Personnel: Astor Piazzolla (bandoneon); Horacio Malvicino (guitar); Fernando Suarez Paz (violin); Pablo Ziegler (piano); Hector Console (bass).
Recorded at Sound Idea Studio, New York, New York in May 1986. Originally released on American Clave. Includes liner notes by Fernando Gonzales.
To paraphrase a statement made by Piazolla in the disc's liner notes, TANGO: ZERO HOUR is undoubtedly the finest effort by this utterly unique Argentinia-born and New York-raised musician. A master of the bandoneon, a buttoned squeeze-box that is the central instrument of tango music, Piazolla forges a hybrid style that mixes his love of tango with elements of jazz and classical and unifies the blend with an avant-garde sensibility.
TANGO: ZERO HOUR supports Piazolla with an ensemble of violin, piano, guitar, and bass for an album of great complexity and fierce passion. The result is something of a cross between experimental chamber composition and careening dance songs, music that sounds at once ethnic, indigenous, singular, and contemporary. Each of the album's seven pieces is demanding, though the rewards--from the insane spill of "Michelangelo '70" to the achingly beautiful "Milonga Del Angel"--are multiple. This is the best kind of fusion music: intense, multi-dimensional, and adventurous.
