Monday 15 April 2024

Unbalanced sets

At a recent milonga there was "enough" good music.  There was plenty to dance. The main issue was that orchestras were repeated at the expense of others who weren't played at all.  This is a common problem and one that is so easy to see and so easy to fix that it is a wonder that it exists at all.  It even happens with DJs who can put together, for the most part, reliably good tandas, making it all the more puzzling.   

Repeating orchestras in a short milonga  - "mishorta" - (from correspondence) is especially hard to understand. I love Rodriguez - the plangency of the lyrics juxtaposed by those jaunty melodies, the troubled bandoneon and the responsive, companionable piano.  But in a mishorta of two and a half hours where is the justification for playing two Rodriguez tandas and Rodriguez vals or two Biagi tandas but no tangos by other of the main orchestras that have not yet been played?