The Edición Crítica reissue-and-remastering series of Astor Piazzolla's recordings is apparently so far an exclusively Argentine project. Wider release in the U.S. and western Europe, where Piazzolla's music has found such favor in recent years, would be desirable, for, as systematic surveys often do, it might well alter the general perception of Piazzolla's output as a whole. Consider this disc, containing music that hasn't been much heard, at least outside Spanish-speaking countries, since its 1970s heyday, and the music presents Piazzolla in a role largely unfamiliar to many of his contemporary fans: as orchestra leader and arranger. He also composed most of the music, to texts by Uruguayan poet Horacio Ferrer, who also wrote the libretto to María de Buenos Aires, and plays the bandoneón. The first seven tracks reissue La bicicleta blanca, a 1971 album by Argentine vocalist Amelita Baltar accompanied by the Orquesta Astor Piazzolla. Piazzolla and Ferrer wrote six of the seven songs; on the seventh, Fábula para Gardel (track 2), Piazzolla's own bandoneón is prominently featured. Piazzolla's arrangements are varied; some emphasize the strings, while others gradually introduce instruments (as in some of the numbers in María de Buenos Aires) to semi-spoken passages, using an acoustic guitar at first. Generally the music trends toward the pop side; the arrangements for the most part don't have the classical experiements and the sense of freedom that made Piazzolla famous (and antagonized his Argentine detractors). The contrast between the relatively conventional sound and the ambitions of the songs themselves is attractive; they are complex creations, sometimes in several sections, and the nearest comparison might be the songs from the heyday of Serge Gainsbourg. The bonus tracks included (there are five of them, despite the appearance of the singular "bonus track" in the otherwise all-Spanish track list) are particularly interesting. Drawn from a pair of singles and an EP from around the same time as the La bicicleta blanca album, they again feature Baltar singing Piazzolla/Ferrer compositions, but one of them presents the Piazzolla North American listeners will be more used to: his early-'70s nonet is present on Las paraguas de Buenos Aires (track 11), whose connection to the more famous Umbrellas of Cherbourg is not immediately clear. Baltar is a wonderful singer in her own right, with a classically tense Latin American contralto that proves capable of quite a range of emotion as Baltar digs into some of Ferrer's more involved lyric conceptions. In short, this album will give Piazzolla fans plenty to chew on, both illustrating something of his repertoire as a whole and giving a unique window into his musical thought processes. It's not a purchase for the casual Piazzolla buyer, however.
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