cabaret, one of my favorite New York venues for food and music. When I first heard this Chilean artist sing in her native Spanish, I thought there was something…