Alejandro Toledo

I try to focus this blog on live performances of Piazzolla's music. There are many videos which use Piazzolla's music as a sound track for vacation photos or movies of waterfalls and mountains. I record the existence of those non-performance videos as data but otherwise ignore them. Three videos have arrived this month which do not deserve to be ignored. They utilize original, live performances of Piazzolla's music but that music is used as a soundtrack for cleverly done edits of famous films. These are created by UK based, Argentine saxophone player, Alejandro Toledo, accompanied in the music by Catherine-André Martel on cello and Alejandro Ochoa on piano. That talented trio recorded the music in November, 2005 at Pollack Hall, McGill University. The video featured below utilizes the music of Otono Porteño and cuts from Vittorio De Sica's famous movie, The Bicycle Thief. Clearly some creative thought has gone into coordinating the editing of the movie with the phrasing and flow of the music. Try not to let the film distract you too much from the music because the trio's performance is exceptionally good. There were two other related videos this month. One utilizes an original performance by the same trio of Invierno Porteño (with film Taxi Driver) and the other, Verano Porteño (with film Leon).

In addition to being a creative editor of film, Alejandro Toledo is a classically trained saxophone player with a degree from McGill University. He studied Gypsy music in Romania and is currently a PhD candidate in Eastern European Roma/Gypsy Performance Practices under Dr. Laudan Nooshin at City University in London. And at night, he fronts one of the most popular underground bands in London - The Magic Tombolinos - whose multi-ethnic music is exciting but simply unclassifiable.

Clearly he is a musician going places. I hope someday, Alejandro will slow down long enough to give us some more of his superb interpretations of Piazzolla.

If the video does not appear below, click here.



To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.