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TRACK 3 – Redención by Alfredo Gobbi – Arranged for Tango Project Loca Bohemia by Andrés Linetzky

Violinist, composer and leader, Gobbi was born on May 14, 1912. His full name was Alfredo Julio Floro Gobbi and he was known as “The romantic violin of tango”

It has been accurately said that “in the modern musical clothing of Alfredo Gobbi, the last example of tango with long hair was dying down”. That was the unmistakable tango of Alfredo Gobbi, of academic musical structure and outskirts-born deep sensitivity.
He created a personal style, reminiscent of another era: instrumental tango with academic musical structure, formed from deeply felt, Porteno roots

Although Gobbi never recorded Redención, it is one of his classic instrumental tangos rated with El Andariego, Orlando Goñi, and Camandulaje.

Without excessive academic braggadocio, and with highly polished musicality, Alfredo Gobbi used singular rhythmic division for his orchestra, achieving a type of tango preferably slow and stressed, with an appealing use of rubato, syncopation  and subtle nuances of interpretation all of which give his sound such beauty.

The instrumental solos always have exact placement in his orchestral designs, with specific predominance of his inimitable “romantic violin”, the small vibrato and expressive portamenti, reminiscent of Julio De Caro. Furthermore, they have an influence on the interpretation in the treatment of piano as driving axis of all his orchestral structure, always following that tangoistic way which has been called “marcación bordoneada” (a type of left hand comping), and which he virtually created with his long time friend Orlando Goñi.

The breathtaking violin solos and the driving rhythm of the piano and the bandoneons create a tour de force which is at once hot and contemporary yet nostalgic and seductive.

A complete artist, authentic Buenos Aires man, a sentimental and roving bohemian, Alfredo Gobbi died prematurely on May 21, 1965 aged 53

 Words and image edited from www.Todotango.com by Maggie Ferguson

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