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Omoo Solo Voice
I saw a rather fascinating vocal performance on Friday night at Two Moon Art House and Cafe in Brooklyn. This is only the second OMOO SOLO VOICE concert by the young Swiss singer-songwriter Emilie Weibel, and there is doubtless much refinement to come. What is striking about her show is that she travels light, just…
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Magnus Eroticus
If you are like I was the day before yesterday, you know the Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis solely by virtue of the classic soundtrack for Never on Sunday, for which he won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1960. If you are like me today you would on Thursday evening have attended an intimate…
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Camila Meza • North Square
From time to time when I have needed a place to park myself prior to a later engagement, I have dropped in at the North Square for a drink. It is sort of perfect as a “lounge,” as a opposed to a bar or club – dimly lit, bartenders rather than mixologists, the sort of…
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Tangolandó • Fain-Mantega
It was, to be sure, a night of non-standard tango at Joe’s Pub. Tangolandó, fusing tango song with a distinctive Afro-Peruvian rhythm, closed out a program that began with the Dúo Fain-Mantega, consisting of piano and flute, the latter one of the early instruments in tango orchestras, along with the harp and violin, but not…
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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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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…