By Leo Acosta
There are 5 main styles of social Argentine Tango:
The Canyengue / the Orillero / the Milonguero / the Tango Salon and the Nuevo but in this article we are addressing the Nuevo style as it is a label currently used by many organisers or dancers but usually, incorrectly.
Leo experienced the revolution of the Nuevo movement first hand as he was still living in Buenos Aires at that point and regularly frequented the milongas. Basically the Nuevo style emerged and developed during the revival of the Argentine Tango movement in the 1990s.
However, it was developed first by Astor Piazzolla, who developed the use of the electronic bandoneon and electric guitar in Tango music during the 1980s and was the first to mix the classic music with electronic music. This ‘Nuevo’ movement of Piazzolla that originated from 20th century culture - we can call ‘Impressionist Tango’! It was initially created to be listened to not danced to, and it conjured up scenes to the listener of the city - the buildings and traffic etc, by using the electronic instruments and the drums.
From Leo’s experience however, before Astor Piazzolla, there was another composer who contributed to the first new style of Tango. He was based in the modern society but this music you could listen to but also dance. His name was Osvaldo Pugliese. In Leo’s view, he did exactly the same as Piazzolla but with the old instruments and if Piazzolla was the music of the outside world, “the classic Libertango” for example, Osvaldo Pugliese was the music of the inside world - another classic song “La Yumba”. Then we could call Pugliese, the ‘Abstract’ or ‘Romantic’ movement of Tango.
Before the Nuevo movement, during the period of dictatorship in the 1960s/70s, all Tango music was in a kind of limbo because Pugliese, Troilo and other contemporary orquestras etc, had to play Tango musical concerts instead of the dance halls, as dancing was banned so the halls remained empty. For that reason, the music combined with the poetry became in some way a revolutionary substitute for the lack of dancing. They became tools for the people to express their dissatisfaction with the dictatorship. Of course in the dance world, there were exceptions, as in the time of the Jazz when some little clubs were able to carry on dancing, but in a very underground way.
In the 1990s, practically after Piazzolla died (1992), new bands inspired by Piazzolla and Pugliese emerged playing Nuevo music consisting of electronic music for dancers. That new incorporation of the style, gave a fresh approach to the movement and a new contemporary expression of poetry and dancing emerged.
Pugliese was not just a musician who started the music of Tango in that time. He came from the old guard of Tango. If you listen to his music from the 1940s and 50s you will see how different his music is at the end of his life in 1995. Piazzolla was one of the musicians of Troilo (who passed away in 1975), and Piazzolla, Pugliese and Troilo were the new guard of Tango in that time.
Piazzolla and Pugliese, who had such distinguished careers over a long period of time, reinvented themselves in the 1980s to give birth to this new movement of music, poetry and dancing that became known as the ‘Nuevo’ style. Their legacy is that they gave to subsequent new musicians and composers the possibility to rejuvenate the Tango movement.
Tango movements created more than 100 years ago, still find the way to free the peoples world like a butterfly metamorphosing through the different periods of our society. Todays modern Tango bands such as Otras Aires, Tanghetto etc, are continuing to build on the foundations laid by Piazzolla, Pugliese and Troilo.
