Richard Galliano’s Piazzola Toujours
Richard Galliano’s Piazzola Toujours
Richard Galliano – accordion, bandoneon
Herve Sellin – piano
Jean Marc Phillips – violin
Sebastien Surel – violin
Jean Marc Apap – viola
Henri Demarquette - cello
Stephane Logerot – contrabass
“Deeply emotional but, ultimately, unsentimental, Galliano captures Piazzola’s delicate balance between chamber music and streetwise tango.” - Jazziz
Combining artistry and technique at the highest level, Richard Galliano is a great jazz musician and more. An artist who has made sweeping innovations on his chosen instrument, he has delved deep into Mediterranean and Argentine tradition to elevate the accordion to new heights of creativity. Following his acclaimed trio performance at Dublin Jazz Festival 2001, a concert that was an undoubted highlight among critics and audience alike, He returns to Ireland to pay homage to the late great Argentine maestro Astor Piazzola.
Born in Cannes in 1950, Galliano spent his teens switching on to the music of bebop masters like trumpeter Clifford Brown, marking the first steps on a lifelong quest to marry jazz with the accordion, a journey that has created music of grace and originality. Moving to Paris in his early twenties, he became musical director to the acclaimed French singer Claude Nougaro, honing his craft as an improviser, composer and arranger. It was in Paris in 1983 that he first met Piazzola, an experience that would make a lasting impression. Argentina’s master of the bandoneon and creator of neuvo tango became mentor and friend, encouraging him to find his own voice, a path that would lead Galliano to New Musette, his artful reinvention of the music that haunts the bars and cafes of the Paris boulevard.
A decade since his passing, Galliano is seen as the direct heir to Piazzola, his music an intoxicating cocktail of swing, bistro waltzes, echoes of tango and the romance of Ravel. Now Galliano has convened the great pianist Herve Sellin and a fine ensemble of classical strings led by Jean Marc Phillip to pay moving tribute to Piazzolla’s formative influence.
When Piazzola died in 1992, it was Galliano who accompanied his body on that final journey to Buenos Aires, but his spirit is very much alive. When Galliano plays, he invokes the bittersweet poignancy and dangerous sensuality of the maestro’s timeless songs like Libertango, Oblivion and Milonga del Angel, and you know that Piazzola still lives.
