Concert Reviews :
"It was explosive playing. Dancers could almost be visualized on the stage. As partners in the music, Binelli and Thomas were the most step-sure partners imaginable."
Lloyd Dykk, The Vancouver Sun
"Thomas is Vancouver’s Tango Diva"
CBC RADIO
"In Thomas’ hands,Piazzolla’s Invierno Porteno became a melancholy and pungent rhapsody of such beauty that it drew an out-burst of sobs and tears from a young woman seated next to me. She will never forget it, nor will I."
E Douglas Hughes, Georgia Straight
"She got not just applause but shouts for her solo , Nelly. It was soulful, incendiary playing - absolute tango."
Lloyd Dykk, The Vancouver Sun
CD Reviews:
THE VANCOUVER SUN, TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2007
CHASING THE TANGO HIGH
Tangissimo
Aldrico Records
★★★★★
Many musicians would kill to tango and many – even the great ones – do little more than clunk around on two left feet. Or, to stick to the metaphor, they do exhibitionistic ballroom dancing, which is a world away from true tango. The most sublime and subtlest of dances doesn’t reveal its sectrets to just anybody with it’s little thefts of time and, for lack of a more concrete word, duende, or soul. You don’t learn – you either have it or you don’t.
As many know, Vancouver has a superb tango trio known as Tangissimo: pianist Linda Lee Thomas, guitarist Edward Henderson and bassist Miles Foxx Hill. Exactly a year ago, Infinity Films had the inspiriation to send them to Buenos Aires for footage of them interacting with some of the city’s legendary tango heroes. What came of it was a wonderful film and now, this gem of a recording, every track perfection as engineered by Hill, the bassist.
Thomas, after many trips to Buenos Aires to play the piano and to experience the palatial but seedy tango bars, has herself become something of a hero among the greats there who, on this recording, include violinist Fernando Suárez Paz, bandonéonist Néstor Marconi and saxophonist Arturo Schneider.
The tango isn’t just about drawing perfect sounds from an instrument. Few classical violinists, for example, would dare to extract a “speaking” quality such as Paz does so tellingly in Otoño Porteño and Tango del Angel. You haven’t quite lived until you’ve heard Schneider’s wailing saxophone in the heart-breaking Astor Piazzolla classic, Años de Soledad.
Everything on this disc is the last word in tango. If it doesn’t win a Juno, give up on awards.
Lloyd Dykk, Vancouver Sun
"A superb album of sensitive and passionate music-making. Here’s hoping it’s the first of many collaborations between them."
Tony Montague, Georgia Straight
"There’s an explosively jazz-like element of freedom and improvisation in the duo’s approach. They are the real thing."
Lloyd Dykk, The Vancouver Sun
Headlines :
BACH, BRAHMS and ... TANGO
Listeners may have been unaware of her passion for tango,however, unless they caught her shows last April with Argentine bandoneonist Daniel Binelli. There, it was impossible not to see just how wrapped up in the South American art form she has become. As she moved with Binelli, the emotions playing across Thomas' face seemed not just to convey her understanding of the music but to be part of a conversation she was having with it - and a private one at that.
John Masters Vancouver Sun
TANGO’S SEDUCTION IS IMPOSSIBLE TO RESIST
As a classical pianist par excellence, as a chamber and symphony musician heard in the great repertory of Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Schumann and Shostakovich, Linda Lee Thomas is well known to Vancouver. But her passion for another style, Argentine Tango, almost equals the sum of the others. She plays tango, has one of the biggest collections of tango in the city, wears tango black and red, has learned to dance tango and lives tango.
“It’s not just a phase,” she says in her kitchen as the amazing sound of the 80-something tango violinist Antonio Agri drifts in from the living room CD player. “I can’t imagine my life without it. It’s such a big part of who I am and what I do.”
Lloyd Dykk Vancouver Sun
Resources:
< Tango Reporter - The Magazine For Tango Lovers
< DancePartner.com - find a dance partner
< Magazine info. on argentine tango
< Links to argentine tango magazines, english & spanish
< Useful links to tango world wide
< Argentine tango magazines, books, CDs
< Magazines in different languages
< Tango fashion, art, magazines, shows
< Argentine tango in New York
< Extensive resources for Tango