Momo Smitt came upon the Argentine Tango dance scene a couple of years ago.  Tango dancing is raw, personal, simple, and complex all in one, and with his roots in socially conscious rap, Momo took to tango immediately. It spoke to him.

Fusing tango and rap, Momo shares his journey through this succulent dance. His stories are interwoven with groovy musical themes and riffs that resonate happily in your brain. In the track “Dance With the Weight of the World,” the dance becomes a metaphor to explain the complexity of ‘our being’ as humans.  Tango is created by the weight of the world and driven by the complex nature of our beings, he says.  The track leaves us pondering ideas that take us well beyond tango. The refrain is beautiful, surreal, and seductive.

 “Here In the Music” gives us more food for the soul. Starting with a brooding men’s chorus-like sound, Momo tells us that the road forks up ahead, and to stay connected — mind, body, body, mind told to the rhythmic overtones of tango.  The song strikes a universal chord: part of you has been imbued in me, he says.

Every disk should have a few great ‘pop’ tunes like “A Hold in Tango.” Momo starts with a timeless theme of love and being left by a lover. Needing something deeper to inspire him, he tells us of his newfound love, tango, and how he learned to take hold of it. “I need it,” he says. “Gotta find it, at least an inch of it, find a hole and fill it in.” Quick, quick, slow follow me.  Shaken to the core from this roller coaster ride experience and nervous from all this physical contact in tango, he’s brought back to a paranoid complexity, one most people have.  An aversion to physical intimacy, that yet, we all seem to desire. It seems, though, Momo surrenders to the intimacy. A lesson for us all perhaps.

You can find sultry sounds on this disk courtesy of Janalee Swain, with her musical roots in Chicago jazz. “I Adore You” leads us through the laws of musical attraction, through a silky give-and-take, lead and follow. We're drawn closer to the artists and the music, who try their best, successfully, to breathe us into their souls. This is music enveloped in succulent jazz overtones. Is this tango? Don't think so. Sweet? You bet. Your emptiness with be filled with this luscious track.

A contrapoint to jazz fusion is “Milonga Milonga.” Milonga, a tango sub-genre, is like tango with no safety belt — fast and intense. For a while, Momo tells us, milonga seemed too nervous and quick for him and he avoided it. Now, he's boiling with it. The song is incredible. Listen and you can feel the energy.

Momo fuses tango with more smooth jazz blues in “Till The Tanda Ends.” Guest saxophonist Alex Krebs (an artist of many talents) blows us through the experience of a set of music (a tanda).  Momo is delirious as he takes the tango “embrace.” Hooked — line and sinker — he asks not to be left until the tanda ends. Is that not a metaphor for something fundamental for all of us? Not to be left alone?  Momo bears this truth for us, and Alex's saxophone echoes that truth. 

Momo Smitt’s “Tango World” is raw, personal, simple, and complex – all in one. Don't check your bags at the door. Listen.
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