He sat down on his chair, spread out a crimson blanket over his knees and placed his accordion in position. Not a single note. Even the band tuning up sounded like thrumming angels organising a tour of a fleetingly divine lake. He could play almost anything he could imagine. He could imagine far more than the gathered throng, you would not be alone in surmising.
It is rare that you get to see a musician who digs deep into your spirit and raises it screaming and kicking into the air like a reborn babe. The passage was easy. There was nothing at all traumatic or trammeled about the performance, almost no struggle at all on the outside. Most of the time he was playing, his countenance was serene and blissful, streaked only occasionally with seismic spasms of yearning passion. The passion of the quest. The next note, the next note, and possibly the next.
The music spanned continents, geological rifts, time zones, time signatures, tonal landscapes, the earth and the divine. All terrestrial and celestial elements were cycled, phased and fused.
He made a short speech before the final piece, expressing his passion for music. It was laudably translated by someone in the audience as he spoke. He doesn’t play for the King’s Ear, or the Dancefloor Beat, he seeks something deeper in the mystery that is music. The mystery that brings us together. As it always has. Music is our collective beacon, it lights up our individual path.
Chango is Jesus. He wouldn’t like to be called that though.
Chango’s music is quintessentially live. I have not heard any of his CDs, there is no substitute for the live experience.
Go and see him!! (And his band
Here is his website: click
Since writing this, I have have been provided with some extra information from Leeds promoter Andy Brown:
The translator was Katerina de Kapa, Chango's tour manager.
The percussion was: Peruvian cajon, caja hand drums, the pear-shaped udu & tin fiddle "n'vike"
Another review from the Leeds Wardrobe concert, see here
