Astor Piazzolla

This is a performance from 1980 of Astor Piazzolla and his New Tango Quintet with his composition, Adios Nonino.
Piazzolla is called the father of Modern Tango. He revolutionized Argentinian music in the 60's by introducing new tempos and taking it to a higher level compositionally.
His preferred instument was the traditional bandoneon, the button accordion like instrument and he was the master.
I was lucky enough to see Piazzolla play in New York quite a few times in the early 1980's. It was always an emotional experience.
Piazzolla was born in New York City. His family immigrated from Italy to Lower Manhattan and then to Argentina, which has a huge Italian community. I know a few Argentinians and I am always amazed at their accent, to me, their Spanish sounds more like Italian.
Piazzolla's New York Lower Manhattan roots gave him the rythmic back ground to bring something completely different to the classic Tango. There is a rhythmic fluidity and the emphasis of the beat is different than the 1,2,3..4, 1,2,3..4 of the classic tango...in fact, it's totally different and I feel the difference might very well be the influence of living in Lower Manhattan and growing up listening to the Eastern European Klezmer music of the Lower East Side Jewish culture.