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I have a friend working with using a lever harp in flamenco. Difficult task, but she is from jerez and has a natural compás and thats always a good start.
Would love to hear some of that if ever she manages to get some of it up on the Web!
Thanks for the info on "accordeons". It's really not a kind of instrument I'm familiar with at this point, but oddly enough, somewhere in my mind I had put it as a "flamenco-friendly" instrument.. Go figure. Up here in Madrid, Semana Santa was quite different than what I had grown accostumed to in Andalucia. Basically, my neighbourhood emptied out as people left to go visit their families in the pueblos. There were a few processions but nothing even close to what goes on down South. I used to curse Semana Santa when I lived in Andalucia, and it didn't help that my band of local friends didn't care for it either. But now that I don't "have it", I kind of miss it!!
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
I find if funny how on this thread there seems to be some idolizing of certain musicians. No matter how good the musician, shouldn't you learn to appreciate music on your own? There is no musician out there of whom I could say "anything he does is gold".
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Got it. I was just splitting hairs, or, as the French expression goes, "f...king flies" (no idea where we came up with that expression... ).
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Absolutely love the work that Carles has done with Paco. I love his tone and his personal way of playing the bass. The duet on Monasterio de Sal is legendary for me. I'm not a fan of bass in flamenco but in the "sextet context" it was a great addition and added depth to the music. I feel the same way regarding the double bass in Gerardo Trio. However there are many albums particularly 70, 80s albums that have indeed a really ****ty bass & drums sound.
I prefer Carles playing over Alain Perez playing in the sextet.
Great intro to Entre Dos Aguas (45:40) with a nice tone there :
Anyway, the man is a legend :)
A really great album with double bass is the last one by Pepe Habichuela and Dave Holland (2010) The recording has a really great production. Really good work by dave on it (and by Pepe of course).
I just find a bass in a flamenco performance annoying. in my opinion a bass interferes with, rather than complements, the flamenco guitarists and diminishes the overall quality of the performance.
Bill
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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."
I absolutely love Benavent to be honest. I think he's the most underrated bassist ever (other than Jeff Andrews) and I think he added a lot of depth and colour to the Paco band. Alain Perez could groove, but he wasn't the genius Benavent was with the band, not that that's much of a criticism. When it comes to fretless bass, I think it's a fine line- Jaco was not 'farty', but a lot of those who've copied his style are- too much midrange, powerful pickups, active eq. My overall view is I don't think bass really works with pure Flamenco- the dry guitar sound is so much part of it, but it definitely has a place in fusion and rock crossover. Why there is so much fretless farting is beyond me, however.
I wish Carles played more and did more solos. I loved the farty noise he brought in on some tracks. I am not really that familiar with other bassists and the use of farty fretlesses.
I adore Jaco though, definitely up there as one of my favourite musicians.
To be honest I can't stand the guitar in flamenco. It should never have been introduced as an accompaniment instrument. Things were much purer when singing was done on its own. Bloody modernisers
Nah man, it wasn't the guitar, it was even before that. Real puro flamenco was ruined by those damned cantaores. It was so much better when flamenco was just about knocking your knucles on a table
You want modern? You want fusion? Forget the bass. Forget the harmonica. The coolest of the cool would be a flamenco guitarist backed by a Javanese gamelan ensemble. Javanese gamelan has the added advantage of reaching its present form under the Majapahit Empire, and the singer, known as a sindhen, was and is heavily influenced by Indian music and singing (traces of gitano origins?). A guitarist as part of a gamelan ensemble backing a Javanese cantaor singing letras in Old Javanese. Now that's fusion.
Bill
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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."
Oh no, sbalderrama, a mariachi and his guitarron! That's all we need is mariachi-flamenco fusion! I will make a full confession here. As much as my family has been tied to Mexico, and as much as I have traveled in Mexico, like things Mexican (especially the food!), and like much of the music of Mexico, I am repelled by Mariachi music. I find Mariachi music loud, noisy, busy, and boring. For me, it is the antithesis of listening enjoyment, best relegated to a a college bar on that faux Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo celebrated in the U.S., and accompanied by scores of college students drinking their Corona beer with the lime stuck in the lip of the bottle, which they think makes the holiday more "authentic."
I'm not opening this up for debate or argument. Just stating how it affects me.
Cheers,
Bill
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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."
You could probably smuggle a few Condes through the border inside one of those. Just saying...
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
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