Astor Piazzolla went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger, probably the most famous music teacher in the world at the time, and he brought a stack of symphonies with him. He wanted to be a real composer. A classical one.

She went through his music, and then she kept asking him the same thing. He’d told her he wasn’t a pianist, so what did he play?

He didn’t want to tell her because he played the bandoneón, that little squeezebox you hear in tango. Back in Buenos Aires, tango was cabaret music. Brothel music. He was so embarrassed he pictured her throwing him out of her fourth-floor window.