DANIEL TARRAB IN BUENOS AIRES – BEST 2019

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

daniedl tarrab

Composer, Bass Player, Conductor Daniel Tarrab and I recently became friends on Facebook and the likelihood of us remaining Facebook friends for as long as we both walk the earth is pretty good. Daniel lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina and I live smack in the center of the USA, so it is more than likely that we will never meet in person.

But that does not sadden me: I can get all the sadness, or, better, melancholy by listening to Daniel’s music again and again.

His is quintessentially Argentine music, or even more specifically: Buenos Aires music. Tangos of the sort I used to hear sung by Carlos Gardel on the radio growing up in Cuba.

But there’s been a lot of tango music flowing on the waters of the River Plate since Gardel went to the place where all the great music-makers go and where I hope to meet up with Daniel Tarrab some day, if I get lucky and I am admitted.

But meanwhile I have Tarrab’s music that I am playing on my Bose as I write this. The eight tracks on Tarrab’s CD Otra Mirada (Another Glance) could be danced to, I suppose.

Certainly La Lamparita (The Little Lantern) lacks the steadily syncopated one/ two/ three/ AND rhythm of many of the good danceable tangos, but it has plenty of melody to linger in the memory. Others, like Encuentro (Encounter) begin with preludes that portend passionately rhythmic outbursts ahead.

Still others, like El Quinto, Entrelineas and En la Cornisa have titles that even in Spanish do not give away what the mood of the music might be, not until Tarrab’s string orchestra and its spectacular soloists cut loose.

The music with which Tarrab mesmerizes the listener straddles genres, a DNA which this listener welcomes, as hints of jazzy riffs, classical cadenzas, and improvisatory flights of fancy bounce off each other seamlessly.

One hesitates to single out players in such company but I succumb to temptation and name Nestor Marconi one of the best bandoneon players I have ever heard. Violinist Pablo Agri brilliantly leads the strings and solos throughout, doing much of the melodic heavy-lifting on the CD.

And then there’s Daniel Tarrab on the piano, Daniel Tarrab on the string bass, Daniel Tarrab revealing his soul in every bar of every tango of every track of this memorable CD.

Otra Mirada is available from Silva Screen Records and Times Square Records.

Rafael de Acha     http://www.RafaelMusicNotes.com

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”