-
Russian Red
I opted on St. Patrick’s Day for Russian Red in lieu of Irish green. It was her shimmering interpretation of the song “Loving Strangers” on the soundtrack of Julio Medem’s beautiful film Room in Rome that first set me on this young Spanish singer-songwriter. Her given name is Lourdes Hernández, but she took as her…
-
Tosello Solla Reyes
TOSELLO SOLLA REYES, whom I heard recently at the enchanting new venue in Brooklyn called The Classon, consists of the singer Sofía Tosello, the pianist Emilio Solla (both from Argentina), and the violinist Sergio Reyes (from Guatamala). They return to the same location next month, on April 18, and I urge you not to miss…
-
Yasmine Hamdan
It can be a special gift to listen to a song in a language that you neither speak nor understand. A language has its own rhythms and tonalities, just as musical forms and genres do, and when there is singing, the musicality of language merges directly with that of the instruments. The deepest engagement with…
-
The Sextet at Dizzy’s
The Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian Sextet’s “Caras” hit the crowd at the start of Monday night’s second set at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola like an acoustic sandstorm. So blinding was the effect that if there was an eyebrow raised anywhere in the room by the jazz savvy Lincoln Center audience, it was impossible to see. And so…
-
Tango-Fado
One of the happier minor features of the Cornelia Street Café is that from some seats in the house you can change your vantage by watching the musicians in a wall mirror rather than face on. This isn’t a bad metaphor for the reflections of and on musical forms that I saw and heard when…
-
Glamour Tango
Polly Ferman presented her show GLAMOUR TANGO, subtitled “Tango in Feminine Form,” on Monday night at Tango House, using New York based, but international, talent, all of them, appropriately, women. It follows the basic form of a lot of tango shows. There is a live orchestra at the back of the stage, which includes Ayelen…
-
Recuerdo tango
RECUERDO TANGO is the second of Mariela Franganillo’s tango shows that I have seen, and like the previous one, Tango Connection: Love Stories, it is distinguished by a feel for dramatic structure that goes beyond that of a revue whose main purpose is to showcase the history and virtuosity of the dance. Franganillo – in…
-
Voces del tango
Amidst the exceptional diversity of tango – orchestras, dance shows, milongas, club tango – it is easy to forget the tango song. I do not just mean those singers who front full bands or the passionate and accomplished amateurism of the tango bar. I am also thinking of the tango canción as a sort of…
-
Neko Case
I think it was around 13 years ago that I saw Neko Case perform in a narrow, smoke-filled dive in downtown Albuquerque. The sound system was bad, the drinks were worse, the bar food even more so. I squeezed up the stairway to nab a stool with a good sightline, and brushed shoulders with a…
-
Kaas Chante Piaf
There is something triumphal about pop at its best, when it seems that talent has conquered all, and it passes, to accept its laurels, under arches erected, if only for a day, by a public seized with desire and eager already for another victory. That is, if you think about it, the structure of most…