Concert Review

The Independent (UK), Concert Review >>

That all the events reviewed here should be part of the London Jazz Festival says something about both world music and jazz: while "jazz" is defined ever more broadly, "world music" proves ever less suited to ghettoisation. But tango is the great uniter, and certainly was in the civilised ambience of the Dean Street Pizza Express, where Sandra Luna was promoting her new CD, Tango Varon. For this charismatic exponent - who started singing in Buenos Aires clubs when she was six - tango is "cinders" that burn again and again, and her repertoire of songs, including Carlos Gardel classics, confirmed its self-renewing power. Her pianist was Lisztian in both sound and look; her bandoneonist's ice-pure cascades perfectly offset her own combination of coquetry, sensuality and menace.

Michael Church - the Independent, 25 November 2003-UK 11/03/04