At the Luna Park arena in Buenos Aires, Ruben Blades performed some of his most iconic songs as tangos, which is the start of a project that will finish in 2011 in New York. Blades's show was one of the final events at the Buenos Aires Tango Festival and Dance World Championships, in which the Panamanian musician and diplomat was accompanied by a tango orchestra led by the pianist, Carlos Franzetti, and the bandoneon maestro, Leopoldo Federico. "It really is a great honour", exclaimed Blades, before singing Pablo Pueblo as if it were a milonga dance. The show was opened by Federico and Carlos Gari with the traditional Gallo Ciego and Desencuentro, before giving way to Blades, who also performed Paula C and Ligia Elena, and got a great ovation from the audience with the obligatory Pedro Navaja. The relationship between salsa and tango began in the 1950s when famous Argentine compositions were turned into boleros (Las Cuarenta by Rolando La Serie) or into danzón (Fumando Espero by Orquesta Supercolosal). It later became more commonplace with the advent of urban Caribbean music in New York in the 1970s. Blades himself performed tango-boleros in 1967 (Vete De Mi) and 1983 (Te Odio Y Te Quiero) and according to an interview he gave to the newspaper, Clarín, he also performed a tango-danzón version of Cambalache with Seis del Solar, but it was never released. The idea now is to record five songs in Buenos Aires with Federico's band and according to Franzetti, "in a couple of months, we will continue with another five tangos that we will record in Prague with the city's symphony orchestra. Then we'll finish some tracks in New York and if everything goes well, we'll be able to release the album next year." Franzetti, who worked with Blades on the orchestration of Maestra Vida in 1980 and on the soundtrack of the film, Beat Street (Stan Lathan, 1984), has regularly worked with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra because of their versatility and leaning towards jazz and film soundtracks. For Carlos Franzetti, the project's key element is "Ruben's lyrics, which have a strong social conscience, and, to a certain extent, have a lot in common with Agustin Magaldi." And Ruben Blades feels the same way: "I'm not a tango singer... I'm just trying to show that there is common ground between the two styles, in which the lyrics can have the same kind of impact, albeit for different audiences."
