The Ultimate Tango.

Various artists. Decca 289 465 830-2.

I love tangos. Everybody loves tangos. Since their rise to popularity in the early 20th century to their revival of interest in the early twenty-first, the tango has been a favorite of dancers, moviegoers, radio listeners, television viewers, and just plain music lovers. Sensing this interest, Decca have combed through their back catalog and come up with eighteen of the most popular tangos they had on hand. The result is a delightful collection that will please any tango fancier.

The recordings range in date from 1959 to 1998, and the tangos themselves cover the ground from vocals to trios to big-band instrumentals. The program begins with "La Cumparsita," possibly the most well-known of all tangos. Like several numbers on the disc, it is done by Lalo Schifrin and his Ensemble and taken from the 1998 film, Tango. There follows such classic titles as "Jealousy," "El Choclo," "Blue Tango," "Dark Eyes," "Adios Muchachos," and much more. The music is performed not only by the aforementioned Lalo Schifrin, but by Stanley Black and his Orchestra, Mantovani and his Orchestra, Frank Chacksfield and his Orchestra, and Placido Domingo and orchestra. Almost each and every one of them is presented exactly the way you would expect a tango to sound, and you'll find yourself on more than a few occasions saying, "Oh, I know that one," "Yeah, I've heard that before," and "Yes, yes, that's one of my favorites; I just didn't know its name."

Because the numbers are taken from a range of recording dates, the sonics vary to some degree. The early ones by Stanley Black and Mantovani are exceptionally clear and clean but a little bright, flat, and glassy, too, in the manner o,f old Decca Phase-Four recordings. I found nothing distracting about this sound, especially as there is little or no accompanying background noise, but it is probably not every audiophile's idea of state-of-the-art. The newer recordings, Schifrin from 1998 and Domingo from 1981, are a bit more natural sounding, a little more rounded and warm.

My only disappointments with the disc were (1) that the "Jealousy" tango was not done in its familiar instrumental form as announced in the index, but in a vocal form done by Domingo; while it's over-reverberant yet still quite fetching, I longed for the big orchestral version. And (2) that several of my personal favorite tangos were not included, like Albeniz's "Tango in D" and Gardel's "Por Una Cabeza." Nevertheless, for an excellent companion disc I recommend the band Viveza on the disc "Tango Tango" (Omega OCD 3030), a delectable, well-recorded collection that fills in some of the missing pieces.