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I enjoyed it also - as you say, very much rooted in the flamenco tradition. I must say, before I watched it, the label 'flamenco electrico' conjured up an image in my mind of something more fiery weird and wild :) Jaco fits in nicely alongside guitarists I have in my collection like Antonio Forcione and Javier Ruibal. Maybe the next generation of electric guitarists will do to flamenco what the likes of Richie Blackmore, Yngwie Malsteem, Steve Vai et al did to classical music?
Anyone for Paco - Hendrix-style on his knees - setting fire to his Conde:)
Nice find Arash...I was going to introduce Jaco Abel here one of these days but you beat me to it.
As you say, you have to get used to the sound which is strange at first, but when you do, you just recognize that it's really good music, and it's flamenco.
It's an interesting story. He's not just messing around - he comes from a flamenco background, switched to electric guitar as a teenager and got involved in many kinds of music. His first album, Gitano Cromático, is mostly jazz-oriented and is very good. After years of touring playing jazz etc. he decided to get back to his roots but by then the electric guitar was his instrument so he used it to play flamenco - it was the natural thing for him to do. Then Tomatito introduced him to Pepe Habichuela, who was interested in what he heard, and told him "this is good, but we can make it better!", and for several years they have been meeting regularly so that Jaco can learn from that 'encyclopedia of toque'.
You can hear some of the tracks from the album "Flamenco Eléctrico" on Jaco's MySpace site; there's a better version of that bulería, with Ramón el Portugués singing. The singers on other tracks are Ana Salazar, Pepe Luis Carmona, and Paquete. Guest guitarists on various tracks are Manuel Parrilla, Pepe Habichuela, and Josemi Carmona, then there's Jorge Pardo, Bernardo Parrilla, etc., not a bad team!
this is not for me , it's not that there's anything wrong with his playing or the idea he has , it's just when I listen to it I cant help thinking it would sound so much better if he got a nice blanca instead, and also with fingers and a pleck on a steel string electric ,,... no I just cant go there....
After I transcribed Jucal and some Vicente Amigo bulerias many years ago, I had my electric guitar lying around and for fun did my best playing along. But with Distortion and palm muting (rock/metal right hand techniques more then what this guy is doing) it sounded pretty cool. See, with distortion you get a more throaty sound and with palm muting you get percussion...then I added in some pinch harmonics (those little screams and squeals to emphasize treble notes off of muted basses).
What this guy is doing with the clean tone for me doesn't work as well because it is not anywhere near percussive enough. It is really hard to do a chord with down and up strokes on electric or even just steel string acoustic with pick, and achieve the same type of dynamics you can get with index finger mixed with golpes on nylon.
Thanks for putting this up. Very interesting and there's no way I would have come across it outside of the foro. He seems like a good guy. It reminded me that Morente performed once with Sonic Youth...
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