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Subtango Get Details and Purchasing Info
Sofia Vaccaro
Documentary 59 minutes 2000
With English subtitles
Even after a century and a half of history, after enshrinement as the national music, after rampant commercialization and packaging for export, the tango still speaks to the Argentine soul. SUBTANGO portrays the ways in which tango music, dance, and song are an essential part of the emotional expression of regular people, featuring the gamblers, ramblers, barroom prophets and raconteurs of the Argentine night playing weather-beaten accordions and singing old tangos of heartbreak and resentment. Through interviews with the denizens of this subterranean world of tango, the film expands on the tango’s lugubrious aesthetic, the origins of its melodramatic lyrics in the laments of alienated immigrants, the sensuality and profound communication of its dance, its encapsulation of the sad absurdities of life in a three-minute distillation. The film shows the faded old bars where the nightcrawlers of Buenos Aires come to dance and drink amidst the peeling paint, thick clouds of smoke, and the faded portraits of tango’s golden age more than half a century ago. It also shows the live performances and graceful dance that spontaneously takes place there. SUBTANGO is a portrait of that world of tango that lies closest to the true meaning of what tango is in Argentina.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Oscar Aleman: A Swinging Life Get Details and Purchasing Info
Hernan Gaffet
Documentary 104 minutes 2002
With English subtitles
In the land of tango, he was the King of Jazz. He astounded Louis Armstrong. He jammed with Django Rheinhardt. Duke Ellington tried to lure him away from Josephine Baker’s band, but she wouldn’t let her best musician go. He fled Hitler’s Europe and refused to be coopted by Juan Perón. The legend of Oscar Aleman, the acclaimed Argentine musician, dancer, film actor, and eccentric has largely been forgotten by history, but he was a seminal figure in the history of the guitar in jazz, and of jazz in Europe and South America. Yet behind his dazzling musical ability and his flamboyant personality lies a story of personal tragedy and the will to carry on that took Aleman on an incredible trajectory. The mulatto/mestizo son of an Indian woman and an entrepreneurial but unsuccessful immigrant businessman, Aleman was left homeless as a boy by the suicide of his father and death from poverty of his mother. By the sheer force of his prodigious talent, Aleman rose to fame in South America and later Europe, where he played with the greats, danced, and even starred in films. In his life, he faced fascism, divorce, the neglect of an unappreciative public, and the guilt over the suicide of a close friend, only to return each time to center stage, with his brassy personality, goofy sense of humor, and a breathtaking musical swing that left even his critics breathless. Using interviews with musicians and relatives, rare footage from concerts and film appearances, period photos, and of course Aleman’s remarkable recordings, this film recaptures the engrossing tale of a forgotten musical legend.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Island of Music, The Get Details and Purchasing Info
Santiago Alvarez and Ismael Perdomo
Documentary 50 minutes 1998
With English subtitles
The last work of legendary Cuban filmmaker Santiago Alvarez, THE ISLAND OF MUSIC treats the powerful and diverse musics of Cuba, an island where every facet of daily life is suffused with music. The film travels through the island’s musical traditions and innovations, encompassing the stunning African traditions of santería, the humble genius of Cuban peasants’ improvised verse, the pulsating beat of the great dance musics, the sophisticated romanticism of bolero, Cuban classical music, and more. The multifaceted character of Cuban music is explained through the incredible ability of musicians to adapt from a variety of local and international sources without losing the essentially Cuban character of their own music. That is the basis of Cuban music – that it can be ravenously syncretic even as it is stubbornly insistent on keeping its soul. THE ISLAND OF MUSIC captures the same spirit of restless eclecticism as the music itself, juxtaposing historical film and contemporary video, young and old artists, traditional and current music, elegant nightclubs and the patios of humble apartment buildings. Despite the breadth of its scope, the film takes an intimate look into Cuban musical practice, with beautiful archival footage of a number of Cuba’s most venerated artists featured alongside rare glimpses of the musicians of today in their own musical environment, including stars of the Buena Vista Social Club jamming in the informal setting of a house party. Despite Cuba’s astonishing number of talented musicians and composers, however, they have had a hard time achieving the recognition they deserve because of the poor infrastructure of the recording industry, and some of Cuba’s most important innovators are all but unknown outside their own small towns. THE ISLAND OF MUSIC brings to light the stories of these unfairly forgotten legends alongside a first-hand portrayal of the creative process of Cuba’s best-known artists. In its exhaustive review of the music and musicians that have created Cuba’s vibrant expressive culture, THE ISLAND OF MUSIC provides a dazzling panorama of Cuban music across time.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Candombe Get Details and Purchasing Info
Silvestre Jacobi
Documentary 58 minutes 2002
With English subtitles
In Carnival season, the black residents of Montevideo take to the streets to fill the Uruguayan capital with costumes, banners, and drums. The traditional black neighborhoods of Cuareim and Ansina fill with the insistent rhythm of drums as they have since the colonial times when the Spanish permitted the enslaved a short period of celebration to give them the strength to pass another year of hardship. CANDOMBE deals with this music and the men and women who make it. Almost completely unknown in the United States, candombe music is the living legacy of Africa in the Americas. Beautifully shot and poetically narrated, CANDOMBE depicts the ways the venerable tradition of the street parades is lived today by regular people of the Afro-Uruguayan community: the elderly artisans who make the drums, the men and boys who drum, the young women who march and dance, and singers like local diva Martha Gularte, who despite her advanced age, appears every year dancing like a teenager in a low-cut sequined dress. These men and women are pillars of the tradition. Their houses are veritable institutions of candombe, where the drums are made, the costumes are prepared, the songs are practiced, and most importantly, the tradition is renewed and passed on. The film shows us that candombe music is not just for the old; even children barely old enough to walk are shown marching, dancing and drumming in the parades. Filled with the color, rhythm, and poetry of black Uruguay, CANDOMBE is a tribute to this vital expression of community solidarity and cultural resilience.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Ritual Rhythms: Candombe Get Details and Purchasing Info
Mabel Maio
Documentary 48 minutes 1999
With English subtitles
This documentary gives a broad introduction to the history of Candombe and documents its pervasive influence in the Rio de la Plata. The film touches on the region’s history of slavery and the historical development of Candombe from a marginal form to a widely accepted and appreciated musical genre. It includes interviews with Candombe pioneers Lagrima Rios and Martha Gularte, as well as other historians, musicians, and experts in Candombe.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Virtuosos Get Details and Purchasing Info
Luis Armando Roche
Documentary 53 minutes 2000
With English subtitles
This film discusses the rich and vibrant tradition of Venezuelan folkloric music. Far from treating the music as rudimentary or its protagonists as anonymous, VIRTUOSOS illustrates the diversity and complexity of this technically-demanding music by highlighting the individual contributions of four seminal Venezuelan musicians. Fredy Reyna and Jacinto Perez, now deceased, were exponents of a small guitar-like instrument called the cuatro. Reyna was a cosmopolitan musician who brought a panoply of influences to the humble cuatro, from the ornamented sophistication of the classical and baroque guitar repertoires to the arabesques of Spanish flamenco. Perez was a self-taught musician from the lower classes who was a pillar of tradition even as he revolutionized the instrument through his virtuosic technical innovations and his fiery off-the-cuff improvisations. In the words of one observer in the film, there is no contemporary cuatro-player who plays outside the shadow of their enormous contributions. Anselmo Lopez plays the bandola, an instrument that would probably no longer exist without him. A descendent of an archaic Spanish stringed instrument called the bandurria, the bandola was seen as an anachronism until Lopez erupted on the scene, bandola in hand. His astonishing improvisations demonstrated the musical possibilities of this instrument and single-handedly rescued it from obscurity. Fulgencio Aquino and Ignacio “Indio” Figueredo were both harpists. Aquino, a master improviser, used his expansive repertoire and penchant for subtle ornamentation to weave together patterns of breathtaking complexity. Figueredo was a prodigy who learned to play in only 5 days. After injuring his hand, he taught himself to play with only 7 fingers, refiguring the way counterpoint was executed and foreverchanging the sound of the Venezuelan harp. His legacy also includes a sizable body of original compositions. Alternating between the accounts of contemporary musicians speaking about their heroes and archival concert footage of the musicians themselves, VIRTUOSOS features the driving rhythms and shimmering textures of Venezuelan rhythms like joropo and merengue venezolano. Its use of contemporary artists, composers, and musicologists to comment on the meaning behind the music and the significance of its major exponents makes VIRTUOSOS an excellent introduction into the power and beauty of this rich and moving cultural expression.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
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