Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla Mainetti He was born in the city of Mar del Plata, on March 11, 1921, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
With only three years of age, Astor he moves with his parents to New York City.
When he was eight years old, he had a bandoneon in his hands for the first time.
In 1936 he returned with his family again to Mar del Plata, where he formed his first musical groups, and in 1938 he moved to the city of Buenos Aires.
Here he has left his mark in several orchestras and finally joins that of Anibal Troilo, famous musician, bandoneon player; and with him he has become a bandoneon player and arranger.
In the year 1944, Astor is encouraged to leave the orchestra of Troilus and due to his remarkable conditions he begins to direct the one that accompanied the singer Francisco Fiorentino.
It is at this moment where his creativity begins to work without stopping, creating his own orchestra soon after.
Among the pieces that he has interpreted in this new stage, there are five of his own compositions that showed his already defined style, among them the one entitled “Get ready”.
Piazzolla He thought about abandoning tango to dedicate himself to classical music and with that thought in mind he headed to Paris. There he begins to study with Nadia boulanger, who despite giving him advice and teachings, convinces him to return to tango.
So with this advice in force, in Paris he recorded 16 songs with the strings of the Paris Opera Orchestra, Martial Solal on the piano and himself on the bandoneon, an impeccable job.
Later, upon returning to Buenos Aires, Piazzolla creates a string orchestra and bandoneon, and his famous octet, with which he premieres key tangos from his repertoire, such as “Angel tango” Y “Three minutes with reality”.
In 1958, undecided about his life, he decided to return to New York, and there he tried his new tango-jazz fusion project, a failure that he himself criticized with great harshness, and sadly returned to Buenos Aires in 1960.
Installed in his native land, Astor creates another of its great formations, the “Quinteto Nuevo Tango” made up of bandoneon, violin, piano, electric guitar and double bass, and has been hand in hand with this new group that premieres tangos such as “Reversed”, “Goodbye Nonino”, “Buenos Aires zero hour”, “Death of the angel”.
The famous and prestigious musician has composed more than 700 works, some for theater, film and to be recorded, of which his famous cantata stands out. “Maria of Buenos Aires”.
In 1965, the quintet performed in New York and in that same year recorded tangos composed of the writer’s poems in Buenos Aires. Jorge Luis Borges with the singer Edmundo rivero and the actor Luis Medina Castro placeholder image.
Later, Piazzolla is associated with the poet Horacio Ferrer and with the singer Amelita Baltar, with whom he creates the most popular tangos of his repertoire: “Chiquilín de Bachín” Y “Ballad for a crazy”; and later in the following years, he composed new tangos and returned to jazz, through a disc recorded with the saxophonist Gerry mulligan.
In 1989, Piazzolla forms his last set which he titles “Sexteto Nuevo Tango”, a band of unusual composition that had two bandoneons, piano, double bass, electric guitar and cello.
The musician suffered a cerebral thrombosis in 1990 in Paris, and for this reason two years later he died in Buenos Aires.
Selected discography:
- (1974) Libertango. Astor Piazzolla.
- (1975) New Tango. Gerry Mulligan and Ástor Piazzolla.
- (1986) Tango: Zero Hour. Ástor Piazzolla, New York.
- (1987) The New Tango: Suite for Vibraphone and New Tango Quintet. Ástor Piazzolla and Gary Burton.
- (1988) Ástor Piazzolla: Concerto for Bandoneón and Tres tangos.
- (1988) La Camorra.
- (1989) Tanguedia de Amor.
- (1991) The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night (Passionate Tango)
- (1992) Piazzollando as a Brazilian sotaque.
- (1998) Piazzolla: Classic cuts from Argentina. Stable Orchestra of the Teatro Colón, José Carli (direction and arrangements), Daniel Binelli (bandoneon).
- (2000) Piazzolla: Complete Music for Flute and Guitar