Seeing as Daniel Binelli was selected by legendary innovator Astor Piazzolla to play second bandoneon in his New Tango Sextet, it is no surprise Binelli is a proficient master of the instrument, but what comes as such a relief on his 1996 release, simply titled Tango, is that his compositional and arrangement skills match his remarkable performance ability. He obviously owes a great deal of debt to his mentor, Piazzolla, in both his playing and composing, but Binelli adds much to the equation that is distinctly his own. Take the slow, beautiful build of "Preludio y Candombe." With its simply gorgeous piano opening, that fumbles into a tense Morse code bandoneon and hand percussion, Binelli comes across as almost a Latin Bernard Herman composing a soundtrack for the dance floor. Binelli hits upon the avant garde at times, and provides a compelling window into his experimental side, with prolonged dissonances and sections without a discernible meter, occasions which let the string players and the pianist breathe on their own before linking up again in complex, gripping, and beautiful polyphony. Tango is proof positive that Astor Piazzolla was one-hundred-percent positive when he chose Daniel Binelli as "the one" who would take his innovations and expand upon them with the class, passion, and the attention to detail necessary to the spirit of tango.
© Gregory McIntosh /TiVo