April 29th. will also be the debut of Mandragora's new sextet formation: 2 violins, piano, bass, guitar and bandoneon! 'Sexteto Tipico Mandragora' will be dedicated to playing arrangements and transcriptions of golden age tangos. The sextet will play several times a year for special events, concerts and festivals. Come out and dance to the Mandragora beat you know and love fortified with strings and piano!

(Download a ZIP file of these 3 songs)

Mandragora Tango would like to thank executive producers Jennifer Kozar and Janusz Godyn, without whom this project would not have been possible!

• Fun fact #1: BIONIK is Mateo's son-in-law.
• Fun fact #2: Robert "Fish" Jones was a Mpls fishmonger with a flair for marketing. He created as Zoo called Longfellow Gardens where Hiawatha Falls Park now stands. The album art is a picture of Jones and his favorite anteater.
• Fun fact #3: Jones convinced the city to name our neighborhood after the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow never visited our hood.

2011 Retrospective Remix

The centerpiece is this "Restrospective Remix". Here are some of the coolest tunes I've run across over the past year. If you only download one mix, this should be it! (Also, if you look really carefully, you will find a few of our unreleased gems!)

3 Tango Practice Mixes

Finnish Tango Sampler

We also want to announce some big changes ahead: We have decided to focus our energies on concerts and touring rather than on our weekly LPB milonga. Starting in December, Mandragora will play one Sunday a month at the Loring Pasta Bar. The rest of the Sundays will feature live music by Mateo's Tango Collective, Bob's Finnish Tango Band (Tango Pojan Tähden), or La Abandonada Tango Orchestra. We are devoted to keeping live tango music at the LPB every Sunday. It's just that the regular Mandragora quartet might not be playing every week. In reality, the complete quartet only plays once a month anyway: on most Sundays, one of us is out of town. Now we're going to make it official and have just one Sunday a month with the complete Mandragora Quartet. From this point on, all "Mandragora Tango" gigs will be the core quartet (Bob, Mateo, Laura and Nick). We will make a much bigger deal about our Sunday evening quartet gigs. We'll be sure to announce them via:

• Facebook
• The Tango Society of Minnesota's calendar
• Twitter (be among the first to follow our new feed at @MandragoraTango)
• Lynne Schulz' Dance News
• Various tango email lists
• The "Upcoming Gigs" section of our website

Mandragora would like to thank everyone for all their support over the years. We could not do what we do without you! Our 10th anniversary milonga will be the last time we play at the Loring for 7 weeks, so come on out and make this a Milonga to remember!

¡Un abrazo tanguero a todos!

-Bob

PS: In March 2012, Mandragora will celebrate 10 years at the Loring Pasta Bar. We will mark the occasion with a great celebration!]]> http://www.mandragoratango.com/archives/2011/11/our_10_year_anniversary_as_a_band_some_sunday_night_changes.php http://www.mandragoratango.com/archives/2011/11/our_10_year_anniversary_as_a_band_some_sunday_night_changes.php Front Page News Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:36:28 -0600 We're making another jaunt around the midwest to play for our old friends in Madison and Chicago and to make soem new friends in central Illinois and NW Ohio/SE Michigan!

• Wed, Oct 19, Chicago: Agape Pappas' Milonga at Barba Yianni Greek Taverna at 4761 N. Lincoln Ave (map)
  
• Thu, Oct 20, Toledo, OH: Our first appearance in Ohio at the Toledo Party Hall at 4052 Airport Highway (map). Only an hour from Detroit or Ann Arbor!
  
• Fri, Oct 21, Urbana, ILMilonga at the Channing-Murray UU Chapel at 1209 W. Oregon St. (map) Right off the main Quad at UI. Hosted by Joe Grohens of cu-tango.com
  
• Sat, Oct 22, Madison:Joe Yang's Milonga at Dobhan Restaurant at 2110 Atwood Ave (map)

So.......we'll be doing some gigs as a trio. Laura (violin) and Bob (bando) and me slamming heavy-metal tango guitar: not to be missed. As well, we'll be using Matt Miller and Peter Susag and others from time to time, as we look for a permanent replacement.

We are working on a new CD!! It will be Tango Nuevo and all original. This is an extremely exciting project and we're taking the time to do it right. We will be coming out with sound samples as we want your input: you are our listeners, our dancers, our friends.

Isn't the Loring Pasta Bar just about the coolest club you've ever been in? In all my world wanderings, I've never quite seen the like of it. Tango Sundays there are very special to me. Thank you for supporting us.

2010 Tango Mix

2010 Fun and Funky Mix

2010 Mellow Mix

2010 Electro Mix

Special: Triple-SeXXXy Late-Nite Tango Mix

(Oh, yeah. Sorry for not posting in over a year. 2010 really sucked.)]]> http://www.mandragoratango.com/archives/2010/12/our_2010_christmas_gift_to_you.php http://www.mandragoratango.com/archives/2010/12/our_2010_christmas_gift_to_you.php Band Talk Sat, 25 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600 We were recently featured on Twin Cities' Public Television's arts magazine "Minnesota Originals". We were interviewed about our craft and we played 2 songs in studio. "Cafe con limíon" is featured in the clip below:

Fresh off of our wildly successful East Coast tour, we're making a 3-day jaunt through the upper mid-west to some of our favorite tango hotspots:

• Fri, Nov 12, Milwaukee: Casa de Danza at 21415 W Greenfield Ave in New Berlin, WI (map)
  
• Sat, Nov 13, Madison: Dobhan Restaurant at 2110 Atwood Ave (map)
  
• Sun, Nov 14, Chicago: Barba Yianni Greek Taverna at 4761 N. Lincoln Ave (map)
  

• Fri, 9/17, Geneva, NY 8PM-12AM Smith Opera House / Center for the Arts, 82 Seneca Street map Hosted by Yvonne Murphy
• Sat 9/18, Middletown, NJ 7-11PM Middletown Arts Center 36 Church St. map Hosted by Lee Sager and Tango Pantera Bonus: free musicality workshop at 6PM!
• Sun, 9/19, Bethlehem, PA 5:15-8:15PM Goosey Gander Deli, 102 W. 4th. St. map Bonus: free musicality workshop at 4PM! Hosted by Edilia Gonzalez
• Mon, 9/20, Philadelphia, PA, details to be announced.
• Tue, 9/21, New York, NY 9:30PM-1:30AM Lafayette Grill, 54 Franklin (bet. B-Way and Lafayette) map Hosted by Jon Tariq
• Wed, 9/22, Princeton, NJ 9PM-12AM note date change! Viva Ballroom 1891 Brunswick Pike, Lawrenceville map Hosted by Mike and Kerry of Black Cat Tango Bonus: free musicality workshop 8-9PM
• Thu, 9/23, Princeton, NJPrivate Party, but if you dance in Princeton, you can ask around.
• Fri, 9/24, Washington, DC 9PM-1:30AM Forever Dancing Ballroom 5818-B Seminary Road Falls Church, VA map. Hosted by Fabio and Jennifer Bonini
• Sat, 9/25, Baltimore, MD9PM-2AM Load of Fun Arts" 120 W. North Ave map Hosted by Mark Longerbeam of El otro beso

Wine, beer, soft drinks and snacks will be provided. The admission cost is $15.00.

Eron Woods will be our guest drummer and Rachel la Mala will sing a few tangos. Singer Elina Ruppert and Violinist Sara Pajunen will join Bob Barnes on Accordion for some Finnish Tangos. We are expecting a few other guest musicians as well.

We will be playing some traditional tangos but mostly emphasizing the Tango Nuevo side of the genre. It will be great dance music and intriguing to listen to, we promise.

Please come early, stay late, help us celebrate Tango Nuevo in South Minneapolis!

Questions: feel free to call Mateo, 612-749-2662

Thank you, all, for your friendship, support, and consideration.

Alden Hall (100 Institute Road) on the campus of Worcester Polytechnic Institute

General Admission: $20
Students: $10
WPI students: *Free*

All proceeds fm the Dance go to ABBY's HOUSE http://www.abbyshouse.org/ A non-profit house for homeless women in the Worcester region. You may write a tax deductible check payable to "Greater Worcester Community Foundation" (for Abby's House impoverment fund) For tkts email: Hossein Hakim or purchase at the door: hakim@ece.wpi.edu c: 508.954.3233

And now, a very special appearance at Yale!!!

On Saturday Feb 13, we will play 2 sets at the Yale Tango Club in New Haven, CT. We will play a set at 9PM and another at 10. The milonga is a fundraiser for Haitian relief efforts. $15 general admission, $10 students. This will be held at Pratt Hall, 311 Temple Street in New Haven, CT.

Argentine Tango has a rich and fascinating history stretching back over 100 years. Argentina in 1900, much like the United States, was a cultural melting pot of many European immigrants. Today Argentina has the 6th largest Jewish population in the world. Tango, much like Jazz, had influences from many cultures. Just as early Jazz had many Jewish songwriters and musicians (George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Benny Goodman, etc…), Tango had many Jews involved from the start (Luis Rubistein, Ismael Spitalnik, Julio Korn, etc…) By the 1910s, tango was popular all over the world, and was even written in Yiddish. At 7PM, Bob will give a lecture on a few points where Tango, Klezmer and Yiddish intersect.

For more information, see the Saint Paul JCC Website