Tango is the dark-souled, moody spawn of a Buenos Aires red-light district. It first emerged around 1880, a strutting mixture of the Cuban habanera and the indigenous Argentine milonga. Unlike many other South American musical forms, it mostly lacked an African context until years later, when it was embraced by ragtime, jazz, and Caribbean musicians. Instead, it grew out of several European traditions, taking its lead instrument, the bandoneon (a type of accordion), from German immigrants and its proudly rigid male posture from Spanish flamenco dancers. The tango quickly took hold in the bars and brothels of disreputable neighborhoods, where dire poverty and warring gangs made pleasure a thing to be grabbed on the run, wherever found. Like the blues, Greek rembetika, Brazilian choro, and Portuguese fado, it was and is as much about despair as anything else, but differs from them due to its obsessive sexuality. After all, the movements of the original dance were meant to mimic knife-fights, seductions, and violent lovers' quarrels. Of course, these elements were later sanitized until the tango was deemed fit for tourists and the drawing room, but even so, a throbbing frisson of animal danger lurks just under the surface. The music retains more than a hint of its origins, especially as played here by acknowledged masters like Roberto Goyanesche, Astor Piazzolla, Nestor Marconi, Salgan-De-Lio, and Alfredo Zitarossa. The sole caveat is that the inclusion of a few cuts by earlier icons like Carlos Gardel, Hector Varela, and Anibal Triolo would have given a far more accurate picture of this adult, sensual, and frequently unsettling music. ~ Christina Roden, All Music Guide