Gato Barbieri - Last Tango in Paris (1972)

Steeped in controversy upon its release in 1973, director Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris has since been called everything from nonutilitarian pornography to a cinematic masterpiece. Two key elements that Bertolucci utilized to breath life into Tango's nihilistic themes and the dark, obsessive relationship at its core were Marlon Brando's harrowing, largely improvised performance and the erotically charged jazz score of self-taught Latin sax virtuoso Gato Barbieri. While the musician's main theme has become a much-covered jazz standard, it's but a tantalizingly sexy sample of the cross-cultural stylings at work in this masterful score. While Barbieri rerecorded the core of his Tango music in lush, fleshier arrangements for the soundtrack album's initial release, this Ryko edition (nearly twice the length of the original) augments those tracks with a compelling half-hour suite of cues culled directly from the film's scoring sessions. By turns stark and sentimental, erotic and experimental, these previously unreleased cues form a revelatory new "second movement" to Barbieri's hauntingly familiar score. ~Jerry McCulley

personnel:
Gato Barbieri (ts, f, vcl); Franco D'Andrea (p); Franco Goldani, Wolmer Beltrani (accor); Jean-Francois Jenny Clark, Giovanni Tommaso (b); Piero Munari (d); Afonso Vieira (perc, berimbau); Ivanir "Mandrake" do Nascimento (perc, tamb) + 32-piece string orchestra, Oliver Nelson (arr, cond).

track listing:
a. Last Tango In Paris - Tango (Gato Barbieri) - 3:22
b. Jeanne (Gato Barbieri) - 2:33
c. Girl In Black - Tango (Para Mi Negra) (Gato Barbieri) - 2:08
d. Last Tango In Paris - Ballad (Gato Barbieri) - 3:42
e. Fake Ophelia (Gato Barbieri) - 2:56
f. Picture In The Rain (Gato Barbieri) - 1:51
g. Return - Tango (La Vuelta) (Gato Barbieri) - 3:03
h. It’s Over (Gato Barbieri) - 3:14
i. Goodbye (Un Largo Adios) (Gato Barbieri) - 2:31
j. Why Did She Choose You? (Gato Barbieri) - 3:00
k. Last Tango In Paris - Jazz (Gato Barbieri) - 5:43
l. The Last Tango In Paris Suite (Gato Barbieri) - 27:33