december 2004
TANGO MUSIK..................
An essay by Jocelyn Braddell.
This essay refers to live gigs in Cork and London and to the CD Musik, played by Gilad Atzmon and the Orient House.
The musical art of Gilad Atzmon cannot simply be assessed in a week, or hastily, to feed the hungry need for publicity. Nor indeed evidence provides, as one looks at the publicity, for Adverisement, it is only rarely evident that a special understanding is achieved across the media spectrum.
It is perhaps time to take a severe line with the media. In England jazz has enormous popularity but it has never received textual response in the daily newspapers. The Guardian reviews pop everyday of the week, but rarely any of the English jazz musicians who are on tour throughout the year. In Ireland jazz has only become popular for the young since Courtney Pine invaded the areas of rock conspiracy with incredible displays, even freak displays, of jazz music's power with his saxaphones and his female counterpoint, Mary; Mary with a powerful voice, that she delivered with a strong symbolic hand extended from the body of the music, bring a purely sexual depth that invaded the young with rhythm and personality. It is this latter, personality, that was the point of force, even power, and it subsequently proved its point as three, four, years after the Courtney Everyman gigs, young people have made Cork Jazz a venue that is both my despair and yet my veneration.
The sage jazz men of Ireland have expected Cork Jazz to collapse and die under this restless merciless sea of attention that hundreds of young people give to the weekend once a year in October. Jazz was to de-camp to Dublin - well indeed there it is - gigs in new venues every week of the year and occasional visits and tours from foreign 'gods' ; Babatunde in Galway ? - by Jasus next year he will be in Inis Mean!!
Jazz music itself is experiencing incredible movements in the undercurrent of its performances. Gabarek, last year in Cork, introduced musicians from the classical world with their instruments from the baroque; and percussion from what might be classed as the "feminist architecture", disoriented structures from the domestic world.Percusion instruments introduced into the drummers stack are coming through the airwaves, hollow resonant wood echoes, metal basins of plasma trajectories.
In the last few years we hear a resurgence of the tango rhythms of Latin America, and this music which specialises in "chance", the fall of the dice, an accumlation of instruments and methods of idiosyncratic delivery, is feeling its way like a reptile into our consciousness. Tango was born in the womb of the world of Man, Man whose life was a response to danger and hardship as a permanet modification of existence. In the brothels of Buenos Aires men danced together and the whores relaxed at the edge of a glass of strong alcohol. Men challenged the prostitutes with a virile demonstration of their finest and darkest tangents, where knives are drawn, where death shores up defeat, where light in the dawn demonstrates the pallor of withdrawal. Tango ofcourse was drawn finally into the bourgeois world but there it festered, an alien, a sexual furnace. The middleclasses when the chance came seized on the cheerful peurility of the Beatles and rock and pop closed the door on the outside world. Little miss and 'man' must once again leave off dancing and rubbing their bodies on the syllabic silk skirts of dark songs and the flickering lights and turbulence of a geometric musical exercise.
Shorthly after the Cork Jazz Festival this year there was a huge storm and flood in the city centre; when the waters receded somewhat a large black eel was found in Patrick Street. This eel I suggest a myth or symbol of the dark introduction of Tango into the Irish heartland that was in fact introduced in that old socialist centre of the Firkin Crane, a small circular theatre of events that is only used now adays for community affairs with both refugees and the social workforce.Let us take the last dance out into the fairground where the joyous nightmares of the painted-horse roundabouts have been replaced, but the people have not just yet become the robots of the matrix merry-go-round.
The Orient-House Musicians with Gilad
Atzmon have a fine unison, they are a kind of family
linked in the music to a goal, a message. It is not an
evening event of the usual kind, with an assortment of
pieces. This is a total small opera piece in the manner
of Kurt Weil that detonates as do the swift movements of
the tango-dance, an engagement with a passion. To dance,
as expressed by all of young and old people, a physical
communication becomes a garment, and a joyous flourish of
action remote from physical violence of any kind. But
this sensual joy has been the victim of both religious
and social repression since time out of mind. Ofcourse
the innocence of beauty is not suppressed completely and
moments in history have been exposed as crucial endgames
to that repression. At this time are we yet unnerved by
the tyrannical right-wing swing that international
politicians throughout the world are releasing in new
laws and regulations ? Are we aware how this method of
social regulation will terminate our world of joy and
infant happiness? The children are all in care. The
mothers are all at work. The fathers must resurrect
chauvinism or lose their self-respect. The old are in
modern alms-houses called Care Homes or Green Room
Therapy. Thanks be that you and I dear reader can go out
and dance tonight. Atzmon, as he passes through this
message to our senses never releases his grasp on the
present moment - the Tango is a passage of present moment
time as he sees it, as far as I can make out. This
evening could be a magic catapult into present time for a
new appreciation of the community we live in, where our
expectation fuelled by fast cars, internet communication,
video, domestic ease and mad fashion moments can compete
with nature to reveal that the spontaneous must be
carefully routed along the paths of beauty or else the
method is the short-cuts that violence takes to desires
and power.
Tango and Viennese Waltz dances began at the same moment
in history - the era of the 1850's. Industrialisation of
society was building up enormous riches for some and work
weary poverty for others. All dancing until that time was
done without body holds of any kind except the arm-swing.
Suddenly we could touch one another, we could breathe in
another vision, we could seduce almost with an electric
spark an elation there was no accounting for....
Unlike the waltz that we link with the voluptuous Jewish
existence of Berlin and Vienna, the Tango is a dance for
the people and designed to release their natural
exuberance and sexual games. That this sexual display
originated in brothels and low dives is nothing to do
with it here in Europe. We only know that this accordion
player Viazzini taps into a strong vibration that thrills
and oscillates in memory, Fratila's violin holds the
entire volume of a heart broken sigh and haunts the mind.
Rozenthuler sings into the low volume of whispered
threats and wishes that love enjoins and as ourselves on
some wild spree we rush emotionally into this gig like a
crowd of spirits - it occurs to me that the musicians
must certainly feel this response. Atzmon's sax or
clarinette slides in among this melee of feelings chasing
some, turning away from others so that a mixture of
desire and response begins to permeate the theatre.But
that is not all that this musician wants, he challenges
the status of our normal mode, echoes comic and
threatening that we have brought with us - our time; this
political hell; this fractured army we know of, of
undisciplined murderers; our struggle against war that
has no effect; our legal separation from politics
stressed and threatened by presidents of nations and
commissions who are themselves barristers and lawyers;
our security as strangers,private, unbidden citizens who
become bound to a private hell of debt and workladen days
and nights. Thus Orient House, linked by name to the
victims of a Jewish model of robbery and corruption , (a
holocaust, that Israel has carried out in Palestine,)
represented by this diverse group, of whom two are
Israelis, enters on the whisper of Sirkis' drum and moves
across the vibration of world wars, popular song, dark
alleys of turbulence.
The powerful thrust of the breath permeates this music,
sometimes welling from the base (Yaron Stavi), short and
subterranean sounds that are lifted from the rhythm and
flung by Atzmon into the air we breathe, so close, so
close. Almost telepathic his musicians fling notes like
flitting startled birds or break on the deep drumbeat
back to a broken branch. Sirkis and Stavi can lay a beat,
a light tongue on the palate. Undertones labour like a
leather bellows but light up in the fire of the sax like
gases.Atzmon's poem, a call to the soul that is without
bitterness, represents this Latin American stranger who
may ring that doorbell of Led Zepplin, but usurps the
threshold and ricochets within fear to fracture it, to
dispel it.
A deconstruction of the entire national emblem of the USA
follows, and the terrible September 11th sacrifice that
was demanded by an alien putsch that uses the American
military and unreels the States and their dishonest
moralities like the rags of a flag that unravels, the
cats-cradle of an ancient decimated Gordian Knot. Frank
Harrison pianist, and Atzmon stand on the threshold of
the prairies, grind their heels in the tattered insignia,
and call out to the history of infinite distances where
the bison herded and the native's silent footsteps pass,
nomad races, there, horizons of cloud break open to deep
alien skies of a dead moon that may soon be only a true
mirror of our world.
Tango seduction is recognition of rhythm that breeds on a
held note, that persistently emits a kind of coloured
rhyme that just like a man's stare animates and irritates
in equal measure. Erupting, and a line is taken off into
the new moment of being, shared with a tremulous stranger
that has an intensity that cannot be found except shot
through emotion, to exist, it thrills the soul. Musik
thrown over this invitation like a great shawl of
light.Tango has had an intense history, recognised as a
seminal music that reflects existence, where the play of
many instruments is essential to it, to enable the
elevation of the spirit, the pause that you may hide
within and the silence that heralds truth, the flat
horizon of truth.Phrasing is important and the dance has
always had the reputation of a story with paragraphs and
sentences.
| Words of meaning:
Tango:with the meaning of "gathering of blacks to dance to drum music, also the name the Africans gave the drum itself". Tango and Milonga, the place, the dance;1883, Ventura Lynch wrote: "In the periphery of the city the Milonga(Tango) is so generalized that is danced in all the gatherings, it can be heard played by guitars, accordions, comb and paper, or played by street musicians with flute, harp and violin" Spanish Royal Academy of Letters, 1899 edition, defines Tango as "Fiesta and dance of Negroes or "gente del pueblo" (those that belong to lower socio-economical class) The wail of the tango, it is said, speaks of more than frustrated love. It speaks of fatality, of destinies engulfed in pain. It is the dance of sorrow. Originally, the tango dance developed as an "acting out" of the relationship between the prostitute and her pimp. In fact, the titles of the first tangos referred to characters in the world of prostitution. These tango songs and dances had no lyrics, were often highly improvised, and were generally regarded as obscene. Further, the early tangos not only represented a kind of sexual choreography, but often a duel, a man-to-man combat between challengers for the favors of a woman, that usually ended in the symbolic death of an opponent. Sexual and evil forces were equally celebrated in this ritual. During this time, the wailing melancholy of the bandoneon (an accordion-like instrument imported to Argentina from German in 1886) became a mainstay of tango music. ......................... Tango revived in the late 1930's when the Argentinean masses regained a good measure of their political freedom. They celebrated their social rise with the tango, which became a symbol of their physical solidarity and part of their daily life. Sergio Suppa |
Borges, the Argentinian poet wrote a song that recognises
the ritual power of this dance. It was written in
co-ordination with a great milonga player,Astor Piazolla,“Alguien le dice al
tango.” The most traditional work in the collection,
this spirited tango winds down to a lovely hush before
disappearing in a sudden flourish.
Tango que he visto
bailar
contra un ocaso amarillo
por quienes eran capaces
de otro baile, el del cuchillo.
Tango de aquel Maldonado
con menos agua que barro,
tango silbado al pasar
desde el pescante del carro.
Despreocupado y zafado,
siempre mirabas de frente.
Tango que fuiste la dicha
de ser hombre y ser valiente.
Tango que fuiste feliz,
como yo también lo he sido,
según me cuenta el recuerdo;
el recuerdo fue el olvido.
Desde ese ayer, ¡cuántas cosas
a los dos nos han pasado!
Las partidas y el pesar
de amar y no ser amado.
Yo habré muerto y seguirás
orillando nuestra vida.
Buenos Aires no te olvida,
tango que fuiste y serás.
Piazolla wrote::The
music for Jorge Luis Borges' poem "Al Tango"
has been especially composed following and respecting its
contents. This gave me the opportunity to experiment with
aleatoric music in the percussion scores. The recording
has been made exclusively by my quintet, which means
noises you hear were made solely with their instruments.
The violin produces a percussive effect by hitting the
end of its handle with a ring, doing
"pizzicati" with "glissé," imitating
a siren with a "glissé" on the string,
imitating sandpaper with the end of the bow behind the
bridge and a drum by doing "pizzicati" with the
nails between two strings. The electric guitar imitates a
bongo, sirens with "glissé" effects, add minor
seconds and strange effects with six strings open behind
the bridge. The pianist hits treble and bass notes with
the palms of his hands, and with his fists on the lower
notes. The bassist hits the back part of his instrument
with the palm of his hand, makes "glissés" on
the bass strings and hits four strings with his bow.
Bandoneón imitates a bongo by hitting the box with the
left annular finger. It also has, on a side, a sort of
metallic guiro to be scratched with a nail. All these
effects were improvised to introduce so-called aleatoric
music into tango.
Gilad Atzmon's
Musik truly fulfils this method and allows that dangerous
hiatus appear in your mind, which he amplified in Queen
Elizabeth Hall London with a remarkable video, for the
entry of a sinister slide into an unknown symbolic world,
at a tremulous speed. This may account for
the fact that the audience were unable, or too
frightened to analyse their reactions, to rise off their
seats and give these musicians an ovation of
applause that they truly deserve. It was incredible, I
stood there, cursing, alone. Surely this
audience were already his fans gathered there,
surely there were also his enemies present? Perhaps the
theme of Lili Marlene, associating our New
World fascist experience, especially for the Marines
and the Black Watch, in the columns of the media and
daily on TV, created a self-indulgent black mood in them,
that could not allow them prise themselves imaginatively
from the armchair, the duvet, the glass of a familiar
home, to realise that their chosen sex video, played out
infront of the explosions and destruction of the World
Trade Centre is what they are really watching
closely as they tune on blue movie this evening. Jocelyn
Braddell©
JOVEN,
HERMOSA Y TRISTE
Based on a poem by Gilad Atzmon
joven, hermosa y triste
y yo
un reloj de arena...
joven, hermosa y triste
me miras con esos ojos
leo el mapa de tu cuerpo
fugaz
como la arena que se escurre en
el reloj
y paso mis momentos breves
leves mis sentidos
lloras y gritas
y yo ya no puedo gritar
miro a tu alma desnuda
y te amo sin amarte
me consumo
mis momentos se acortan
enmudezco en el silencio
un torbellino de dolor
y esa negrura que me atrapa
feroz el brillo en tu mirar
toda mi vida que se va...
en el silencio enmudecer
en la penumbra descubrirte
entre tus brazos despertar
y alli dormir hasta extinguirme
hasta no ser...
joven, hermosa y triste
Gilad Atzmon©
photos:home.planetinternet.be/
~wds1/tango/ Piazolla's
site.