Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night (Tango Apasionado)

"Coming to this disc expecting a similar sound to Piazzolla's other Kip Hanrahan-produced albums, I was surprised to find that it sounds totally different from both La Camorra and Zero Hour. This was intentional, the liner notes reveal; Piazzolla wanted the effect of "half drunk musicians playing in a bordello" as opposed to the tightly sophisticated sound of his regular quintet. He thus assembled an ad hoc band and recorded in tracks rather than playing "live" to the mikes. The production, matching the cover, is luridly sleazy (Paquito d'Rivera's soprano sax screeching away on some tracks); the music episodic, with small chunks of music originally intended to accompany the Borges based theatre piece "Tango Apasionado". The pianist Pablo Zinger (not to be confused with the far superior Pablo Ziegler) has an enthusiastic style but sounds like he's trying too hard to get into the Piazzolla dialect, while the incredible violinist Fernando Suarez Paz puts in little more than a fleeting cameo. That said, the disc certainly has a buzz, with tracks like "Knife Fight" reeking of cheap liquor and deserted alleyways. The highlight is two renditions of "Milonga per tre", Piazzolla's most desolately beautiful slow milonga portraying the futility and shame of life in the bordello. Not an idiomatic introduction to the composer (or performer), but will instantly grab both Piazzolla aficionados and silent movie buffs, or anyone wanting to recreate the atmosphere of a seedy Argentinian bar. "
- Amazon.co.uk