COMPOSERS: Chango Spasiuk
LABELS: Piranha
WORKS: Chango Spasiuk - Tarefero de mis pagos
PERFORMER: Chango Spasiuk
CATALOGUE NO: CD PIR 1895
Chamamé, the swingy accordion music from Argentina, has become the latest sensation from the nation of tango. As composer-musician Chango Spasiuk explains, ‘It’s music from the country – a place where the earth is red, the temperature is always high and there are jungles and big rivers’.
So, unlike tango, this is not urban music: it’s a captivating fusion of dance and song traditions brought by Spasiuk’s Ukrainian grandparents to the far north-east corner of Argentina, on the border with Brazil and Paraguay, then mixed with local Spanish, Mbayá- Guaraní Amerindian and African musical influences. Spasiuk and his group – on violin, guitar, bass and percussion – evoke the swirling floor of the red earth patios where he played alongside his father and uncle.
But it’s his own compositions like ‘Busqueda’ and ‘Escenas de vida en el borde’ which mesmerise. They reveal Spasiuk to be grounded in jazz and the contemporary as well as tradition, reaching deep emotionally without becoming sentimental, infusing his music with both joy and wit. Jan Fairley