Bulletins From BA #39
05 enero 2015
¡Hola! there… Rodger
French here.
As I recall, beginning in
1954 (age 6) and continuing until 1965 (age 17), I was fortunate to have
regular accordion lessons with three successive teachers in Louisville, KY:
Miss Dennison, who became Mrs. Someone Else and quit teaching; William Harp, a conducting
graduate from Indiana U., who emigrated to Germany; and the late Walter “Cot”
Haynes, widely regarded as one of the best.
But for the past 50 years,
although I’ve had excellent instructors in any number of esoteric disciplines
including percussion, juggling, equilibristics, and Vaudeville, I have been on
my own with the accordion.
When we were posted to Buenos
Aires, I determined that I needed to up my game and, after a couple of false
starts, succeeded in finding someone who would be willing to teach an old
Gringo with decades of experience some new things. And thus did my brush with
musical greatness come about.
Thanks to my dear friend
Elise, whom I have known forever, I had the opportunity to play with Jeff, a
cool guy and really good bassist. Jeff had come to Buenos Aires to study tango with
Sergio Rivas, an outstanding musician and bassist for the great Rodolfo
Mederos, the legendary bandoneonista.
[Musical Sidebar - The bandoneon is a member of the accordion
family. A fiendishly difficult instrument to master, it is - this bears
repeating - the undisputed heart and soul of the tango instrumental sound.]
Thanks to Jeff, I arrange
to take a coffee with Sergio, who is muy amable (very nice). Despite my patético
español and his nearly non-existent English, I manage to convey that I am
looking for a teacher to help me better understand and communicate the feeling
and sound of the bandoneon on my instrument; something that I have been trying,
with very modest success, to do on my own for years. Sergio says, no problema.
He will ask Mederos if he’s willing to interview me.
He is.
So now I’m going to meet
Rodolfo Mederos, a musician who, in addition to leading his own trio and
orquesta tipica, has toured the world, and collaborated with the likes of Osvaldo
Pugliese, Astor Piazzolla, Mercedes Sosa, and Daniel Barenboim. Holy shit.
I take a cab to his home
in barrio Constitución, one of the oldest and funkiest neighborhoods in Buenos
Aires. Rodolfo is a very distinguished hombre, seven years older than I, and a
porteño through and through. We spend an hour talking (with the aid of Señor
Google) and occasionally playing. At the end of our first session, he allows
that I am “a very good accordion player.” Also, that I need to start basically from
nada with this tango business, but, sí, he will take me on as a student.
Ecstasy, tempered with no
little trepidation.
We settle on a schedule of
bi-monthly lessons, since I need time to practice and still work at the Embassy.
In addition to being a virtuoso instrumentalist, Rodolfo is also a composer and
skilled arranger, so the music he gives me consists of his own arrangements for
bandoneon; arrangements we have to necessarily adapt to fit the piano
accordion. It’s slow going at first, but Argentine Tango has many stylistic
conventions, so once we’ve figured out how something may be acceptably modified,
I readily incorporate these changes into my practicing.
I won’t bore you by
getting too deep into the weeds here. Suffice to say, I am making considerable
progress, both technically and artistically, especially when it comes to
playing with más pasión. And, once in awhile, I am actually able to surprise
the maestro, and he jokes that I am becoming a real tanguero. I live for these
moments.
Regrettably, it has been
some time since our last session, since Rodolfo has been recovering from
surgery. The good news is that he is back in business, we are scheduled to
begin again, and I plan to see him as often as possible before our departure
from post in June. Having the opportunity to study with such a talented and
passionate artist is a gift. Rodolfo has changed the way I approach not just tango,
but the accordion as well. I am utterly humbled and grateful.
Gracias a usted, Maestro
Mederos. La música es vida.
¡Adelante!
Rodger
Rodger