Le Grand Tango: The Life and Music of Astor Piazzolla (2017 Updated and Expanded Edition) by María Susana Azzi & Simon Collier

Author:María Susana Azzi & Simon Collier [Azzi, María Susana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Astor & Lenox
Published: 2017-02-16T06:00:00+00:00

Piazzolla-Mulligan

At a chance encounter with saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, who was now spending much of his time in Italy, Pagani had played him “Libertango.” As Pagani recalls, Mulligan “without speaking, sits down by the record player, the side finishes, he gets up, turns it over, sits down, doesn’t speak, and then says to me,” ‘Who is this? … He’s phenomenal...Who is he?’” Pagani immediately suggested a Mulligan-Piazzolla album. Mulligan jumped at the idea, and, if Amelita remembers rightly, spoke briefly to Piazzolla on the phone. (Tullio de Piscopo also remembers playing Mulligan a Piazzolla cassette, at which he “went crazy.”) Piazzolla flew immediately to Milan, met with Pagani and Mulligan, agreed to make the long-playing record—half the music by himself, half by Mulligan—and then hopped back to Rome, from where he and Amelita drove the 260 kilometers to the Adriatic. “I am still alive,” he reported to Daniel. “This Mulligan business will be a big thing for my future…. Tomorrow I start to write.”11 He was suddenly very excited.

Piazzolla threw himself with great enthusiasm into the task. He told one of his Roman acquaintances, the photographer Franca Rota [Contessa Franca Rota Borghini Baldovinetti], that he needed somewhere quiet to work. She invited him and Amelita to join a party at her house in the Roman Marches. (Franca was very impressed, at the meal table, when Piazzolla crushed open a walnut with his index finger alone). The tranquil surroundings were good for him. He made swift progress with his music for the Mulligan LP, and (another task that summer) some settings of poems by Jorge Luis Borges, a few of whose books he had brought with him to Italy.

The composing stint was soon interrupted. It was time for performing again, which meant the Brazilian tour Pagani had organized, with fees of around $1500 per concert. During the first half of September 1974, the Quintet (with Amelita) revisited some familiar theaters in Porto Alegre, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, premiering the new Borges settings and a “Retrato de Milton” (an adaptation of “Retrato de mí mismo” from 1969), which Amelita sang in Portuguese in honor of their friend Milton Nascimento. At São Paulo’s Teatro Municipal, the audience made her sing “Balada para un loco” three times.12 An American in the audience at one of these Brazilian concerts would later recall the experience vividly:

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