Pipi Piazzolla is the leader of the band Escalandrúm, a damn fine drummer, and probably the most omnipresent musician on the Buenos Aires scene. Want to find Pipi? Go to Thelonious and he'll probably being playing, regardless of which band is on stage.
Eric Benson: Escalandrúm changed its sound in the early 2000s. What was the change? And why did you decide to undertake it?
Pipi Piazzolla: I'd been playing with Guillermo Klein for two years, and we'd been making music that was like instrumental jazz but with Argentine rhythms. I wanted to take that kind of sound to Escalandrúm. I wanted to have a voice that was more Argentine. Escalandrúm was a Latin Jazz group and, suddenly, we became a group that played Argentine music. It was 2002, April and May more or less.
EB: I read an interview where you said that the sound of Escalandrúm changed when you started using claves more than typical counted rhythms. Tell me more about that.
PP: You hear how Cuban music has a clave? All of the music gets built on top of it. In Escalandrúm, we use distinct claves to play in distinct meters.
If you're playing a song that's in 7/4 or 7/8, you have distinct claves to play it. One might be
clave #1 Or another could be
clave #2 Then you're going to have this
clave #3 Things that are more
clave #4, you can put the music on top of that without having to count. The music sounds more fluid. You don't have to count strictly, because the clave gives you a framework within which to play.
So yeah, we were putting together a ton of distinct meters with different types of claves. You can hear how it works in Escalandrúm's songs. They're super complicated rhythmically speaking, but they sound simple.
EB: Do these complicated meters arise out of the claves? Do you say, we're going to play this clave and then...
PP: No. You have a complicated rhythm and you put in claves so that it sounds more natural. Say you have a song that's in 11, you don't have to count, “1, 2, 3, until 11." You can make it 6 plus 5, which gives you 11. You can make the 6 into 3 plus 3. The 5, you can make 3 plus 2. It's much easier to feel.
When I lived in Los Angeles, we would play the telephone numbers of our friends. Like, this guy's number is 765-3243. The 7, we play a clave in 7. The 6, another clave in 6. Five, the clave in 5 is Mission Impossible. You know the theme song
<>Mission Impossible, right? Did you ever think that song was in 5?
EB: No.
PP: Because it sounds natural. It's a clave. It gets used all the time for playing in 5.
EB: So a lot of these claves aren't Argentine. How is this Argentine music?
PP: If you listen to it, you'll feel it. The music is evolving. We're not going to play an Argentine rhythm like they would have played it 40 years ago. We're inventing new rhythms with an Argentine flavor. I think it's in the flavor, the vibe.
EB: And that vibe owes something to the musical legacy of Argentina in general?
PP: We're very influenced by Argentine music and by jazz. We mix the two. There are improvisations, there are moments when it transforms into chamber music, and yes, it takes a lot of influences from Argentine music. We use folkloric rhythms—with different claves, sure, but you don't notice that. That's in the background.
EB: Is it something intentional, or is it something that just comes out because you're Argentines.
PP: It's what come out. The other day, we were rehearsing one of my songs, and one of the other musicians says to me, “this part sounds very tango." That hadn't occurred to me at all. But it was there. I don't even listen to tango. Yes, my grandfather is Astor Piazzolla, I listened to tango growing up; but it's not something I have playing on the stereo all day. But it's in my blood. It's in the air. And what's in the air sticks to you. Like the accent, the way we speak. There's a little bit of that in Escalandrúm's music.
This interviewed has been translated from the original Spanish. It was conducted on April 14, 2008 at Piazzolla's home in the Belgrano neighborhood of Buenos Aires.
Eric Benson: Escalandrúm changed its sound in the early 2000s. What was the change? And why did you decide to undertake it?
Pipi Piazzolla: I'd been playing with Guillermo Klein for two years, and we'd been making music that was like instrumental jazz but with Argentine rhythms. I wanted to take that kind of sound to Escalandrúm. I wanted to have a voice that was more Argentine. Escalandrúm was a Latin Jazz group and, suddenly, we became a group that played Argentine music. It was 2002, April and May more or less.
EB: I read an interview where you said that the sound of Escalandrúm changed when you started using claves more than typical counted rhythms. Tell me more about that.
PP: You hear how Cuban music has a clave? All of the music gets built on top of it. In Escalandrúm, we use distinct claves to play in distinct meters.
If you're playing a song that's in 7/4 or 7/8, you have distinct claves to play it. One might be
clave #1 Or another could be
clave #2 Then you're going to have this
clave #3 Things that are more
clave #4, you can put the music on top of that without having to count. The music sounds more fluid. You don't have to count strictly, because the clave gives you a framework within which to play.
So yeah, we were putting together a ton of distinct meters with different types of claves. You can hear how it works in Escalandrúm's songs. They're super complicated rhythmically speaking, but they sound simple.
EB: Do these complicated meters arise out of the claves? Do you say, we're going to play this clave and then...
PP: No. You have a complicated rhythm and you put in claves so that it sounds more natural. Say you have a song that's in 11, you don't have to count, “1, 2, 3, until 11." You can make it 6 plus 5, which gives you 11. You can make the 6 into 3 plus 3. The 5, you can make 3 plus 2. It's much easier to feel.
When I lived in Los Angeles, we would play the telephone numbers of our friends. Like, this guy's number is 765-3243. The 7, we play a clave in 7. The 6, another clave in 6. Five, the clave in 5 is Mission Impossible. You know the theme song
<>Mission Impossible, right? Did you ever think that song was in 5?
EB: No.
PP: Because it sounds natural. It's a clave. It gets used all the time for playing in 5.
EB: So a lot of these claves aren't Argentine. How is this Argentine music?
PP: If you listen to it, you'll feel it. The music is evolving. We're not going to play an Argentine rhythm like they would have played it 40 years ago. We're inventing new rhythms with an Argentine flavor. I think it's in the flavor, the vibe.
EB: And that vibe owes something to the musical legacy of Argentina in general?
PP: We're very influenced by Argentine music and by jazz. We mix the two. There are improvisations, there are moments when it transforms into chamber music, and yes, it takes a lot of influences from Argentine music. We use folkloric rhythms—with different claves, sure, but you don't notice that. That's in the background.
EB: Is it something intentional, or is it something that just comes out because you're Argentines.
PP: It's what come out. The other day, we were rehearsing one of my songs, and one of the other musicians says to me, “this part sounds very tango." That hadn't occurred to me at all. But it was there. I don't even listen to tango. Yes, my grandfather is Astor Piazzolla, I listened to tango growing up; but it's not something I have playing on the stereo all day. But it's in my blood. It's in the air. And what's in the air sticks to you. Like the accent, the way we speak. There's a little bit of that in Escalandrúm's music.
This interviewed has been translated from the original Spanish. It was conducted on April 14, 2008 at Piazzolla's home in the Belgrano neighborhood of Buenos Aires.
