Since Astor Piazzolla's death in 1992 there has been no shortage of admirers determined to keep his creative flame alight. His music has appeared in all manner of arrangements, which have only rarely managed to preserve the pungent quality of Piazzolla's own tango performances. Far too many of the results sound sanitised and obviously ersatz. But Piazzolla Forever, the septet founded and fronted by the French accordion-player Richard Galliano, is a bit different from the average tribute band. To start with, Galliano knew Piazzolla well in the 1980s, when the Argentinian was living in Paris, and Galliano was trying to create his own musical style for an instrument that was then profoundly unfashionable.
Piazzolla's advice was that Galliano should go back to his French roots and create a new musical style, just as he himself had done in Buenos Aires in the 1950s with the invention of tango nuevo. So Galliano came up with "new musette", a mix that infused the music of French cafes with elements of Piazzolla and echoes of Bill Evans, Coltrane, Parker and Jarrett.
But it is clear that Galliano has not only absorbed Piazzolla's music but much of his performing style, too. Piazzolla Forever consists of a string quartet, double bass and piano, who reinforce Galliano's accordion (which he sometimes substitutes with a bandoneon, the instrument that Piazzolla played so dazzingly). Their repertoire consists of many of Piazzolla's most famous pieces, and, in the second half of this Barbican set, ran through most of them, with all the carefully choreographed string snaps and slides that give the music its edgy quality - though even this sometimes seems too well manicured, despite the freewheeling virtuosity of Galliano's own playing.
There had also been Piazzolla in the first half, including Milonga del Angel, alongside Galliano's own compositions and a Bach arrangement, when Galliano's New York trio (with drummer Clarence Penn and bassist James Genus) were joined by Gary Burton, who also worked with Piazzolla in the late 1980s. Inevitably, Burton's vibraphone playing added an introspection to this fundamentally extrovert music, though when he returned to join the septet for an encore of Primavera Portena, virtuosity was once again to the fore.
