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Author: Bazely Solange Rock'n'roll with Tango Al mango In order to supplement some voluntary lapses of
memory of the first two shutters published ici-même, the idea of this
meeting is to approach these "lapses of memory" but also to insist
over this last period of Divided into volumes Gubitsch, with the
projects carried out and those on the way...
Let us take the temperature of this man definitely full
with humour and overflowing of activities....
SB: Let us retrogress a little:
What guards you like remembering your time rock'n'roll-star in
Argentina?
TG: It was brilliant! Personally and from a
générationnel point of view. I was only 17 years old and, in
full period of atrocities made by a dictatorship immonde, one
succeeded in continuing to create and invent.
Towards and all counters, a vital dash developed with the medium
of the bloody cruelty of the soldiers. Without only one
"political" word (it had been purely and simply suicidal), our
concerts joining together of the thousands of young people were spaces
authentically subversive where we laughed collectively with the nose
and the beard of the soldiers and the police officers psychopathes.
It is enough to imagine - in full state of siege more than
12.000 people (surrounded by hundreds of armed cops) singing,
vociferating, howling in unison that the swallows of sadly celebrates
Plaza of Mayo "fly and fly in Freedom"!
To be together were subversive, to create was subversive, to
think was subversive. To even have the long hair was subversive.
It is to say, in addition to bestiality, the unsoundable
stupidity which reigned for this morbid period. Our
Invisible group as well as
Beatles, Stones and well of others, were censured with the radio and
the tele one. Gardel with guitars too.
SB: Es you always in contact with Rodolfo
Mederos. Which are currently your reports/ratios. And with
Spinetta?
TG: I re-examined Rodolfo in Paris in 1986, when we
turn the feature film the Saturn pavements of Hugo Santiago. We then made a small round in
Italy.
With Shine-Alberto, we are written time with other and we spoke
each other with the telephone it does not have there so a long time.
I hope to renew contact with them two, which enormously counted
in my life, at the time of our next voyage, in August 2005.
Almost thirty years were passed since my définif departure of
Argentina, but their presence in my memory remains intact.
SB: What do you think of the music of Octeto
Electronico de Piazzolla?
TG: I cannot say that it is my preferred musical
period of Astor. Its first Octeto, Noneto and, of course, its
quintets are it well more. However, it was an enormous pleasure
of playing these sides, well beyond our political and personal
quarrels.
SB: Can you speak to us about the experiment
and the adventure of the duet with Caló then Trio with Jean-Paul
Celea?
TG: There would be far too many beautiful things to
say... To divide more than fifteen years of scenes and
recordings with these two musicians out-par and, nothing to waste,
very, very large friends, was one of the most beautiful experiments of
my life.
To speak only about one very small piece of this musical and
human division, this collaboration enabled me to develop and enrich my
language "compositionel" in the tango and my way of playing my
instrument.
And what is always very moving, deferred action, it is to note
years later, at which point this adventure "made trace", on our
premises three, of course, but also in the young musicians that I
côtoie now. Particularly - and surprisingly - in the
traditional musicians of orchestras with which I work in studio.
SB: How long did you cease playing of the
guitar? Why? When and why you decided rejouer?
TG: I did not touch one guitar any more during eight
years. (I learned since Sonny Rollins made in the same way with
its sax, and that Arnold Schönberg did not compose during the same
lapse of time; since I know myself in so good company, I find
rather that... elegant!)
I completely stopped playing after a last recording ' live' with
Michel Portal and Jean-François Jenny-Clark. My activities of
type-setter, realizer and leader did not leave me enough any more of
time to work my instrument as it is necessary when one plays with
musicians of this level. I preferred all to stop before that
does not get along!
I decided rejouer while I directed sumptuous National Orchestre
of Bulgaria. I looked at my rod touching the air and I tested
the imperative need for ' toucher' the music again. (In Spanish
one says ' tocar' the music, whereas in the majority of the other
languages one says ' jouer' or ' to make sonner'; I find that in
all these ways of naming this act there is truth...)
By taking again my instrument, I realized at which point
I had missed the guitar, at which point it formed part of myself and
at which point it was essential for me.
SB: You also had experiences with various
singers, like Ana Yerno, Maurane, Sapho etc.
TG: To start I like the voices and the world of the
song. I always found that to open in other musical worlds was a
chance. To tell the truth, I badly include/understand the
musicians who make only one music.
In my spirit, music that we know, all music: popular,
erudite, old, current, from here, moreover, is only one tiny part of the music, that which remains
to create and discovered in the centuries to come.
What we call today music is
a little like our galaxy, which is only one crumb of universe.
The pleasure of sharing the little of music which we are able to
perceive with those and those which do it differently is a true
privilege.
These last months, I directed orchestras in various countries of
Europe. I wrote arrangements of the GULF Cup and I recorded them
with the Orchestra of Egypt, in Cairo, I worked with George Moustaki,
with the Portuguese Cristina Branco, Spanish Ana Salazar and Argentina
Silvana Deluigi.
I recorded with Clémentine Célarié and, simultaneously, I
composed for our quintet my tangos. In short, I take my foot!
Like known as the Arab proverb: who speaks
several languages, has several hearts. The
music is a universal language. And speech several languages
never makes forget your own native language.
In this connection, the tango is made of all that. Its
rates/rhythms preserve the taste of Africa and Spain. Its songs
that of beautiful the canto Italian. Its melodies that of the
Jewish music and the bandonion itself is a Germanic instrument of
origin.
The harmonies of the traditional tango come straight of the
romantic music, one hears of Ravel at Salgán, Bartok at Piazzolla,
the jazz and the contemporary music at Di Giusto, Beytelmann, and of
all that, more music of Eastern Europe, at Gerardo the Camwood.
The tango is the music of a harbour city which never ceased
accomodating new musics, to integrate them and work out them until
endorsing them. It changes permanently, without never ceasing
being itself. Absolute opposite of xenophobia, all things
considered.
Only that which fears not to have a rather strong identity is
afraid from abroad.
SB: You composed also much for films and the
theatre
TG: That formed part of the same step.
The way of thinking of a
type-setter is not the same one as that of a realizer or than that of
a choreographer. To create footbridges between these various
worlds is often very profitable for me.
I was likely enormous to often share these experiments with very
talented people and, each time, I learn from the new things. I
adore to learn.
SB: Where to find your CDs? where to see
you playing? how to be with the current?
TG: We are only with the whole beginning of our new
project with Osvaldo Caló. For the moment, our essential
concern is of rôder and to widen the repertory of our first
spectacle, Tango Al Mango.
Then, I would like that we enregistriions an album live. We have the privilege to take
into account exceptional musicians and I prefer the heat and the
energy in the concert to the ' perfection' of the studio.
Our old discs are practically untraceable and it is perhaps so
much better. Borges said that one publishes to be able to pass
to another thing.
SB: Can you speak to us somewhat about your
experiment except standards with Unceasingly, this improbable opera ballet which were created with
around fifty the unemployed ones and RMIstes in the principal
roles...?
TG: Unceasingly reconciled me with the role of the musician in the company.
If Wilde Oscar said that art is, by definition, useless, this
adventure enabled me to corroborate that this uselessness is to us,
with all, essential. And that art in its various forms (in Unceasinglythere were dance,
video, theatre, photograph, writing and, of course, music) can and
must be practised by all.
That ' spécialistes' live about it, it is a thing. But
that art is practised exclusively by them, is, in my eyes, a proof of
the neurosis of our companies.
Once again, it is impossible to summarize this nine months
period of work in a few words. My life, and I believe that of
step badly of others, was transformed by this adventure. It will
have been, quite simply, unforgettable.
Conceived in collaboration with the choreographer Didier Silhol,
the spectacle joined together more than 100 people on scene (with,
inter alia, the Unit - Orchestra of Low-Normandy under the direction
of Domenica Debart, the Cenoman Quartet and Sax 4, of the soloists
come from the universe of the jazz and the rock'n'roll, a whole of
coppers of the ENM of Mans).
SB: ' Songs of innocence', your last album
left to France little after the United States, Co-compound and
Co-carried out with Hughes de Courson, with which you avaits already
collaborated for Lambaréna left
in 17 other countries.
TG: Songs of innocence is an album without claims where we have, with Hughes de
Courson, writing of the songs sung by children of various places of
the sphere. It is not a ' disc for enfants', if, however, that
wanted to say something: the children listen to all the musics
naturally. In a completely unexpected way, CD made a ' carton'
in the whole world.
Personally, I have especially the memory of a sound recording
particularly moving by a small Indian girl. The whole orchestra
rose and applauded it copiously, but the small girl did not seem
sensitive to this homage. Anxious for it, I approached to ask
him what did not go. And she said to me, almost in tears: I do not dare to stop the recording, but I very want to go
to make wee! .
CD Unceasingly (continuation... - resulting from the event
quoted previously - as Songs of innocence obtained the SHOCKS of
Jazzman and the World of the Music, and the ffff deTélérama.
SB: And since the preceding interview, I
know that you found something...
TG: I found a seventh project! The
ultra-néo-post tango.
Whereas everywhere else in the universe the musicians fight so
that one does not stick labels on their musics, in Argentina there is
the opposite phenomenon: when a musician innovates in the tango,
but that it is claimed some, the Guards of the Law of the Tango answer
"not!".
One inlassablement tries to explain to them that the tango
always evolved/moved, that if the tango does not change, it becomes a
museum piece, etc, etc. Nothing made there. The Guards
shake their cobwebs vigorously: "It is not!". Except
if one dies. Like Astor. It is to go to reach a little far
canonization, I find.
With Osvaldo Caló we decided to remain temporarily "préhumes"
(in opposition to "posthumous") and to make ultra-néo-post tango, sed
tango. A label, i.e. a very small ethics, which we are only
authorized to deliver.
We oppose savagely all those which make hyper-néo-post,
naturally.
In this crusade (I believe that they confused with
"cruising"..., ch' uis not sure... Such an amount of worse
for them!) Juanjo Mosalini joined us with his bandonion,
Sebastien Couranjou with his violin and Éric Chalan with its double
bass. Three large musicians and accomplices.
A deliberated choice: to take the "traditional" quintet of
tango, that of Salgán and Piazzolla, and to try "to make it sound"
differently.
It is this quintet which made these universal beginnings with
the Archipelago in Paris on May 18, 2005 within the framework of Paris Tango Club, programmed by
musicargentina.com, before flying away towards Argentina for a series
in concerts. It is my ' come-back' perso at the end of almost
thirty years.
SB: Among your last compositions, let us
quote the "Concerto for 4 Double basses and" (Government order),
created Together Caen has.
"Distances" (for sax soprano and orchestra) created in October
2001
A series of parts of chamber music including the
saxophone - "Igen", "Monodrame, triptych in 5 movements. And
more if affinities ", etc. - (orders of the CNR of Nancy).
"With the said place, the half-time" - a part whose principle of
writing is that the musical and danced composition structure
simultaneously choreography - conceived with Didier Silhol and created
with Biennial of the Dance of Valley of the Marne
And the "Cacerolazo Concerto", for bandonion, guitar
and string quintet (world creation in Rheinisches Musikfest).
And?
TG: I am a type-setter. Temporarily alive.
I make, therefore, also music known as contemporary.
Nothing abnormal, all things considered.
By the way, I recently discovered one very, very large
type-setter of contemporary music: Martín
Matalón. Still Argentinian ' a anclao in
París'. I highly encourage all those which are interested in
what is made today listen to it.
To finish, I would like to briefly reconsider our round to
Argentina of August 2005. With Gubitsch-Caló
quinteto (here known as Tango Al
Mango) we played the 16 with the Theatre Presidente
Alvear, 19 with the theatre of the Alliance Française, the 20 with
Parks of España, to Rosario, and the 27 in Central Farming Rojas in
Buenos Aires.
This ' retour' was extremely important for me. These is 28
years an old dream which is achieved.
I imagined that everyone would have forgotten which I was, that
the rooms envisaged were too large, that there would be nobody, etc.
Actually, it is all the opposite which occurred. And at an
absolutely extraordinary and incredible point. Not only the
rooms were archi roofs, going sometimes until the riot and from the
problems of safety, but the reception which was made with our music
exceeded all my hopes. There were nothing to explain, nothing
has to justify, nothing to say; it was enough to play and the
whole of the public adhered to our vision of the tango in an almost
palpable way. It was spontaneously recognized and adopted by our
audience, like by a unanimously eulogistic press. It is enough
to throw a small glance (and it is only one outline) with the
following address:
www.gubitsch.com/tam/presse.pdf
All this was particularly moving for me. To note
that our music was always "in phase" with the public of my country,
after almost thirty years of Parisian exile, gave me more than ever
the desire for composing of the new musics and for continuing to try
to be "myself".
We return with the piles charged to block for our concert with
the re-entry to Paris, I do not know yet where, we hesitate between
several rooms.
According to good humbly the trace of our famous predecessors,
astonishing history of love which joins together France and Argentina
since more than one century continuous in its fertile dash.
Youpla-boom, I would add, after such a pompeuse sentence.
Interview carried out in 2005
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