Recording by Evelyn Loehrlein (flute) and Sidney King (double bass)
King Tango is not a traditional tango, such as might be used to accompany dance, but is instead my impression of the spirit or essence of the tango, both the dance and its musical traditions. Listeners who have a passing familiarity with the tango as dance music will recognize here subtle fragments of rhythms and dramatic impulses.
A brief work of about four minutes, King Tango opens with solo bass issuing to its flute partner a bold invitation or call to dance. As the two begin to dance, they take passionate, virtuosic liberties with the traditional forms, stretching, pulling, and floating beyond the bounds of expectations, yet always returning eventually to a subtle essence of the tango. Because the tango strikes me as a particularly dramatic dance, King Tango embraces the sudden, contrasting gesture within larger impulses. In watching virtuoso dancers of tango, I sense an improvisatory playfulness and a brilliant mercuriality, the essence of which I sought to capture in King Tango. Much like traditional dancers frequently do, our musical dancers ultimately conclude with sensuous, yet elegant bows.
King Tango was commissioned and premiered by Sidney King, Professor of Double Bass at the University of Louisville and former Assistant Principal Bassist of the Louisville Orchestra.
— Steve Rouse