Buenos Aires, Argentina has often been described as "the most European city in Latin America" (with Montevideo, Uruguay running a close second). So considering that tango originated in such a Europe-influenced city, it isn't surprising that it made its way across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe -- which has some fine tango groups. One of them is
Quadro Nuevo, a Germany-based outfit that has been combining tango with a variety of European influences. Of course, tango had European influences to begin with, but with
Quadro Nuevo, that passion for different types of European music is even more evident and even more overt. And there is certainly an abundance of European influences on
Ciné Passion, a 2000 recording that finds the group putting its spin on songs from European and American movies. Tango is combined with everything from Italian music on "Un' Ora Sola Ti Vorrei" (from the Billy Wilder movie Avanti) to French chanson on "Plus Fort Que Nous" (from the 1966 French film Un Homme et une Femme, aka A Man and a Woman) to Spanish flamenco on
Paco de Lucía melodies that were used in the 1984 thriller The Hit.
Quadro Nuevo acknowledge tango's pre-
Astor Piazzolla era with their thoughtful arrangement of singer
Carlos Gardel's theme from the 1935 movie El Día Que Me Quieras -- a theme that was revived 71 years later in 2006, when Penelope Cruz performed the song in Spanish director
Pedro Almodóvar's Volver. However,
Quadro Nuevo don't use a vocalist, and they don't perform "El Día Que Me Quieras" in a 1930s-like fashion; their instrumental version has a strong
Piazzolla influence (when
Gardel died in 1935,
Piazzolla was only 14 and had yet to become well known). Full of surprises,
Ciné Passion is not only excellent, it is also one of
Quadro Nuevo's most essential albums. ~ Alex Henderson