Passages
On July 1st, 2023, Iguazú Quintet released its second album: Passages.
With this new project, the group chose to shine a light on contemporary composers of Tango Nuevo, exploring the music of Argentine, Belgian, and French musicians — guitarists, bandoneon players, and pianists alike.
Tomás Gubitsch, Rodolfo Mederos, Pablo Murgier, Boris Gaquere, Coco Nelegatti, and Samuel Strouk are all spiritual heirs to Astor Piazzolla, and each of them has taken his musical language further by blending it with contemporary classical music, rock, jazz fusion, and even film music.
On this album, you will hear works that have rarely crossed the borders of South America to reach Europe, alongside others revisited through brand-new arrangements punctuated by improvisation. All of this is carried by an instrumentation that combines acoustic and electric instruments, forming a true chamber jazz ensemble.
Recorded at Dada Studios and shaped with the attentive ear of Belgian composer Jimmy Bonesso, this album invites you to discover a young and inventive Tango Nuevo, unlike anything you have heard before.
Violin – Marion Borgel, Accordion – Pauline Oreins, Guitars – Wynand Mawet, Piano – Hakim Talbi, Electric Bass – Nicolas Sanna
Amancay – Tribute to Astor Piazzolla
In March 2020, the group released its first album: Amancay – Tribute to Astor Piazzolla.
The quintet is made up of musicians with diverse backgrounds, active in classical music as well as jazz, pop, and world music. Its members explore Tango Nuevo, drawing on both the final years of Astor Piazzolla’s career and his Conjunto Electronico, with its more jazz-oriented and electric sound, as well as on the more acoustic sonorities of the classical guitar, inspired by more modern arrangements handed down by guitarists such as Sergio Assad, Yamandu Costa, and Eduardo Isaac.
In doing so, they offer a younger take on Astor Piazzolla’s music, unafraid to fully make the composer’s works their own and to weave elements of improvisation into them.
The album thus explores the rich legacy of the Argentine master, presenting both well-known and lesser-known works from his repertoire, always with the desire to balance the composer’s written music with the personality of these young performers. A musical journey between tradition and modernity, both respectful and inventive.
“For us musicians, playing Piazzolla remains expression in its purest form. We free ourselves from the score and feel as though we are improvising, even though everything is written. There is a special kind of magic in that freedom. All the music is written, yet it contains the very essence of something that can be appropriated. Piazzolla shaped his music while leaving room for freedom. (…) Sometimes audiences cry when we play Piazzolla. That is no coincidence: there is an extraordinary concentration of emotion.”
Richard Galliano, December 13, 2010 – Excerpt from the preface to Astor Piazzolla, le tango de la démesure, written by Emmanuelle Honorin and published in 2011 by Éditions Demi-Lune, in the Voix du Monde collection.
Violin – Yuka Nagaosa, Accordion – Arnaud Hermand, Guitars – Wynand Mawet, Piano – Hakim Talbi, Electric Bass – Nicolas Sanna