Las Vegas Tango

Here is a piece by Gil Evans called “Las Vegas Tango”. It is part of his Verve Album The Individualism of Gil Evans which was released in 1964.

Unlike last week’s piece which was a quintet arrangement, Evans’ piece Las Vegas Tango and the others on the album are written for a big band (usually more than 12 players with brass, woodwind, and rhythm sections). This gives the composer a versatile and powerful medium through which to deliver; loud sounds being awe-inspiring to behold as a live audience or listener, and quiet sounds being even more intricate and impressive than from a performance from fewer instruments.

There are hundreds of big band pieces, why this one?

It’s cosmic.

The initial piano line is a memorable and delicate semblance to the main line delivered with the full force of the band later in the song. The rhythm section minus the piano comes on after the piano line and plays the bassline and only chords in the song, Am7 and Em7 (as opposed to most pieces of this canon which involved intricate chordal patterns). With a normal combo this silence is okay and expected, but with a big band it’s foreboding and tense, unexpected and dark.

The quirky but powerful bassline and the cymbal-rich drums work out of time with the guitar to form a sound from the rhythm section that is full of movement. Shaky and dissonant, the song keeps that quiet tension within the listener throughout the entire song. Every instrument is rather muffled and dull, only once or twice do the trumpets brandish the famous metallic and piercing sound of their higher register, it transports the listener to strange state, one of a deep stillness.

The French horn solo (or muffled flugelhorn, I’m not exactly sure) comes after Evans’ solo on the piano and is again deep, dark, and powerful. The phrasing and vivacity of the players is evident even through the seemingly underwater nature of the song, their consistent tempo making up for the lazy melody line and languid sound.

The guitar solo comes in during the noise climax of the piece, contrasting the last soloist with a sharper and more precise sound. The invasive background figures during this solo would appear at first to be misplaced, but make the guitar seem like it is dodging and running among the attacking horns, a moment of great excitement.

Evans has made a piece here that will be one of my favourites forever: it’s cosmic, powerful and transcendental. He wields the power of the big band with a skilful hand, seen through its perfect orchestration.

Embracing imperfection to a point where dissonance is a pivotal theme is something that adds to the artistic quality of the song. Listen for the slide in the bassline, the chordal solo near the end from Evans himself, and the seemingly out of tune saxophone during the main melody; it’s something different and profound: the imperfections marrying the small human and the greater universe into a majestic tango.