Author: Bazely Solange

Solange Bazely: Asdid an autodidact, how do your immersion within the Argentinian musicians?

Olivier Manoury: At the time there were practically no bandoneonists "free lance" in France. Roberto Caldarella was still with the Cupola (the last permanent orchestra of tango in Paris), Cesar Stroscio played exclusively with Cuarteto Cedron, Juan Mosalini was not installed yet here (I had intended it to accompany Susana Rinaldi at the time of a round in France).

I initially played only in the subway, and the streets with an old Italian violonist of more than seventy years and a young French double bass player.
One morning, the Uruguyan painter Bolivar heard me at the market of Aligre and invited me has to lunch at his place, I followed it and with his table I met, the same day, among some friends of Rio Of Plata around a grill, Juan Mosalini and Horacio Ferrer. They are the first South American ones which I knew. Not badly for a first contact with the world of the tango!
I played and I made the effect of a meteorite. They accomodated me with much heat and curiosity, like extraterrestrial. There was at that time there (1978-79) no young bandoneonist, not even in Argentina. It was an instrument in process of extinction. The last, youngest were Mosalini, Medeiros, Walter Rios... They were ten years old more than me, they had resisted the feeling of shame, the sarcastic remarks, the fact of appearing old-fashioned, all that the fashion and the conflict of the generations vehiculent the stupid ones and cruel prejudices and which struck the world of the tango as on our premises the world of the accordion.

They of an artistic and technical level extraordinary, were turned towards fusion and before guard. I appeared all the more strange to them as I knew only of old tangos of Gardel, Discepolo, Canaro or of Guardia vieja which were not played any more in Argentina.

Mosalini played this evening there, only. I did not believe my ears of them! I immediately felt the abyss which separated us, I measured the way which remained to be made to me.

At the end of a certain time, I met two Argentinian guitarists, Roberto Lopez and Daniel Lousteau who accompanied the singer Nestor Gabetta in a room lent to South American associations by the priest by the church Saint Eustace, where I played from time to time.
They had come for concerts and had not taken the plane of the return because of the dictatorship, they played like me in the subway, one put itself together, they taught me what is the true tango, cassettes of Pugliese, Troilo brought to me, one played tous.les.jours some share, often free, but there were always wine and empanadas. One accompanied by the singers and the singers of passage.

Later, when Mosalini and Beytelmann left Ernesto rondo to assemble their first duet (become then the mythical one and extraordinary trio with Patrice Caratini) one took their place. They was my first professional contracts at the beginning of the Eighties.
Ernesto had a very beautiful voice and a phrased good of tanguero. It carried a costume of gaucho of operetta, like the orchestras of tango of the Thirties, as Gardel when it sang in Europe. Us there were the long hair which fell on our shoulders and Ernesto was not shocked by contrast, it found that although one is à.la.mode, it said to the public while presenting to us: "you believe that they are girls, eh well not, they are lions!".
Thanks to Ernesto, I met Edmundo Rivero, my preferred singer, and the members of Sexteto Mayor which adopted immediately me and are always friendly close relations today.

I very quickly learned Spanish from Argentina, being always only French of the group. In Buenos Aires nobody notices that I am French. I never professionally suffered not to be Argentinian, I was very cordially accomodated by the tangueros.


SB: Even if you were born in Tulle, the capital of the accordion, your atypical course surprises and delights, how you did come from there to also repairing instruments? Which?

OM: I was a violin maker (violins) during nearly 10 years, at the same time as I learned how to play of the bandonion, I naturally restored my bandonion and, thanks to the councils of Armand Bramante, tuner of accordions and bandonions with Drancy I learned has to grant, there was request on behalf of the Argentinian bandoneonists of passage, the bandonions suffer from transport in the plane.
The Argentinian ones often played a very high tuning fork, (la=445) they could not play with the pianos, granted low on our premises (la=442) it was necessary D to grant the bandos.
I had the bandos of all the large soloists, Astor included/understood, in my workshop. I ended up dropping the violins fault from time. Then when I started to play more and more I completely gave up repair. I grant nothing any more but mine.


SB: Which were your musical meetings in the medium of the jazz and which your strong capacity of improvisation brought?

OM: It is especially the fact that I learned how to play of ear which learned how to me to improvise. With Roberto and Daniel as with Ciro Perez and the guitarists of style "criollo" one did not use partitions, one repeated directly with the singer by harmonizing ear, one stopped to agree on some syncopes or on some harmonic progressions and one like that all the repertory memorized.

I am always a very bad reader, even if I can write and orchestrate, I must work the partitions, even simple, at home before repeating with other musicians or recording in studio.
I always côtoyé the jazz, I played of the jazz to the piano before playing of the bandonion, but my first professional experience in the jazz took place in Italy with the quartet of the pianist Arrigo Cappelletti, after a round in Italy of north one recorded Transformations CD which left to Silex, my producer of the time and which was probably the first disc of Jazz with a bandonion.


SB: After your meeting with the singer Ernesto Rondo, do we tell your years of musical complicity with the Uruguyan pianist Enrique Pascual?

OM: My meeting with Enrique Pascual was determining, it is the most gifted musician whom I ever met, nothing is studied at his place, it plays naturally, without reflecting, looking at its keyboard, guided by an extraordinary ear and an immediate musical instinct. It opened a harmonic universe to me which I was unaware of completely at the time. Incompetent of discipline, it did not have his place in the sets of tango, where the music had to be read, to repeat the nuances to reproduce them with each time at the identical one, it is with ease only in freedom.
It was one very libertarian time, I listened to Hendrix and the free jazz, this freedom did not exist in the tango, but Enrique had it in him, it had lived a long time in Brazil and there was impregnated joy and disproportion that the Brazilian ones put in their music, it also played and composed of the candombe, which is more related with the Brazilian music than with that of Argentina.

I quickly understood that the duet was formulates it ideal for us. Enrique plays, like me, of ear and improvises all the time. We are cases has share.
They was in general the old guitarists of tango (or bandoneonists of chamamé) who played of ear, the bandoneonists and the pianists learn the instrument with partitions and are in general good readers.
I then played in formations of Jazz, in particular with the Italian pianist Arrigo Cappelletti with whom I turned during several years to Italy.


SB: Which are your influences and your personal capital contribution in the Argentinian music?

OM: My influences, with the bandonion are, in the order, Troilo, Piazzolla and Federico. The first represents for me the quintessence of the bandonion and of the tango, the two others touch me enormously and influenced me much but their technique exceeds me, I am not a virtuoso.
My small personal capital contribution is to have introduced the improvisation into my formations of tango. My first group, Tangonéon, functioned like a quartet of jazz: one took chorus on topics of Piazzolla or on our compositions, it was each time different, one was the only ones to do it. There was not much success at the time, when one played the Pavements of Buenos Aires for example, one felt that the public found that too much "jazzy", one did not get dressed with black, our music was not "dancing".

I believe that that would have of interested advantage the public of Buenos Aires that that of Paris which wanted a tango which corresponds to its stereotypes, gomina and company. In general the Argentins musicians remained to listen to us.
While réécoutant in a friend, for the first time since years, CD which one had recorded at the time, I thought that one would have more chances today, but one does not retrogress.


SB: What brought the adventure of the group Tempo to you di Tango ?

OM: Tempo di Tango is composed, besides me, exclusively of traditional musicians. A string quartet, a pianist and a double bass player.
It is before all the orchestration which stimulated me at the beginning. In fact the idea comes from the large violonist (recently deceased) Jacques Prat. It taught the chamber music with my wife Edda Erlendsdóttir (the pianist of Tempo di Tango) with the National Academy of Lyon. It adored the tango, it said to me one day: "if you write arrangements for a whole of chamber music I assemble you a section of cords of hell". I took it with the word and, a summer I orchestrated a repertory mixing the traditional tango and the contemporary tango, the concert and the ball. Then Jacques left to Montpellier, but the remainder of the formation practically did not change. One works like a whole of chamber music, i.e. without chief, I have indeed a section of cords of hell (François Payet and Florence Roussin, violins; Helga Gudmundsdottir, viola; Christophe Beau, violoncello) which dialogues with a trio, (a kind of "rhythm section" of tango) composed of my bandonion, of Isabelle d' Auzac (already with me in the Tangonéon group) to the double bass, of Edda Erlendsdóttir to the piano.


SB: You also work for the cinema (music Top hearts), television, the scene (theatre, dance with Béjart and its Che Quijote and bandonion)?

OM: The writing with the service of the scene or the screen leaves us our stereotypes, one is obliged to put itself at the place of the realizer, to include/understand until it waits of the music, its approach is in general much nearer to that of the public than of that of the musicians, which is always very instructive.

The musicians are often in shift compared to the public and it is one of the conditions of the creation of new and original things, without this shift one makes music an only commercial activity, not artistic, but one regularly needs to take again reference marks, to include/understand what is the music for nonthe musicians. With the realizers and the directors one learns much on the function from the music.

With Béjart, I had trés one great freedom, I went to Lausanne where it assembled its ballet, it said to me, "goes up on scene with the dancers and plays what that inspires to you" I were in my element, it gave me indications on the atmosphére which it wished without never mixing with the music itself, I only played the millieu of the dancers.
One played in all the large towns of Argentina. With the first in Buenos Aires, in Large Rex, there was all the gratin of the tango in the room. One finished very late in the bars with Horacio Ferrer and Roberto Lopez, my first guitarist, I left the bandonion and one found the environment of our meeting 25 years ago, it was very moving.


SB: What brought the occasion to you to record CD in bandonion solo at Signature?

OM: It is Laurent Valero (he even violonist and bandoneonist) which proposed to me, like in Cholo Montironi recording CD of bando solo for Radio France. I always liked to only play, I much only play at home, not that tango, all kinds of musics, jazz, Brazilian music, Argentinian folklore, all that I like.
In general when CD is recorded, it is necessary that there is a coherence, that CD is classable by the critics and the record dealers (jazz, tango, music of world etc....) For CD of the Signature collection I had white chart, I very mixed, the only unit of CD it is the instrument and my way of playing about it.


SB: How had the idea just recorded to you the topics of Monk to the bandonion?

OM: I had played "Monk' S Mood" with the quartet of Arrigo Cappelletti about which I already spoke, by deciphering his music with the bandonion, I found an adequacy between the sound of the bandonion and the dark and mysterious atmosphere of the music of Monk.
Monk is one of the large type-setters of the XXème century, his music exceeds the borders of the jazz, the bandonion gives him a new lighting.

Paris, October 19, 2004