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The Flamencos of Cádiz Bay
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Morante
Posts: 2179
Joined: Nov. 21 2010
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 RE: The Flamencos of Cádiz Bay (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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Everything goes in cycles. I remember meeting Gerald briefly in London, when he was elderly, but was delighted to know that I lived in Cádiz.
He lived here in la época de oro and he left when the héroes had died. He knew very well what he had lived and he left when it was over.
When I arrived, it was an época de plata. There were great artists such as Chano Lobato, Mariana Cornejo, jondo artistas such as Juan Villar or Ángel Pastor, encyclopedic cantaores such as Juan Silva or José Millán and my great friend and great luthier Rafael López, who was also a fine guitarist and a great juerguista. In the taller I met and made friends of all the flamencos de Cádiz.
We had innumerable juergas with Rafael, sometimes I could accompany Mariana, her amiga Pepi, Angel Pastor , and I accompanied José in many communions, bodas etc for the gente de la barrio de Santa María. And I recorded both Juan and José.
Now, most of these great artistas have died. The young artists have become more professional and have gone to live in Sevilla or Madrid, where the contracts are made. Juergas have died.
Thanks to the fascist government, which has diverted money from the poor to the rich, people no longer go out at night for tapas: Cádiz now is dead at night. And thanks to the mindless Ayuntamiento, Cádiz has lost all its industry and many parts of its University.
Still. I am happy here and hope with a change of políticos, there will be another época dorada.
Ojalá.
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Date Nov. 19 2014 15:16:16
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: The Flamencos of Cádiz Bay (in reply to Morante)
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Speaking of Cadiz, I would like to recommend a newly-published (in English translation) novel by the Spanish author Arturo Perez-Reverte entitled "The Siege." The siege in question is a historical fact that occurred in 1811 when French forces laid siege to Cadiz during the Peninsular War, which was a sideshow in the greater effort by Napolean to conquer Europe. It provides the backdrop for a murder mystery. Several women are murdered in Cadiz during the siege, and although they at first appear to be random, police comisario Rogelio Tizon notices a pattern. In the quest for answers Cadiz becomes a giant chessboard.
This novel bears some resemblance to the short story by Jorge Luis Borges entitled "Death and the Compass." In Borges' story, a city (patterned after Buenos Aires) experiences several murders that fall into a pattern, both in terms of the dates they are committed and that they each have a note beside the victim that states, "The first letter of the Name has been uttered," The second letter of the Name has been uttered," etc. The inspector determines he is dealing with the Tetragrammaton and employs Kabbalistic references to determine how to find the murderer.
Both Perez-Reverte and Borges are first-rate authors of mystery (and mysterious!) thrillers. Borges is the more imaginative, but Perez-Reverte is very good, too.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 19 2014 22:24:28
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: The Flamencos of Cádiz Bay (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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quote:
I read somewhere — Donn Pohren, I think — that Franco was actually an aficionado. Seems bizarre, but stranger things have been known.
If you consider that Franco was a Spanish nationalist and Falangist whose policies kept Spain out of the European mainstream, it makes sense. Fascist political leaders usually proclaim the virtues of national traits, and if flamenco is one of the defining national traits of Spain (even though it's origins are particular to Andalucia) it doesn't surprise me that Franco would extol its virtues and even promote it.
I suspect, however, that Franco would not approve of modern versions of flamenco, whatever one calls them--"fusion," "modern," etc. He probably would consider today's flamenco a bastardization of the real (i.e. "traditional") thing, perhaps even a Leftist plot to undermine traditional Spanish values.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 20 2014 18:12:58
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: The Flamencos of Cádiz Bay (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen
quote:
He probably would consider today's flamenco a bastardization of the real (i.e. "traditional") thing, perhaps even a Leftist plot to undermine traditional Spanish values.
You mean it isn’t?? 
I have been a spectator for two musical revolutions and a latecomer to a third one.
In high school I organized a dance band. In that previous geological era, people danced to the sound of wind instruments, and there were set patterns like the fox trot, the two-step, swing and the like. We learned to improvise in the styles then called "traditional jazz" and "swing." The kids we played for much preferred the big band music of the 1930s to the rather insipid Tin Pan Alley stuff we heard on the radio.
But jazz was undergoing a revolution in harmony, form and style. There was bebop, West Coast, "Modern" etc., all very different from the preceding era. A lot of people really didn't like any of it. I found some of it pretty challenging, but my curiosity was aroused, and I tried to learn what I could about the new stuff. Bebop was too foreign for me to develop any facility at it, but I made some inroads into the other genres.
Thirty years later my Japanese girlfriend and I were at a trendy restaurant in San Francisco. There was a trio, piano, sax and bass. I commented, "Thirty years ago Bird [Charlie Parker] was revolutionary, now everybody plays like him."
The revolution in classical music came before I was born. But it was still new when I played in the Washington Summer Symphony. Stravinsky and Bartok were exotic and difficult, even Hindemith was avant garde. Schoenberg was beyond the pale. Schoenberg still is pretty much beyond the pale for general audiences, but the rest have become standard repertoire.
Today's showbiz flamenco is very different from what I heard in Spain in the late 1950s. Although "Opera Flamenca" and other novel developments had already come to pass, then fallen by the wayside, there was still a lot of flamenco played in public that was closely related to more traditional stuff. It's what I cut my teeth on. I still enjoy playing Ramon Montoya, Sabicas, Escudero and Niño Ricardo, who were the cutting edge in those days.
But no living art form stands still. Paco revolutionized the solo guitar, but he did it step by step. If you stayed with him, he brought you into a new era. I didn't much care for the multi-player stage shows, but they were immensely popular and spread the popularity of flamenco. I say "flamenco" because that's what Paco said it was, and if anyone had standing to define it, I suppose he did.
I went to see Tomatito when he came to Austin chiefly to see the dancer Paloma Fantova. I wasn't disappointed. The rest of the show was a loud, fully rehearsed instrumental sextet, with three singers doing utterly ironed-out, rehearsed recitations. But it was rhythmically and harmonically exciting. I enjoyed it. If you asked me, I would have said it was "derived from flamenco."
You even hear "modern" guitar stuff accompanying traditional cante these days. The singers don't seem to mind. Some seem to like it.
When we look to the past, we hear the stuff that has survived. We listen to Beethoven, but not so much to Clementi. We listen to Mozart and Haydn, but not so much to Hummel and Salieri. Clementi, Hummel and Salieri were competent, charming composers. They just weren't blazing geniuses like Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. I probably have never even heard the names of the real second-raters of the Classical period.
In flamenco the process of innovation is going on at this moment. A lot of what we hear now will fall by the wayside in the future. But some of it will last, just as Ramon Montoya, Niño Ricardo and Sabicas have survived the passage of time.
RNJ
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Date Nov. 21 2014 4:24:12
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: The Flamencos of Cádiz Bay (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
I think I have read and enjoyed all of Perez-Reverte's books that have been published in the USA. I recall with particular fondness "The Club Dumas," "The Flanders Panel," "The Seville Communion," "The Queen of the South," and "The Painter of Battles."
They are all first-rate, Richard. I would suggest one more that is very good as well, "The Fencing Master." In fact, "The Fencing Master" was the very first book I read by Perez-Reverte, and it got me hooked. The latest, "The Siege," is perhaps his best, although I realize that is a matter of opinion.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 24 2014 18:24:32
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: The Flamencos of Cádiz Bay (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
Back in the 1980s the International Trumpeters' Guild held its annual convention in Austin. Of course I went to the concerts. Seeing many of the great symphony players stoked a bit of nostalgia, and I loved hearing them play.
Symphony trumpeters aside, when I was young my favorite trumpeter was the New Orleans great, Al Hirt. Back in 1964, I was in the Air Force stationed for several months at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi where I was attending training for my AFSC in Air Force intelligence. Biloxi is only 90 miles from New Orleans, and many a weekend I would head for New Orleans to enjoy the French Quarter and other delights. Right in the heart of the French Quarter was Al Hirt's club, in which he could be found performing when he was not on the road. I sat in Al Hirt's club many nights listening to Al play the sweetest trumpet around. Pete Fountain also had his own club in the French Quarter, in which he would play the clarinet when he was not on the road. Between them, Al Hirt and Pete Fountain kept me occupied most weekends in New Orleans, when I probably should have spent more time chasing wild women. I did a little of that, too (without a great deal of success), usually after drinking a couple of Hurricanes at Pat O'Brien's.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Nov. 24 2014 23:41:37
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Yet they appear on tele with cara de cemento, saying that black is white, with no sign of remorse. And nobody resigns, even when they are imputado!
