Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
|
|
|
Paco interview
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
   
NormanKliman
Posts: 1143
Joined: Sep. 1 2007
|
 Paco interview
|
|
|
Paco de Lucía's going to play here in Jerez on Monday and it's causing a lot of expectation. I went out for lunch today and noticed this interview in yesterday's local paper. Scroll down for my translation to English. Notice how Paco prefers not to name a certain cante because of superstition, and even asks the reporter not to write it. If anyone really doesn't know what this is about, PM me and I'll explain. Otherwise, it'd be nice if we could respect his wishes.
Fuente: Diario de Jerez, edición de 14 de agosto de 2010, de David Fernández.
Toca el lunes en Jerez por primera vez. ¿Impone tocar ante tanta afición?
PdL: Es una tierra donde está la esencia, el cogollo del flamenco. Todavía la gente se junta de fiesta para disfrutar. Esto sólo se da ya en Jerez. ¡Cómo tocan los Morao! No se puede tener más soniquete. Diego (del Morao) es mi debilidad. También Gerardo Núñez, Paco (Cepero) y Parrilla, por no hablar de los cantaores.
La Paquera, Terremoto... ¿con quién se iría de fiesta?
PdL: Con todos, y con Luis El Zambo, me gusta mucho, y el de La Morena (Fernando) y Capullo... Es la tierra de más arte.
¿Qué discos se llevaría a una isla desierta?
PdL: Me llevaría un MP4 con tres mil canciones, porque un sólo disco te empacha.
Y de su propia cosecha, ¿sería capaz de elegir uno?
PdL: No. Soy demasiado perfeccionista y aunque a lo mejor un disco sea bueno, si fallan tres detalles ya no me gusta.
¿Prepara un nuevo trabajo ligado a la copla, no?
PdL: No está decidido al 100%, aunque puede funcionar. Me encanta la gran variedad de melodías que tiene la copla, me gusta sobre todo Quiroga.
Y de los que grabó con Camarón, ¿qué me dice?
PdL: Hay muchas cosas buenas, mil detalles. El arte no es una obra completa, es el matiz.
Qué tenía Camarón que le hacía tan distinto?
PdL: Fue el primer músico dentro del cante flamenco. Hasta Camarón, el cantaor era una especie de salvaje que pegaba un grito y te dolía y ni él mismo sabía por qué. Ahí está Manuel Torre... Pero Camarón tenía oído de tísico. Y era muy rancio, capaz de recorrer 500 kilómetros para escuchar a una vieja que cantaba. Empezamos a crear cuando no te podías salir porque te llamaban chufla. Era un riesgo. Una sola vez me comentó que a lo mejor a los puristas no les iba a gustar, y le dije que si no les gustaba, que aprendieran, ya lo entenderían. Para mí era el mejor.
Algunos sostienen que La leyenda del tiempo fue un punto de inflexión para Camarón, ¿lo compartes?
PdL: Pero ¿qué es lo que se hizo? He oído que fue la primera vez que se mojó. ¿Por qué? ¿Porque cantaba con una batería? Eso no es evolucionar para mí, eso es decorar. Evolución es lo que hicimos antes con una guitarra y una voz. Eso es decorar el cante. Que no confundan a la gente. La evolución está en matices.
La crítica se rindió a sus pies hace largo tiempo, pero también los propios artistas. ¿Se lo cree?
PdL: El éxito de un artista es llegar a los demás artistas. El dinero y la fama, bienvenidos, pero que un artista te diga ole de verdad, eso es el éxito.
Ha cambiado el elenco por completo, ¿por qué?
PdL: Con el grupo anterior me tiré muchos años. Era maravilloso. Pero necesitaba probarme a mi mismo con otra gente, para ver si era capaz de hacer otras cosas. Los actuales componentes del grupo son jóvenes y me estimulan.
¿Qué diferencia encuentra entre las actuales composiciones y las anteriores junto a Camarón?
PdL: Hasta que nos juntamos los dos, todo era hacer los cantes del Mellizo, Chacón, la soleá de Triana... Aquello era tenerlo todo muy bien aprendido y ya está. Pero no se puede vivir siempre de lo mismo, eso convertiría al flamenco en una música de museo, muerta. Y aún hoy Camarón está por encima de todos como una nube de la que la gente no puede escapar. Hacer algo distinto ahora es muy difícil. Hoy falta personalidad y originalidad.
En sus conciertos, el cante es un instrumento más, ¿le apetece hacer un disco o una gira acompañando a los cantaores actuales?
PdL: Lo que más me gusta del mundo es el cante, de niño quería cantar, pero era muy tímido y elegí la guitarra. He tratado de cantar tocando, con un sentido de la melodía que imite al cantaor. (Lo que) pasa (es) que la vida... Al final soy el protagonista y, está bien lo que dices, pero sería para España, no se entendería igual fuera.
¿Sigue teniendo miedo a no dar la talla?
PdL: No se quita nunca, me he pasado la vida pensando que no sabía tocar, hasta hace poco.
¿El flamenco da para llenar la nevera o forrarse?
PdL: El ser artista y que te guste tu profesión ya es un lujo. Si además la olla hierve todos los días, gloria. Hay gente joven que viene al camerino y lo que más le importa es ser rica. No llegarán a nada.
¿Quién tiene más compás: Zapatero o Rajoy?
PdL: Me gustaría que Zapatero tuviese algo más de compás, pero me quedo con Zapatero.
¿Algo que le da jindama?
PdL: Sí, aunque sólo sea el cante de la guasa, el innombrable, y no lo vayas a poner. Una vez en Chile, grabando, apareció el innombrable, y dije ‘quita eso, quítalo’. Fue quitarlo y un terremoto..., vaya.
¿Qué le pide a la vida?
PdL: Salud para criar a los dos niños chicos que tengo y una vejez sin que me duelan los huesos, una vejez digna. No quiero más.
___________________________________________
Source: Diario de Jerez, 14 August 2010, by David Fernández.
You’re going to play on Monday in Jerez for the first time. Does it make you nervous to play for so many aficionados?
PdL: Jerez is where the essence is; it’s the heart of flamenco. People still get together for parties for their own enjoyment, and that only happens in Jerez nowadays. The Moraos are such great guitarists! They’ve got so much rhythm! Diego (del Morao) is one of my favorites. I also like Gerardo Núñez, Paco (Cepero) and Parrilla, and then there are all the singers.
La Paquera, Terremoto... Who would you get together with for a party?
PdL: With all of them, and with Luis El Zambo, because I like him a lot, and with el de La Morena (Fernando) and Capullo... Jerez is the art capital of the world.
What recordings would you take to a deserted island?
PdL: I’d take an MP4 with 3,000 songs, because just one album would get boring.
What about your own recordings? Would you be able to choose just one?
PdL: No. I’m too much of a perfectionist and, although a recording might be good, if there are just a few flaws, I won’t like it.
You’re preparing a new recording based on copla, aren’t you? (Note: Copla is a popular singing style that is unrelated to flamenco. For examples, see Conchita Piquer, Rocío Jurado, etc. on YouTube).
PdL: The final decision hasn’t been made, but it’s a valid idea. What I like about copla is the tremendous variety of melodies. My favorite composer is Quiroga.
What can you tell us about the recordings you made with Camarón?
PdL: There are a lot of good ones, and there are many, many little details. Art isn’t about an artist's complete works, it’s about the nuances.
What is it that made Camarón so different?
PdL: He was the first musician among flamenco singers. Before Camarón, flamenco singers were like savages who shouted and made you feel pain, and not even the singer knew why. Manuel Torre is a good example. But Camarón had very sharp hearing. He was also in love with old flamenco and could travel 500 kilometers to listen to an old woman sing. We started to be creative with our music at a time when you couldn’t experiment because you wouldn’t be taken seriously. It was a risk. On just one occasion Camarón said that maybe the purists weren’t going to like what we’d done, and I said that if they don’t like it they should learn and they’ll eventually understand it. He was the best in my opinion.
Some say that “La Leyenda del Tiempo” was a turning point for Camarón. Do you agree?
PdL: What was done on that album? I’ve heard people say that it was the first time that he sang with commitment. Why? Because he sang with drums? That’s not what I’d call evolution: That’s decoration. Evolution is what he and I did before that, with just a guitar and voice. That’s decorating singing. People shouldn’t confuse others with those kinds of opinions. Evolution is in the nuances.
You’ve been admired by music critics for a long time, but also by artists. Does that go to your head?
PdL: An artist is successful when he makes an impression on other artists. Money and fame are nice, but success is when another artists says “Ole!” to you.
Why have you substituted all of your backing musicians?
PdL: I worked for a long time with the previous lineup and it was wonderful, but I needed to test myself with other musicians to see if I was able to do other things. The new backing musicians are young and they stimulate me.
What differences would you say there are between today’s compositions and the ones you did with Camarón?
PdL: Before he and I got together, it was all about doing the cantes of El Mellizo, of Chacón, the soleá of Triana... It was about learning everything inside and out and that’s all there was to it. But you can’t go on doing that forever because it would turn flamenco into a museum specimen: dead music. Even today, Camarón is above everyone else, like a cloud that people can’t get away from. (Note: The idea is that a cloud is big, and it’s practically pointless to run or drive away to try to get out from under it.) Now it’s very hard to do something different; today you have to have personality and you have to be original.
At your concerts singing is like another instrument. Are you interested in making an album or doing a tour accompanying singers?
PdL: Singing is what I like best in the world. When I was a child I wanted to sing but I was shy, so I chose the guitar. I try to sing with my guitar; with a sense of melody that imitates the singer. But life... Now I’m in the spotlight. That’s a good idea but it would have to be done in Spain because people outside of Spain wouldn’t understand it in the same way.
Are you still afraid of not being good enough?
PdL: You never get over that kind of fear. I’ve spent my whole life thinking that I don’t know how to play the guitar; up until a short time ago.
Can flamenco fill the refrigerator or make someone filthy rich?
PdL: It’s enough of a privilege just being an artist and liking your job, and if it puts food on your table every day, that’s wonderful. Some of the people who come to say hello in the dressing room are young people whose main concern in life is being rich. They’re never going to amount to anything.
Who’s got more compás, Zapatero or Rajoy?
PdL: It’d be nice if Zapatero had a little more compás, but I prefer Zapatero.
Are you afraid of anything?
PdL: Yeah, even if it’s only THAT cante, the unnamable one, and please don’t write it. Once, at a recording session in Chile, the unnamable one showed up and I told the others to turn it off. As soon as they turned it off there was an earthquake. Wow.
What do you want out of life?
PdL: Health to raise my two small children and to be able to enjoy my old age without aches and pains. That’s all I want.
_____________________________
Be here now.
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Aug. 15 2010 19:31:06
 |
|
Ramon Amira
Posts: 1025
Joined: Oct. 14 2009
From: New York City
|
|
RE: Paco interview (in reply to NormanKliman)
|
|
|
quote:
quote:
What is he talking about? Peteneras? Voldemort???
Macbeth?
Right – among actors "Macbeth" is the unmentionable play, because if you call it by name some kind of accident or disaster will strike. If they have to refer to it, it is always called "The Scottish Play."
There really has been an amazing history of accidents, problems, etc. surrounding so many productions of this play over many years. And a few years ago there was a small New York production with a fairly younger cast, who pooh-poohed the whole tradition, and even went out of their way to make a point of it by chanting "Macbeth, Macbeth." Before it opened, four of the cast were injured in various ways, and one of them couldn't even make opening night.
THE CURSE OF "MACBETH"
Is there an evil spell on this ill-starred play?
By DINA TRITSCH
Showbill, April 1984
In 1604 Will Shakespeare in his zeal to please King James I, an authority on demonology, cast caution and imagination aside and for the opening scene of Macbeth's Act IV he reproduced a 17th century black-magic ritual, a sort of how-to to budding witches. Without changing an ingredient, Old Will provided his audience with step-by-step instructions in the furtive art of spell casting:
"Round around the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venum sleeping got.
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot"
...And so on.
The ritual's practitioners were not amused by this detailed public exposure of their witchcraft, and it is said that as punishment they cast an everlasting spell on the play, turning it into the most ill-starred of all theatrical productions. It is so unlucky that by comparison to Macbeth's nearly 400-year history of unmitigated disaster, Murphy's Law appears exceedingly optimistic.
Here are some of the gory particulars:
Beginning with its very first performance, in 1606, Dear Will himself was forced to play Lady Macbeth when Hal Berridge, the boy designated to play the lady with a peculiar notion of hospitality, became inexplicably feverish and died. Moreover, the bloody play so displeased King James I that he banned it for five years.
When performed in Amsterdam in 1672, the actor playing Macbeth substituted a real dagger for the blunted stage one and with it killed Duncan in full view of the entranced audience.
As Lady Macbeth, Sarah Siddons was nearly ravaged by a disapproving audience in 1775; Sybil Thorndike was almost strangled by a burly actor in 1926; Diana Wynyard sleepwalked off the rostrum in 1948, falling down 15 feet.
During its 1849 performance at New York's Astor Place, a riot broke out in which 31 people were trampled to death.
In 1937, when Laurence Olivier took on the role of Macbeth, a 25 pound stage weight crashed within an inch of him, and his sword which broke onstage flew into the audience and hit a man who later suffered a heart attack.
In 1934, British actor Malcolm Keen turned mute onstage, and his replacement, Alister Sim, like Hal Berridge before him, developed a high fever and had to be hospitalized.
In the 1942 Macbeth production headed by John Gielgud, three actors -- Duncan and two witches -- died, and the costume and set designer committed suicide amidst his devilish Macbeth creations.
The indestructible Charlton Heston, in an outdoor production in Bermuda in 1953, suffered severe burns in his groin and leg area from tights that were accidentally soaked in kerosene.
An actor's strike felled Rip Torn's 1970 production in New York City; two fires and seven robberies plagued the 1971 version starring David Leary; in the 1981 production at Lincoln Center, J. Kenneth Campbell, who played Macduff, was mugged soon after the play's opening.
Of course, no explanations have been given for the seemingly inevitable toil and trouble that is part and parcel of this unlucky play. You don't, in fact, ever refer to Macbeth or quote from it unless rehearsing or performing it. You also don't, as explained to me by countless brave and talented actors from Glenda Jackson to Ian McKellen, refer to this haunted play by name, but instead you call it That Scottish Play or simply That Play; everyone, it seems, will get the message, in a flash.
_____________________________
Classical and flamenco guitars from Spain Ramon Amira Guitars
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Aug. 15 2010 21:07:37
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts
|
|
|
Forum Software powered by ASP Playground Advanced Edition 2.0.5
Copyright © 2000 - 2003 ASPPlayground.NET |
0.09375 secs.
|
Printable Version
im still alive 
