Rodolfo Mederos – The essence of tango

This March 25, 2020 was a very special day: because Rodolfo Mederos is now 80 years old. We are so happy that all of you are here to celebrate a significant birthday of this wonderful bandoneonist, composer and arranger.

I met Rodolfo Mederos in 1995. I approached him after a concert at the San Martín Cultural Center and asked if I could take bandoneon lessons with him. I still remember how my heart beat when I went upstairs in his classroom and played for him for the first time. A little later, I took ensemble classes with the Dutch tango quintet Bailongo. Our collaboration was so inspiring that Rodolfo Mederos came to Amsterdam to tour Holland and Germany with us.

They were wonderful concerts in which I learned a lot about tango and bandoneon. On another occasion I helped Mederos with the beginnings of a book about tango arrangements that I wanted to write. In these 25 years of friendship our paths have crossed again and again, the last time in 2015 when I visited him in Buenos Aires and produced a program about him for the German radio station WDR.

In our conversation he told me about his musical career: his beginnings in Cordoba, his meeting with Astor Piazzolla, his years in the Orquesta Típica de Pugliese and much more, to his most recent musical dreams. As Mederos had so much to tell about his rich musical life, our talk lasted almost 2 hours. We are going to spread it in 3 parts.

Listen today as Rodolfo Mederos grew up in Cordoba learning the bandoneon and forming his first tango ensemble, in which he integrated an electric guitar, vibraphone and drums along with the bandoneon. He tells us about his meeting with Astor Piazzolla, who convinced him to continue his musical career in Buenos Aires. And he tells us how difficult his first years of apprenticeship have been in the Queen of Silver…

Listen to it yourselves and celebrate with us the 80th birthday of this innovative musician, who continues to play, arrange and compose full of energy.

Also listen to Part 2 of podcast:

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Part of the transcript of the interview:

“In Cordoba which is not a tango city, however in Cordoba there were countless orchestras consisting of 12 of 14 musicians. There is no such thing in Buenos Aires today. I was born in Buenos Aires, but I went to live in Córdoba at the age of 12.

And there – when I arrived in Córdoba I already had my bandoneon and some things I already played – there in Córdoba I made my first experiences with the typical orchestras, very valuable experiences, because I believe that every musician needs to live and have the direct experience with the music and especially with the music of his culture. I was fortunate, I always say this, I thank life for the possibilities it gave me: to have the old ones I had, to have been born at the time I was born. I was born at a time when tango was absolutely alive, very vital very in permanent enrichment and modification.

So I met the greatest musicians of the genre and luckily I was able to play with some of them. And then as I said, my first experiences in Córdoba were with typical orchestras that although they were not orchestras of the city of Buenos Aires they were orchestras that sounded very good and that gave me that they do not give me nor will they ever give me the books or the classes or the teachers or the institutions or the conservatories: He gave me the truth of music Conservatories, classes and teachers and books what they give are cold written data, they tell you that a bracket is worth half a black one. Will it be like this? I doubt that.

In addition. The more similar a bracket is to half of a black one, the less musical it is. I think music starts to be when it doesn’t look like what’s written anymore. When you somehow get off the paper, you go the other way. Some musicians are left clinging to the paper, enslaved on paper. What’s more, they strive all their lives to do what the paper says. And others prefer another way“.

Playlist Rodolfo Mederos on SPOTIFY

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