Dino Saluzzi

Despite his long history with ECM Records, Argentinian composer and bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi has never released a live recording until now. These four new compositions are separate but equal parts of a larger work; in essence, the concerto that is El Encuentro. They were recorded with the Metropole Orchestra under the direction of conductor Jules Buckley for NPS Radio in the Netherlands. The soloists are Saluzzi, his brother Felix on saxophone, and cellist Anja Lechner. El Encuentro ("The Meeting") is a series of musical short stories that ultimately become an entire narrative. The opening work, "Vals de los Dias," is a waltz that, in the beginning, lets its colors get shaped by strings bowed and plucked, overlapping in a dark, harmonic swirl before Saluzzi enters to play just the skeletal melody with traces of a folk song before they take over again…

With Astor Piazzolla's recent death, Dino Saluzzi inherits the mantle of tango supremacy. This '91 release has him playing with his brothers Celso (who also plays the bandoneon), Jose (a drummer and percussionist), and Felix (a saxophonist), plus vocalists, guitarists, and another percussionist. The music mixes tango with elements of Bolivian and Uruguayan music. There are some beautiful sections, and some uneven ones as well.

An album of soliloquies from the master. After highly acclaimed albums in formations from duo and trio to family band and orchestra, here is the great Argentinean bandoneon player Dino Saluzzi in his first purely solo recording in more than 30 years. (The early solo albums Kultrum and Andina established his reputation outside his homeland). Recorded in the Saluzzi Music Studio in Buenos Aires between February and June 2019, it is a powerful reminder of Dino’s gifts as a musical storyteller of great subtlety. His pieces, in this intimate recording, reach back to early memories; “Don Caye”, subtitled “Variations on the work of Cayetano Saluzzi”, is a most touching dedication to Dino’s father. Throughout, the bandoneonist reflects upon the fleeting passage of time, instrument and performer breathing as one.

If there is an actual sonic intersection between the natural world and music, then Navidad de los Andes, the collaborative recording between master bandoneonist and composer Dino Saluzzi, his younger brother, saxophonist Felix Saluzzi, and German cellist Anja Lechner has perhaps found it. The brothers have been playing music together for over 60 years; Lechner has been working with the elder Saluzzi since Kultrum in the mid-'90s. Felix and Lechner were both featured soloists on Saluzzi's 2009 orchestral recording El Encuentro. That said, these previous recordings were but preparation for Navidad de los Andes, a collection of "tunes" where the boundaries between compositional jazz and structured improvisation blur.

Dino Saluzzi - El Encuentro (2010) {ECM 2155}
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© 2010 ECM Records | ECM 2155
Jazz / Classical / Orchestral World Music / Bandoneon

Dino Saluzzi’s new music for orchestra and soloists characteristically glides through the borders between the idioms. A Saluzzi composition can, from one minute to the next, be “serious”, “popular”, “traditional”, “experimental, even if these style divisions barely exist for a bandoneonist who prefers to see his work as “simply an expression of innocence”. “El Encuentro” was recorded live in Amsterdam with the Metropole Orchestra in February 2009 and is issued in time for Dino’s 75th birthday in May.

The music throughout this set, which consists of Dino Saluzzi originals, is quite charming. The combination of Saluzzi's bandoneon, acoustic guitarist Jose Maria Saluzzi, and bassist Palle Danielsson works quite well, and both the arranged and improvised ensembles are melodic. Some of the music consists of modern tangos and there are also ballads and more jazz-oriented pieces. The mood is sometimes wistful and nostalgic, but it is not derivative of the past. A delightful set.

Dino Saluzzi & Rosamunde Quartett - Kultrum (1998) {ECM New Series 1638}
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© 1998 ECM Records | ECM 1638 | ECM New Series
Jazz / Classical / Chamber Music / World Music

Argentine composer-performer Dino Saluzzi is a bandoneonista, a master of the button-box accordion that was invented in 19th-century Germany but is best known as the native voice of the tango. Born in 1935, Saluzzi has had a wide variety of musical experience in various genres such as folk, jazz and tango, but his own very individual music defies easy classification, definitely haunted by the wistful soul of tango but perhaps reaching a little further, toward Argentina's native heritage, alloying the sense of longing and nostalgia with exquisite delicacy and understatement.