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Tango Happiness From Billy Brandt's eight-song LP, City Noir. The raindrop-glistening record offers Brandt’s most sincere talents as a pulp writer, performer, and elegant singer. Videographer, Alex Carter Editing, William Eiesley Featuring: Billy Brandt & Gabriela Condrea as the Singer & Dancer The Players: Darian Asplund, Jaime Maschler, Stuart Zobel , Evan McPherson A very special thanks to Gabriela Condrea and the TangoHappyHour Dancers Music by Billy Brandt vocals, Brian Monroney guitars, Jamie Maschler accordion, Chris Symer acoustic bass, Alexey Nikolaev soprano sax, Tim Kennedy piano, Jeff Bush percussion, Brad Boal drums, Hans Brehmer backup vocals Recorded at Studio X & Admiral Studio Engineered by Reed Ruddy Pro Tools & assistant engineer by Andrew Ching Mixed by Reed Ruddy Mastered by Ross Nyberg Tango Happiness: Written by William A. Brandt How this album came to be. . . It started in the middle, a lot of things do. The beginning was too long ago, too far away. In order to get there, he would have to think with the end in mind. The radio in his truck played a song about a Beau & Cello. He was stopped in traffic and he listened as he looked around. He could see the city unfold in front of and around him. There to the west rose beautiful skyscrapers of steel and glass and to the east on the hill sat the modern tent city homes of blue tarps and shopping carts sprawled out along the highway. “This certainly isn’t the end.” He thought. “This was just another movie”. Another scene from the middle of a film that he thought he had watched before. The city had changed. For a moment it was as if the color had washed away and the city became like a film noir; the detective, the criminal, the femme fatale, the patsy and the loser all jockeying for space on the city streets. And it’s the city, always the city, just like in the old movies, that is the main character, the main player in this tale. He had always liked the color of black and white and here it was a post-modern film noir and its sound stripe playing out in his mind as he drove a traffic-laden highway. Add jazz; add bongos, a crime, a love story, a card game, a saxophone, and Tango Happiness. Add Frances Doesn’t Care For The Blues, One Of a Kind, Gonna Be Those, Ooh Sha Dooby each its own theme, each its own melody. That is how this album came to be. Now he is at the end and you are at the beginning. . . the beginning to the soundtrack of the motion picture from your imagination in the City Noir.
