Nocturno

Ever since Astor Piazzolla relocated to Milan in 1973 to spend a decade experimenting and recording blistering, audacious albums such as Libertango and Summit, tango has enjoyed a following in Italy. Bandoneón (squeezebox) player Gianni Iorio and jazz pianist Pasquale Stafano, graduates of the Foggia conservatory, met in 1996 and, finding a common bond in tango, founded the Nuevo Tango Ensamble (sic) three years later. At the outset they played music by Piazzolla exclusively, a testament to the immense variety in the Argentinian composer's opus. The quintet became a trio and is now a duo, offering on this release three Piazzolla tracks – two of his dramatic ‘Seasons’ and the elegiac, evergreen, ‘Adiós Nonino’ – as well as Horacio Salgán's playful ‘A Fuego Lento’, two meditative instrumentals of Gardel standards, and three of their own compositions. The mix works well, and the duo's chemistry is tangible in intimate, almost conversational arrangements – far mellower than anything you’d hear in, say, Piazzolla's last quintet. It usually takes more than two instruments to tango, and Stafano's piano has to work hard at times. Iorio's bandoneón isn’t as strident as it might be and those after a passionate Buenos Aires-style tango might feel a lack here. But there's immense virtuosity, plus a vivacious talent honed through years of live performance; Nocturno is a more-than-worthy update of the European tango repertoire.