Pauly’s Hotel, Feb. 14

GIVE TANGOMAN—A MOST appropriate gift for Valentine’s Day.

Drawing upon the lush and lustful sounds of Latin music as their source, this six-piece Woodstock-based ensemble performed relationships and freedom.

Tangoman’s composer-guitarist, Buenos Aires-born Jorge Heilpern, has extracted the musical strains of his South American roots—the samba, bolero, mambo and tango—and deftly cultivated that infectious blend of overlapping rhythms with splashes of pop, reggae and ska.

Tangoman play country music. The country just happens to be Argentina. Many Heilpern’s songs are delivered in his native tongue, but they require no translation. Their meanings can be deciphered by the expressions seen on his face, heard in his voice, and felt in his heart. Transcending linguistic boundaries, Heilpern conveys his message through the sheer telepathic power of their emotional credibility. The man is a romantic.

Soothing and warm, yet sparkling with expansive intensity, Heilpern’s vocals master the art of restrained sensuousness. Heilpern lives and breathes his lyrical passages, completely immersing himself with their intimacy and totally convinced of their convictions; a man ho is comfortable inhabiting his own skin.

Although Heilpern, through the forces of his personality, can at times dominate the group’s overall flow, Tangoman’s vital signs are attached to more than one man. N fact, much of their music is instrumental, both literally and figuratively, creating a sultry, tropical density that nicely complements Heilpern’s voice. Saxophone, percussion, guitar and bass are afforded equal time on the spotlight. The sax will often begin, playing a simple cha-cha melody line draped over a skeletal accompaniment of bass and conga, meandering awhile in its early stages, delicately slipping in and out of its supple groove, gradually building from one sonic plateau to the next, finding its niche, then subsiding momentarily between each fanciful solo excursion, until all instruments converge into one massive and thunderous finale, the climax of which leave both artist and audience drained.

As a spoken and written commodity, Latin is a dead language. But in the extremely capable hands, heart and soul of Heilpern’s Tangoman, Latin as a musical language remains passionately alive. It is […]

Feb. 20-26, 1992 *METROLAND*