Buenos Aires Comes To Newcastle Tango and Jazz Quartet @ The Globe

(Review/Photos by Debra M)

It’s a quiet, warm Sunday afternoon on Tyneside, and the sun gleams through the Globe windows onto rose topped tables. The room gradually fills with tango loving milongueros, catching up after the summer break, pairs taking to the floor to dance.

Tricia, one of the organisers of the weekly Milonga de los Domingos, has prepared a traditional recorded playlist, but the highlight of this afternoon’s milonga is the live set by the Tango & Jazz Quartet, playing the music of their home, Buenos Aires.   The audience listens and dances attentively, the variation in rhythm reflected in nuanced footwork, changes of stance, the dancers’ faces focused on the moment.  A pleasure to hear and a pleasure to watch.  After their set is finished, Horacio pops upstairs to the jam session & sits in on piano, to the delight of the regulars.

TJQ returns for the evening gig, part of an extensive European tour, which sold out in Soho’s Pizza Express a few days earlier.  Their repertoire includes a range of Argentinian music interpreted with a 20th-century jazz sensibility.  Gustavo Firmenich leads the band on clarinet & tenor sax, with the accomplished Horacio Acosta on piano.  Federico Hilal on 6 string electric bass, whilst resisting the temptation to overcomplicate things, when the opportunity arises, plays a number of outstanding nimble fingered solos.  Meanwhile, Alejandro Beelman on drums effortlessly transitions between traditional Argentinian rhythms, swing, blues & contemporary grooves.  Now that TJQ have musically introduced themselves, Gustavo coyly announces a ‘traditional tango’ tempting a couple onto the dance floor and into a false sense of security.  This tango was swinging, and the musicians improvising, but Johann and his partner continue unperturbed, holding their composure even through the drum solo.  Rapturous applause from the full house for the band and the dancers!  During the interval, a member of the audience approaches Johann to say they so coped well with the change in tempos and time signatures, that they would have passed the ‘Mingus dance hall test’.  As the night cools over Tyneside, TJQ hit their stride and deliver another compelling set ending with Milonga Sentimental, but they are not allowed to leave without an exuberant encore.  

The next jazz gig at The Globe is the Andy Lawrenson Trio, on Sunday, September 3, in the newly decorated downstairs bar, doors 7.30pm £7 entry.  At the same time, La Milonga de los Domingos resumes from the summer break upstairs in the Jazz Bar. See

http://jazz.coop/whats-on/#/all  for full details.

Debra M