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Now, at your age, I mean,

not that you're very old...

But how do you feel, about the pressing time...

Because we're aware of...

Well, if I don't...

I've got two options.

If I don't play the bandoneon, it means I can't catch sharks.

And vice versa.

I need tremendous strength for both.

When I catch a shark, I'm standing.

I can't have gallstones,

kidney problems or back problems.

To play the bandoneon, it's exactly the same.

How much does it weigh?

22 pounds.

But I lean over, I dance, I move, I enjoy...

I stay there...

It's physical effort.

It is.

I sometimes lose four pounds,

just sweating, yes.

But it's total rapture.

You've never thought of giving up the bandoneon?

You're crazy!

I'm just asking...

No, no way!

I play because I feel capable of playing.

If I ever feel unable to play, I don't know what I'll do.

Just composing doesn't satisfy you?

No. I like to write and play what I write.

That's my biggest satisfaction...

The exhibition starts here.

We have access through these stairs.

And here there are going to be two projections of Astor

at different times.

The entrance is this one here.

You'll be greeted by an image of the sea.

After that, we start to go around the dock

that we've recreated, and his passion, fishing,

and what the sea symbolizes.

You go into the room,

where all the original objects will be displayed,

also recreated as holograms - to be viewed through 3 - D glasses.

After that, we recreate a place

which is Astor Piazzolla's personal archives.

And there will be objects, films, photos,

videos, recordings playing.

The idea is to recreate his personal world.

Very good, very nice.

Did you know that my old man burned all his scores

at a barbecue?

In Punta del Este.

Nothing was left of it.

Nonets, quintets, octets.

But why the explosion?

Because my old man had a habit, he used to tell me...

He always said, "You don't need to look back,

everything you did yesterday is shit.

Always look ahead."

Tear it up,

whatever you composed yesterday, tear it up.

And that day, he burned it all.

Many people say that what you do is not tango.

- Did you know that? - How could I not know.

My dad and I caught sharks together once.

It was in San Blas, in 1961.

I think what made my dad strong

was that problem he had when he was little.

He tried to hide it,

but the problem in his leg couldn't be hidden.

You could see his left leg was strong

and his right leg was very skinny.

He had a bit of a complex about it.

Don't you dare call him cripple, he'd tear you up.

He'd beat you up.

I imagine how they felt

when they saw their baby with his foot like that.

His foot was twisted and he walked on his ankle.

His foot had to be corrected to a normal position.

When he was one year old, he had seven surgeries.

And, in between surgeries,

several months using plaster.

It was terrible;

that's what made Nonina and Nonino

decide not to have more children.

They were afraid they would all turn out badly.

That's why he's a spoiled only child.

After those surgeries, they went to New York.

That's how the story begins.

This reflects...

what I wanted for many years.

Contracts in Italy, Spain, France, the United States,

return to Venezuela, so much.

I'm going to have to take years off

and start all over again.

In 1973,

my dad had a heart attack.

He got out of the Bazterrica Clinic

and called me every night.

"Dani, it's Dad, what's up?

Want to come over for champagne and listen to a bit of music?"

He had decided to go to hell and live in Italy.

"I'd like to put together a band and this and that.

What do you think?"

"Yeah, it would be great, and why don't we..."

And that was the bond I had with my dad.

He asks me to go to Italy;

he includes me in the electronic octet.

And I played with him for almost four years.

The worst thing anybody could have said to my dad...

The only one who said something horrible to him was me.

No insults or anything.

"You're going backwards."

Only those words

meant more than 10 years of silence between us.

And Diana already had the idea

of writing something about Astor.

Then, she told him.

My dad's first reaction was,

"Biographies are written of the dead, not of the living.

I'm still alive."

I once lived in Mexico,

I was exiled in Mexico for nine years.

He comes in to give a concert and says,

"Do you want to write about my life?"

And I said, "What?" This man changed suddenly.

"Don't you dare?"

So every day, because he was very disciplined,

after work at Televisa, from 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.,

we recorded tapes.

And we recorded his whole life.

Besides, I wanted to know

what he'd been like as a child, as a teenager.

Well, no, I never had the guts to listen to those cassettes.

I can't. I listen to Diana now, and I start to cry.

Not for my old man, but for my sister.

So, it was defying, right?

You were... Daniel too, he was a good sidekick of mine.

You were a fan of my crazy ways, I realized.

Right.

You were a little crazy as well, so you liked the way I was.

You liked it,

you liked the fights that I had, the music, and what not,

and you liked poetry, you used to read a bit,

Mom painted...

I grew up with those things, right?

I remember the fights you used to have in the street,

when they looked at us...

Yes.

Once, a bus driver looked funny at us,

you got down and started to fight,

Daniel and I threw stones at him...

- I beat him up... - To distract him.

I beat him up...

And the guy was screaming at us!

You always wanted to go back, it was a challenge to you.

All the great composers are from Manhattan,

from New York.

And my music, fifty percent of it,

comes from living in New York.

My challenge in life, my evolution in music...

In my blood, in my guts, I've got New York inside of me.

- New York is my place. - You lived there for 15 years.

But it's not that, Diana,

there's something I can't explain.

It was 17 years,

14 as a boy and three as an adult.

But...

Let's say you were almost born there.

Always that very dark neighborhood where we lived.

And it was a very poor neighborhood.

To think my mom and dad lived here.

They worked here.

And the sacrifice they made...

I grew up here...

Because...

It was a very poor neighborhood, Diana.

My dad was part of a gang.

A group of guys.

All his friends were the worst.

My dad did that.

They lived fighting in the streets,

that was their fun.

There were lots of gangsters.

Nonino had a bullet wound in one arm.

And he showed that bullet wound proudly.

Who was "Sacabutiello?"

Scabutiello, he was my dad's boss,

a Sicilian gangster of course.

My dad worked for him for 14 years.

As a barber?

In a barber shop

where they took bets in the back room, and so on.

Shameful!

Nonino and Nonina used to make whisky.

My grandmother had made an alembic in the bathtub.

She distilled the whisky there during Prohibition.

Then, into the sidecar on the motorcycle,

they would put bottles and bottles of whisky,

and then my dad would sit there,

covered with a blanket.

And my grandparents looking innocent,

waving to the policemen on the way.

They never got caught.

They would go spend some time with the cousins,

and they helped them.

Then, my cousins lived on selling the whisky

Nonina made.

He is with the bandoneon. It starts there, right?

Yes, yes. There.

And the famous shirt,

which is included in his personal objects.

- Wow. - All this is on loan from Laura.

And all this was going to be for Pipi, I'm sure.

Does she also have the aluminum record?

I haven't seen it.

Remind me later to ask her for it.

It's the first record of my old man,

playing a little polka.

Very basic, right?

Yes, but that doesn't matter, it's useful.

The Argentine child prodigy.

Well, the idea was to connect the photos

with different moments.

Look! The pipes!

These pipes, he collected them.

I imagine he had them custom made.

The pipestand is missing, with the Seven Deadly Sins.

Haven't you seen it?

No. No, we were working...

There he is, with the bandoneon.

How lovely!

My dad found it by chance in a pawn shop

in the Jewish neighborhood in New York.

He bought me the bandoneon and brought it home for me.

And, for me, it was like he brought me a fan,

I didn't know what it was.

My grandfather explains,

"It's a bandoneon, the instrument they play

in that music I listen to every night.

And you're going to learn to play it," it was an order,

"and you're going to study the bandoneon."

With my ears frozen and sometimes crying with pain,

he took me to the Bronx

to study bandoneon with Terig Tucci twice a week.

That's the sacrifice my dad made.

I don't know, Diana, if I'd do it now.

No, not really.

Because he believed in me.

But he believed in me as if I were a genius.

I wasn't a genius.

He made me feel I was important.

So much so that he started to write my life story.

When he was in the barber shop, without clients,

he'd write the story of my life.

He got home at 8:15 p.m.,

and, before dinner, my dad would sit down,

and ask me to play the bandoneon.

And I'd start to play

and he thought I was Johann Sebastian Bach.

He'd get excited, he'd go crazy.

I studied for him, I went over the lesson,

showed him what I'd learned.

And then he would teach me to box, he liked boxing a lot.

Because I had to defend myself.

It was useful for having good fist fights.

All your life.

I'll never forget the example my dad gave me,

"Never wait for somebody to hit you, you hit first.

Always."

Once I hit, that's it.

- Sure. - You're lost.

I know I'm nuts...

Nuts, nuts...

Don't you see the moon rolling down Callao...

So "Ballad for a Madman" starts The New Song?

Yes, totally.

Why do you think so many people identify with it?

Did you play it at the mental hospital?

Yes, that was afterwards. It was like a therapy.

They sang "Ballad for a Madman" in the mental hospital

and the Director asked us to go and perform.

And we performed there three times.

I think it was the only country...

- How did they react? - Amazingly, very moving.

I think it was one of the nicest things I ever did.

Did they listen to you?

They listened, they cried,

they were moved, they all sang together with us.

It was awesome.

We ate with them,

with some of the more peaceful patients.

We were there three times.

I even met...

I had the honor of meeting the famous Jacobo Fijman.

One of the crazy people?

The famous poet, you don't know about him?

I don't.

- I'm surprised, Diana. - I swear...

- How come? - I never heard of him.

For God's sake!

I have a huge book of his work, I wanted to make them music.

You'd like him, it's also your way of writing.

Your way, the way you were writing at one time.

No! He's a madman.

A passionate and tormented writer.

He spent 24 years in the mental hospital.

And he didn't want to leave,

"Nobody is waiting for me outside."

He died there.

And I talked to him, I wanted to meet him.

"Where is Jacobo Fijman?"

Poor guy, all dressed in rags.

He had ironed his suit just because I was coming.

He was sitting at the table and he told me,

"Do you love Bach?"

"Of course."

Then, he says, "He who loves Bach loves death."

I started to study classical music.

So I adapted the piano studies to the bandoneon.

I played Bach, badly, but I worked on it.

Until I found the best master, somebody living next door.

My dad couldn't afford him. How did he pay him?

Twice a week, with cannelloni, ravioli or gnocchi,

because he was starving.

He started to teach me harmony.

I was starting to improve,

I listened to him playing the piano

and I wanted to play the bandoneon like he played.

Do you get it?

I stopped hanging out on the streets.

My dad sculpted wood as a hobby

on weekends, when he was off work,

he whittled gauchos playing the bandoneon.

He made a big figure and I took it to Gardel.

I didn't know Gardel, of course, my dad didn't either.

He heard me speaking in a poor Spanish.

But when I said I played the bandoneon,

everything fell into place.

First, they called me up

because they needed a boy to work on the film...

"The Day You Love Me."

But when it comes to doing my duty,

I'm very strict, very strict.

"Very strict..."

- Do you know your part? - Sure.

Let's go.

And, when Gardel found out I played the bandoneon,

I went to the barbecue he offered

for Uruguayans and Argentines in New York.

And I played all the tangos with Gardel

and, when I finished playing,

he said, and I quote him,

"Boy, you play the bandoneon very well,

but you play tangos like a Spaniard."

For me, she was my whole life...

She was like Spring sunshine...

All I can say is that I was very close to him

because, two weeks before Gardel died,

I received a telegram from him in New York,

offering me to go on tour with him.

Luckily, I didn't do it, because of a family issue.

And it happened this way.

In '59, that is, 25 years after Gardel's death,

my teacher D'Aquila, whom you mentioned, came.

He collected antiques.

And in a New York basement,

less than 300 feet from where we lived in New York,

he saw a scorched, burnt figure, for sale, and it said,

"To the great Argentine singer, from Vicente Piazzolla."

That figure was stolen in Medellin

when Gardel's plane crashed,

and it came back to the same place

where my father had made it.

This lasted until 1936,

when we returned.

In Mar del Plata, we had a radio;

I spent my time listening to orchestras:

Elvino Vardaro, Pedro Maffia.

There, I caught the bug.

I fell in love with music for the first time in my life

when I was 16.

Miguel Caló's orchestra came to town.

I made friends with all of them, I went to their hotel and said,

"I want you to listen to me."

You were daring.

I was.

And when I started to play, they went crazy,

"Where did you come from?" I was like a kind of Martian.

And I kept playing.

Immediately, they said,

"Don't you want to come to Buenos Aires?"

And I had to go and talk to Mom and Dad.

I told them about Miguel Caló and Dad was happy;

he knew he was losing me.

I told him, "Dad, I'm leaving."

"Your mom is going to cry, she's going to get sad."

Anyway...

I went to live on a hostel on 1400 Sarmiento St.

On your own?

On my own, of course, I was studying all day long.

What was the place like?

It was awful, terrible food...

I cried at night. I cried a lot.

You were homesick.

I was 17, 18 years old. They called me "Tenderfoot."

I was working in a sleazy cabaret

on Esmeralda St. called "Novelty."

I started to get to know the world of gigolos,

prostitutes, drugs,

drunkards, swindlers.

I was part of that world because I was in an orchestra.

We were 13 musicians in the orchestra,

and 12 had a woman.

I couldn't...

If Nonino found out I was living with a woman,

he'd have killed me.

It was like that.

My dad told me, a billion times, what his dream was.

"I would have liked to be a concert pianist."

I don't remember what year it was.

He found out where Arthur Rubinstein was staying

and went to show him the score, no shame whatsoever.

"I've come to see Master Rubinstein."

My dad gave him the score.

The guy played it on the piano

and I suppose he must have liked it

because he recommended studying with Alberto Ginastera.

Ginastera was like talking to a priest to me.

I studied really hard, I was happy,

I'd go to concerts in Colón Theater,

I saw the rehearsals,

I analyzed music, started to buy records.

- I started to listen. - And to change.

I started to change.

TO DEDITA:

ALWAYS MY FIRST AND ONLY LOVE. ALWAYS YOURS, ASTOR.

My mom made my dad study.

She saw what was rehearsed in the Colón on Saturday morning.

"They're rehearsing 'The Rite of Spring' by Stravinsky.'

She would buy the score in Ricordi

to follow each instrument.

Then, my dad would go there

and follow everything the orchestra played

from beginning to end.

My mom did all that.

ASTOR AND BORGES

MOM

This Tango, I've seen it danced...

In a yellow sunset...

By some who were able...

To do another dance, the knife dance...

Tango of that Maldonado stream...

My mom had an incredible ear.

My dad composed and called her,

"Dedé, does this sound familiar to you?"

"Let's see, let's see.

No, it's not like anything at all."

"Good, that's fine, thanks."

You'd see her in the kitchen, singing. She sang very well.

You always looked at me straight in the face...

Tango, bliss in my life...

Borges had heard my mom singing...

I think she sang four milongas.

They go to record and Edmundo Rivero arrives.

Borges was sitting there.

They finish recording a song,

Skinny López Ruiz comes over and asks him,

"What do you think, Master?"

He said, "Very nice,

but I liked it better when the girl sang it."

In Edmundo Rivero's face! And "the girl" was my mom.

Since yesterday...

How much...

Has gone between us...

The goodbyes and the pain...

Of loving and not being loved...

I will have died...

And you'll still be...

On the outskirts of our life...

Buenos Aires never forgets you...

Tango...

You were and will be...

Music is for people that think.

I want people to think when they come to listen to me,

and not to have fun or digest their food.

I worked at night,

but, at 2:00 p.m. sharp, I was prepared and ready

to listen to Troilo.

From 2:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

One day, somebody got sick and I say,

"Do you want me to replace him?"

To whom did you say it?

To Pichuco.

"No, kid," he says. "You're too young."

"But I know the whole repertoire by heart," I said.

And I played, of course.

And soon after that,

I was first bandoneon with the great Troilo.

And right away, I started to study.

While I'm studying, I get married and write.

I start to be Troilo's arranger.

I would write 100 notes, he would erase 20,

and I didn't like that.

So I said, "I want an orchestra to play everything I write."

Because I wanted to do a different kind of music.

By the time Daniel is born, I'm playing with Fiorentino.

I remember I got horrifically drunk

because the boy was born,

I wanted a boy and Daniel was born.

Then, I left and put together my orchestra,

it was less money, but I had my own orchestra.

I had the best musicians in the world

because I was already famous, I was Piazzolla.

And, of all the tango orchestras, it was the best.

THE SINGING SOUL

SINGING

Were you starting to have enemies?

No, there weren't so many enemies at that time.

The only enemies I had were the ones with feet,

the ones that danced, you know?

They couldn't dance with the orchestra,

they complained, and I got fewer jobs for dances.

Little by little, I evolved along with the music.

The arrangements were getting complicated.

All this kept developing

and I kept doing what I liked and not what other people liked.

But I was doing worse and worse with dances.

I had studied, made progress.

I was much better, and then, I said, "I'm out."

And I did it.

Goodbye, tango.

In 1950, I hung the bandoneon up in the closet.

I didn't want to play the bandoneon ever again.

I just made a living on what I arranged,

I only did arrangements.

I never played in a cabaret again.

- For real? - Never again.

And why?

Because I decided to do so!

Astor Piazzolla,

the Argentine composer, whose creations show

he's an extremely talented musician...

I present the symphony in '53 and win First Prize.

I had won a second prize before with "Rapsodia Porteña."

And then, I win the Fabien Sevitzky...

The national Government has granted him a scholarship

to study in Paris

composition, orchestration and orchestral conducting.

And I took along my bandoneon.

Just in case.

The great composers of USA

went to study with Nadia Boulanger.

I always say she was like a mother,

she wanted to know what my life was like,

what I did, if I was a good person.

"Are you married?"

"I'm married and have two children."

"Okay, then."

I studied all day long.

She was a torturer.

She was reading my symphonic music,

and she says,

"It's very well written, but I don't see Piazzolla.

What does Piazzolla do? Who is Piazzolla?"

I had to tell her I played the bandoneon.

She didn't know.

She heard a style, harmonically and rhythmically.

She didn't hear the "chan, chan,"

the typical rhythm in all the tangos.

She heard a new tango.

And from then on, I was blown away,

I caught the bug.

I went back to the bandoneon again and never stop.

I think it was the most effervescent moment of my life

in terms of creation.

I wrote "Chau París," "Río Sena," "Nonino,"

"Marrón y Azul."

"Marrón y Azul," wrote all those there.

When I come back in '54, nobody could stop me,

I was a kind of volcano.

I felt very cocky.

And the controversy started.

The musical revolution started.

The instruction is to answer a violent action

with another, more violent one.

At Córdoba province,

at northeast, the main military base of Argentina.

The cable of the France Press agency is still saying

that this city is calm.

Many civilians have decided to cooperate

with the revolutionary forces.

President Perón falls and the tango falls,

how strange.

Tango faints and evaporates.

The bolero invades,

Bill Haley invades, with boogie-woogie music...

Rock and roll.

All that, and a type of tango automatically died,

because the tango is no longer danced.

But, at the same time, I was born.

After 1955,

there's something new, tango to listen to, the music.

The evolution of tango.

It's completely different from the tango that was danced.

It's something else.

I wanted to form a band

with eight of the best soloists and conductors in Buenos Aires.

They were Stamponi, Bragato, Hugo Baralis,

Francini, Federico and Malvicino.

So they were the best musicians in Buenos Aires.

How did you feel at home all those years?

From '54 to '56?

I don't know, I was carried away by the music.

I think it was really

the most important thing for me.

- Hello? - Who's calling?

Nelson?

Hey, this is Piazzolla.

I wanted to know, what's the problem?

I don't have any problem.

Your campaign against my Octet is bullshit.

Look, Astor, you're completely wrong.

No, sir, you're vile.

It's not a campaign.

All I said is that I don't agree with the Octet

because, for me, that isn't tango.

For me, it isn't tango.

But yours is a destructive campaign.

No, Astor...

You have no right to do this.

When I think the Octet is wrong, I'll say so.

When I think the Octet is right, I'll say so too.

You don't have the authority to talk.

- Bye, Astor. - Don't hang up on me, Nelson!

Don't do hybrid nonsense.

If you speak again, I'm going to the radio station.

- I'll be waiting. - And not precisely to talk.

Bring it on.

I'm going to Mitre Radio and you won't have a show again.

- Bring the Octet. - I will.

- Bye, Astor. - I'll get you, believe me.

Bye, bye.

PROGRESSIVE TANGO

We often had to perform for free

because nobody wanted the Octet.

I was really discouraged,

and, when I get discouraged, I leave.

One day, my dad, without giving notice,

like any Piazzolla, doing the same stupid shit,

like my grandfather did...

He took a plane to New York and stayed there,

like Nonino, to repeat Nonino's history.

I was studying piano with Marta Bronstein,

studying the Chopin preludes,

playing them like a son of a bitch.

And my dad says,

"You're going to study

at the Juilliard High School of Music."

"The Juilliard High School of Music?"

Glenn Gould, all the greatest went there.

We got there and things looked bad.

But my parents hid it, so Diana and I wouldn't worry.

- Yes, we were having a bad time. - Right?

A very bad time.

I remember I used to steal hams from the market;

I didn't have any money.

One day, I went to CBS with my record.

I'll never forget what the guy said.

"Very nice, but in this country,

it's not what you know, but who you know."

At that time, my parents couldn't even afford

a neighborhood piano teacher.

I didn't play the piano for three years.

I didn't feel like it either, having my dad unemployed.

It seems the situation was sort of unbearable.

He was offered a job as a translator

for the Argentine National Bank on Fifth Avenue.

Nobody wanted him to do it; we preferred to starve to death.

But, one morning, he put on a blue suit he had,

a white shirt, a blue tie...

And so he leaves that morning.

We were in mourning that day at home.

At about 7:00 p.m.

my dad arrives with his jacket on his shoulder.

"How did it go, dad?"

"I stood all day long in front of the bank.

I couldn't go in."

Man, we threw a party.

Walter, my dad's cousin, calls.

He looked him up at a club called...

Flamboyan Club in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Flamboyan Club.

And that night, I was making my debut...

I was there with Copes and María Nieves.

They remember when Nonino died.

The worst thing is not being able to leave.

It was my debut, I needed money!

I couldn't leave all the people playing there.

And I played, I played anyway.

I always remember Nonino,

he always laughed at guys that got sad.

"Get up, you spoiled brat, you have to play."

He always wanted me to play, so I played.

Right.

Did you write "Adiós Nonino" right away?

- I wrote it in half an hour. - But right after Nonino died?

When I got to New York.

I sat down at the piano and wrote it like this...

I don't know how I did it, but I wrote it.

I always tell people,

"I tried to write another 'Adiós Nonino' many times,

I can't."

I can't do it;

that was a very special moment,

you can't...

That was when you borrowed some money.

I didn't have the money to come back, Diana!

I didn't have money for the boat,

I was given $2,000.

"Adiós Nonino"

paid for our tickets to Buenos Aires.

So I love it and hate it at the same time.

I wanted to stay there.

Cinzano, Cinzano, Cinzano...

In Rome, Paris and Beirut...

Cinzano, Cinzano, Cinzano...

Synonym of vermouth...

Cinzano, Cinzano...

Cinzano, in the nights of Buenos Aires.

The doors of the city open to welcome a new message.

Astor Piazzolla brings it.

The Quintet made a revolution

because it came with the bitterness

of the United States.

I had composed so many pieces,

I took them to Buenos Aires

and I played them with the Quintet

and the string orchestra.

More exaggerated.

No, no. More dissonant.

Let's hear you.

No, higher.

Yes, but more like...

That's it.

We got back from New York

and Diana and I went to live with my grandmother,

and my mom and dad, with my mom's other sister

on Arenales Street.

Because the four of us

didn't fit into either of the two houses.

Then, I would see my parents every two weeks.

It was horrible, the change was awful;

it ruined our lives.

A stage of cleansing and purification starts.

Coming back from the United States...

How old were you?

I was 40, in '60, '61.

Everybody, at four. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Now!

The shape of the new tango is totally different

from what tango was until today.

I mean, there's a harmonic change,

a rhythm change, it's much more exciting...

In a nutshell, tango is music above all else,

it doesn't lose one bit of its essence.

The biggest showcase I had in my life starts there.

Every night, playing

for a group that was a real minority;

but that minority started to listen to me

and to find out that the Quintet was about new music,

that nightclub people liked it, especially jazz people,

people that enjoyed the night.

I've asked this before...

Maybe...

What I remember is you being very warm

with mom.

But did you already feel bad about mom at that time?

I don't know how to explain it, Diana.

It is not that I felt bad.

Mom was like having Nonina with me.

She was my protection.

Right...

To feed me, to iron my clothes, to do everything for me...

Right.

Instead of having a wife or a lover, I had a mother.

We were together with my sister until '65, '66,

I don't remember,

when my dad left home,

and that blew up my whole family.

-"Who is it?" - "Dad."

-"How are you?" - "I'm leaving."

-"I'll see you later." - "No, no, I'm leaving home."

"What do you mean you're leaving?"

"Yes, I'm leaving.

I left some suitcases there; take them to...

Please, take them to this address: Tres Sargentos St.

And I stared in blank dismay,

because I'd have never imagined something like this.

We were a marvelous family.

Then, my mom got terribly depressed

and was dragging me and Diana down too.

Diana left first,

she went to Chaco province with the flood victims, to help.

Diana started getting into politics,

and helping poor people...

And I left a month and a half later.

So when you start that, you leave home.

I started out without a house, just work and work.

I didn't care about the house, what I wanted was to write.

I was really selfish.

That selfishness is what gave me the strength to keep going.

You never lost...

Don't forget you need more courage

to break up than to stay.

I've been working on "María de Buenos Aires"

for many, many years, and I was lucky to carry it out.

We wrote it in three or four months, just that.

We worked day and night with insane enthusiasm.

"María de Buenos Aires"

opens with a band of 11 musicians.

It was a box-office hit, an artistic success.

But with two rows in the theater every night,

with Ferrer we got into debt and lost everything.

Meaning, it was a nice artistic experience,

but a sad experience as producers.

Hello?

Captain, Osvaldo Miranda,

how's it going?

I can see the airport.

Please, let Piazzolla go even if it's in a parachute,

because he has to rehearse.

Don't worry about it,

they're already rehearsing up here.

Listen.

After the economic failure of "María de Buenos Aires,"

I go back to the Quintet, I was called from Michelangelo,

and the Quintet was a phenomenal nightclub success.

They paid you well there?

They never paid me well, Diana, never.

A big audience, as you may see,

attends the Song and Dance Buenos Aires Festival

in the Luna Park stadium...

This festival...

The famous Song and Dance Festival takes place,

with Ferrer we had no money.

There was a $2,500 prize. We wanted to win the prize.

We presented "Ballad for a Madman".

Get on this crazy tenderness...

That lives in me...

Excuse me.

Astor Piazzolla's song was contested,

"Ballad for a Madman", is that true?

Yes, it's true, we got at the Department of Culture,

in the early afternoon,

a refutation of Piazzolla's tango.

Nuts, nuts...

Open yourself to love...

A couple that at this time is stirring up controversy

in almost all the cafes.

Amelita Baltar and Astor Piazzolla,

congratulations.

Thank you.

A lot of people say this isn't tango.

And, of course, people who say so...

But you competed in Tango Category.

Indeed, though, some competitors say this isn't tango,

and this is pure tango, because it's Buenos Aires today.

Crazy, crazy...

He's crazy and I'm crazy...

The winner was "Ballad for a Madman",

even though we lost.

We were given a wretched diploma.

Astor, I'll cut to the chase: Are you resentful?

No, absolutely not.

I'm a guy with a bad temper, because I'm always attacked.

But not anymore, I'm no longer bad tempered.

I ask you this because in a newspaper,

a couple of months ago,

you insinuated that in Europe you were recognized,

while here, in your country, you're criticized, rejected,

and you were not given the place you deserve.

This is a lifetime opportunity to do important things,

I already have offers in France to work with Georges Moustaki,

in Italy to work with Mina, with Albini...

I mean, I have all the work I never imagined I'd have.

Here, I have nothing,

I have no offer and, there, I have it all.

My dad goes to Italy and soon sends me a letter,

"Dani, I'm sending you the latest cassette

of what I recorded."

When I heard it,

it was like Quincy Jones with my dad's music.

Working with Gerry Mulligan was a big change

because you see,

I never played jazz music.

Mulligan played my music.

That was a great honor for me,

because of my admiration for Mulligan.

He did my music a lot of good.

Recording already, recording.

PROGRAM: PIAZZOLLA 75 TITLE: PREMIER 70

I'm happy, people support me, applaud me and get me,

and get the message,

which isn't easy because I change every year.

My dad was arriving that morning, in March, 1978.

After a long stay in Europe,

Astor Piazzolla is in Buenos Aires again.

Astor, are you staying in Buenos Aires for good?

Yes, for now, I am.

Is there a reevaluation of Astor Piazzolla?

A constant reevaluation.

I don't know, tomorrow or the next day,

I'll start to think alone at home

and I'll find out what I want.

I tune into the radio.

"We're going to talk to Astor Piazzolla,

who is coming from Montevideo.

How are you Astor? What news are you bringing in?"

I was listening and thinking,

"We start playing again, nobody can stop us."

"I dissolved the Electronic Octet.

I'm going back to the Quintet."

The worst thing I could have heard in my life.

That night I had made dinner at home.

I was destroyed.

All my plans were finished.

Playing with my dad was the best thing.

Then...

I said the worst thing I could have said.

I look at my dad and say,

"You're going backwards."

"Who do you think you are...!"

Everything was over.

Ten years without seeing my dad.

I always remember this...

I liked...

I mean, I used to think, "I'm kind of manly."

I liked to imitate you.

The clothes you wore, the black turtleneck, you see?

You wanted to be an existentialist,

it was the period of Sartre, all that.

You wanted to be like me...

Irascible.

And I was...

Yes. You were exactly the same as me.

I was a troublemaker. But I mean...

You.

Yes, me.

Daniel was a troublemaker, but in a different way.

- Yes. - At school, he misbehaved.

- Yes. - But I was a good student.

No, you were... you were...

If you hadn't been a girl,

you would have played the bandoneon.

Diana wrote all the time.

She loved to write poems, to tell stories,

she had a lot of imagination.

She was such a lovable girl.

One day, at a birthday party, she said,

"If we were in a war, as enemies, I would shoot you."

And I told her, "Shut up, are you crazy?"

"No doubt, I would shoot you," she said.

I'm saying that this was in the 70's.

At that time,

Diana already had a war name, she was Elsa.

Nobody knew where she was.

We found out afterwards that Diana had left,

we couldn't say goodbye or anything.

"I, Lieutenant General Jorge Rafael Videla,

swear to God and before the Holy Gospel..."

Diana never forgave Dad for having lunch with Videla.

And I think that she never believed the reasons

my old man gave her for having done so.

I know my old man was told to go for lunch with Videla,

he didn't want to.

And they sort of threatened him and he had to go.

They all were at that lunch.

I'll be judged by God and our Nation.

GOAL

It's just the rhythm that I preserve,

the rest is something different.

It's evolution, it's contemporary.

Sure, something of the old tango remains there,

but it's a different world, the world of Astor Piazzolla.

CRAZY AND GENIUS ALL TOGETHER

ASTOR "RAMBO" PIAZZOLLA AGAINST EVERYONE

A TASTE OF FURY

PIAZZOLLA SHOWING TEETH

GENIUS AND MAD

Now it's a quieter time of my life,

very happy and peaceful.

A strange thing made me rest;

I needed two years to rest.

That was the summer

I spent in Punta del Este, Uruguay.

Those three months, between '79 and '80, gave me a rebirth.

So my music isn't nervous

or aggressive or stabbing,

just the opposite, it's very tender.

Romantic and different.

I keep discovering things.

What kind of things?

You're going to get there, you'll hear it,

and you're not going to understand anything.

Because I'm... I'm in a period...

I don't know, the Shark Period maybe.

Picasso had a Blue Period, a Pink Period.

- I've got the Shark Period. - What time do you go fishing?

Every other day; today I fish, tomorrow I write.

Don't you get tired?

No, because, when I fish, I think.

Since fishing is a sport of patience,

I'm fishing with the rod in my hand and I'm flying.

Since the fishermen don't talk to me,

they just talk about fishing, so I think.

I think about everything I'm going to do tomorrow,

so I get home excited, eager to write.

Let me tell you about the time I visited Líbero Paoloni.

He bought chips for you and I showed up instead.

He was disappointed, but we talked.

He told me you weren't satisfied with Pichuco,

you wanted to do something else, you were bored.

"Kid, you are never happy! What do you want?

To play in the Colón Theatre?"

"Why not?," you said.

In that very moment!

The most important thing is that it was my country,

the best theater in my country.

- Revenge too, right? - It is a kind of revenge.

"In your face."

"You fought against me? Here I am."

My dad dreamed of a Mercedes Benz.

He was able to buy it in '87.

After a long life,

and he barely enjoyed it for a year and a half.

In 1988, he had a heart surgery.

And the doctor told him,

"Piazzolla, get off stage, devote yourself to composing,

it'll be great for you."

My dad couldn't do it.

My dad liked to be on stage playing.

Do you ever dream about Nonino?

Yes. I remember him a lot in a good way.

Because Nonino knows what's happening to me,

he fought so hard for me...

I think I was the son he wanted.

He really...

I think very few fathers

would have made the effort he made,

he did everything so I could study.

He didn't send me to any psychoanalyst,

he gave me some nice slaps, and no psychoanalyst!

I learned to play.

And now I adore music thanks to him.

I remember when Diana presented the book.

Diana was already sick, she could barely speak.

She was getting oxygen at the book presentation,

and it was really difficult.

I knew Diana had little time left.

I ran into my dad again in '89, a year before he got sick.

He comes by to say hello, honks the horn on the Mercedes.

"Hey, Dad, how are you doing?"

Very cold.

"We haven't seen each other in a long time."

He says, "I'm very important, that's why."

"How's it going?

How did it go in Punta del Este?"

He says, "It was strange,

I couldn't compose anything at all

for the first time.

In the whole summer, I couldn't compose anything at all."

I said, "That stinks!"

He was worried, he looked worried,

but he went on tour anyway.

That shitty 5th of August he stopped playing

and fishing sharks.

My dad was in the room, intensive care.

Diana had calmed down, me too,

a guy stops me, "Are you Daniel Piazzolla?"

"Yes."

"Come, Daniel, I'm going to tell you a secret."

I said, "Oh, shit!"

"Sit down, please.

I know this from a trustworthy source.

Your dad made a pact with the Devil.

He exchanged success for this shitty end."

My dad always said,

"The worst thing for me would be to get paralytic."

And that happened. I never saw that guy again.

Daniel and I saved sheets of paper that at first...

Afterwards, he didn't write anymore...

He didn't write,

but made hieroglyphics with his left hand.

And suddenly, I found one,

with exclamation marks upside down, of course,

that said, "How lonely!"

Astor Piazzolla in bandoneon.

PIAZZOLLA THE YEARS OF THE SHARK

This Tango, I've seen it danced...

In a yellow sunset...

By some who were able...

To do another dance, the knife dance...

Tango of that Maldonado stream...

Having less water than mud...

Tango, whistled by...

From an old chariot...

Carefree and shameless...

Always looking upfront...

Tango, bliss in my life...

Of being a man, a brave man...

Tango, a happy one...

As happy as I was...

As my memory tells me...

The memory was oblivion...