When the klezmer meets the tango

music and ethnicity among Jews from Buenos Aires, Argentina in the 21st century

Abstract

This article discusses the connections between two musical traditions known as klezmer and tango, based on the artistic work of the contemporary Argentine musical group Tango Klezmer Project, created by musicians Norberto Vogel and Victor Mursten. The text seeks to explore the way in which the group expresses its double sense of belonging, porteño and Jewish, through the creative mix of these two musical genres, offering expression to the subjectivities of part of the descendants of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants settled in Buenos Aires. The musicians make extensive reference to the migratory past of their ancestors and their corresponding musical experience to justify their sound combinations. I try to show that, if on the one hand, tango occupied a relevant place in the process in which these first immigrants achieved their integration into Argentine society, on the other hand, klezmer appears more recently as a reference universe for a reconnection with Jewish traditions, without ceasing to feel porteños. I note that these musical experiments mobilize different temporalities and certain spatialities and that their development mobilizes narratives, connects real or mythical places, providing an imaginary basis for the elaboration of contemporary Jewish memories and identities