Orquesta Tipica Mistériosa Buenos Aires: Tu lado acustico

The Orquesta Tipica Mistériosa Buenos Aires and their pianist-arranger-director Javier Arias intended to bring closer the vein of classical tango played by the 1940s orchestras to today´s tango enthusiastics and dancers. The nine-person tango orchestra (piano and bass as rhythm section, 3 bandoneons and 3 violins, and 1 singer; - with guest musicians to get the full sound of 9 violins and 5 bandoneons for this recording) follows the traditional tango style, but with fresh and encouraging arrangements. They obviously aim to please the dancers, but also the `listeners-only´ fraction. For me their sound is somewhere between Carlos di Sarli and Aníbal Troilo, and this is a good reference. With Eliana Sosa they have a further good argument at their side, an enthusiastic and passionate singer who definitely attracts the audience also during their shows. 

On their third album within eight years as Orquesta Tipica Misteriosa Buenos Aires (apart from Arias´s 2006 album with the Orquesta Tipica Fervor de Buenos Aires) we hear seven beautiful tangos, four dynamic milongas (two of them candombe milongas), and one vals. These were written by old composers such as Juan d'Arienzo, Ricardo Luis Brignolo, Antonio Buglione, Félix Lipesker, Fernando Montoni, Luis Rubistein, and Rodolfo Sciammarella, and four by contemporary composers, i.e. one by the Argentine rock musician Luis Alberto Spinetta (1950-2012), one by their friend Pablo Sensoterra (guitarist-composer of the Cuarteto La Púa), and two by their director Javier Arias. The idea was to arrange some songs of their generation, “like in the Golden Age when Troilo played an arrangement of Piazzolla, or Pugliese made other arrangement of a Gobbi tune”, as violinist Damián González Gantes  argued.

For me, the album´s “acoustic side” is both, melodically romantic and rhythmically dynamic - and definitely worth it. The dancers will surely have their fun with the music of this ensemble, rich on elegant melodies and a fine pacing paso. When you like the energetic sound of an “acoustic” orquesta tipica, you are definitely at the right place. I see this ensemble and its current album as one of the essentials.