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RE: How not to sing alegrías (in reply to Morante)
quote:
Flamenco is slowly being reduced to the status of world music.
What some people consider it (in the future this world music thing is quite possible) doesn't diminish the fact that flamenco is one of the purest forms of art when "executed" appropriately, and this purity is one of the main reasons it appealed to me in the first place. The problem is when the fake artists become the mainstream "flamencos" and the real flamenco goes underground. This scenario is possible at some point but personally I believe true flamenco will never die, altough the quality suffers like with every other music as time passes.
What some people consider it (in the future this world music thing is quite possible) doesn't diminish the fact that flamenco is one of the purest forms of art when "executed" appropriately, and this purity is one of the main reasons it appealed to me in the first place. The problem is when the fake artists become the mainstream "flamencos" and the real flamenco goes underground. This scenario is possible at some point but personally I believe true flamenco will never die, altough the quality suffers like with every other music as time passes.
I have addressed this issue in a couple of previous threads, but I think flamenco as the art form we have known and appreciated will be absorbed into the miasma known as "World Music," and it will eventually become unrecognizable to those of us who are aficionados of the real thing. Just wait, Hip Hop and Rap will insidiously influence flamenco, as well as other genres currently favored by those who know little if anything about flamenco. And it would be a mistake to think that flamenco's absorption into World Music will be the result of "fake artists." It will occur because those flamenco artists who want to fill an auditorium or a soccer stadium will be the drivers of the change in order to gain an audience and sell tickets.
Yes, there will still be "true flamenco," but it will occupy a very small niche, much like the Folger Consort in Washington DC, a group that plays Medieval and Renaissance music on period instruments. It occupies a small niche and has a devoted, but very small, audience. I see "true flamenco" in the same light as it eventually loses its appeal to a larger audience and is reduced to the level of a curiosity with a few devoted fans. It will require that those practitioners of the art as we know it all have day jobs, and that their performance before a few devoted fans be a labor of love.
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."
RE: How not to sing alegrías (in reply to Morante)
quote:
It will require that those practitioners of the art as we know it all have day jobs, and that their performance before a few devoted fans be a labor of love.
Plus ça change then.
I have just finished reading DE Pohren's Lives and Legends and many, if not most of the real deal worked in day jobs. The idea of a professional who sought fame and fortune is given short shrift by the author and he saw compromise in all those who succeeded. I wonder if we like it, that they struggled.
Two things struck me in reading that book: 1) they all wore suits and formal clothes so the notion I had of the landless peasants breaking their hearts to the moon was erroneous - it was even then a performance art, and 2) 'proper' flamenco seems always to have belonged in the past, yea even unto El Mellizo. IOW the past holds the key that is missing 'today' - for the last 100 years!
Modern flamenco will become something else representing modern concerns and cultural influences and it may even be called 'flamenco' ( - as an aside this was a joke about computer languages in the 70s - The guy didn't know what a new language would look like but he knew it would be called Fortran...well...that didn't turn out well). But who knows?
For me, the flamenco I am interested in is the expression of the pain and joy, but mostly pain, of simpler times, particularly, the golden era. Always cante first, then accompaniment, then jaleo. If concert guitar technique is important to the future of flamenco then there has to be duende. If not, it's all Yngwe Malmsteen. I guess in the end, I'll like it if it's good.
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: How not to sing alegrías (in reply to El Burdo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: El Burdo
I have just finished reading DE Pohren's Lives and Legends and many, if not most of the real deal worked in day jobs. The idea of a professional who sought fame and fortune is given short shrift by the author and he saw compromise in all those who succeeded. I wonder if we like it, that they struggled.
Two things struck me in reading that book: 1) they all wore suits and formal clothes so the notion I had of the landless peasants breaking their hearts to the moon was erroneous - it was even then a performance art, and 2) 'proper' flamenco seems always to have belonged in the past, yea even unto El Mellizo. IOW the past holds the key that is missing 'today' - for the last 100 years!
Pohren was involved with the flamenco ambience of Moron de la Frontera, far from the financially successful artists of Madrid, Sevilla, etc. He was married to the daughter of a guitarist who was successful among the flamenco elite, though she was a bit lesser figure than her father.
If you are interested in a cultural product of abject poverty, living on the brink of actual starvation, may I recommend the biography of the matador Manuel Benitez Perez, El Cordobes, "...Or I'll Dress You in Mourning."
The title is a quotation from the matador on the event of his first corrida that paid a significant fee. His older sister raised him and the rest of his orphaned siblings. She always tried to dissuade him from his ambition to become a torero. She was very concerned for him on the day of the corrida. He told her, "Don't worry, today I will either buy you a house, or I will dress you in mourning."
Opinions vary as to El Cordobes' artistic merit as a matador, but his long road through the very depths of itinerant poverty, his bravery in the ring, and his spectacular popularity and financial success are beyond doubt.
I had passed up the book when it came out, but I was given a well worn copy a couple of years ago by someone whose judgment I respected. Though written by a pair of non-Spanish authors, I found it an interesting account of the culture that brought forth a character like its subject.
The flamenco greats tended to come from stable families with intergenerational traditions in the arte, not from the family-destroying depths of extreme poverty. There were exceptions of course. Agujetas began singing in public as a boy, begging for bread crusts at the tables of outdoor cafes. His father, also called Agujetas, was a knowledgeable cantaor, though not commercially successful.
Antonio Chacon was a payo orphan, raised by a gitano shoemaker in the Barrio Santiago de Jerez, and so on...Chacon and the brothers Javier and Antonio Molina went on a youthful adventure, hiking throughout Andalucia, supporting themselves by performing at country taverns and inns. Antonio was a dancer. Javier was a guitarist, who eventually owned a tablao that employed both Niño Ricardo and Manolo de Huelva, as well as noted cantaores and bailaores. In later life Javier was a highly respected professor of the guitar in Jerez, who played some classical pieces as well as flamenco. Among his noted students were the father of Manolo Sanlucar, and Paco Cepero.
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: How not to sing alegrías (in reply to Leñador)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Leñador
I too would love a more in depth explanation of what’s wrong with it......from anyone.....
To me Morante's example in the post, "How to sing alegrias," is more informative than any attempt I might make at verbal explanation. I will add what I first thought of in reply.
Rocio Marquez is a young female singer who won various prizes at cante competitions. I was very attracted to her teenage performances, though some were very close copies of great classics. One example was her performance of media granaina, which essentially reproduced a great performance by Chacon.
In her youth she was clearly still strongly influenced by her teacher, a middle aged guitarist who frequently accompanied her. I apologize for not remembering his name.
More recently Rocio has been criticized by aficionados for abandoning flamenco.
Here she is 12 years ago at age 21, in caracoles.
For comparison, here is Jose Menese, a traditionalist in cante, in the same palo, ten years earlier:
And here is Rocio in alegrias a few years after the caracoles:
In the "How not to" example Maria Angeles Martinez is exceptionally beautiful, has a lovely voice, sings in tune and has an appealing stage presence, but she's not flamenco like Rocio in caracoles, and even less so than May Fernandez in Morante's alegrias example.
Rocio is seen by many as heading in the same direction as Maria Angeles. In a recent release she sings a number of explicitly non-flamenco numbers--to considerable grousing among the aficionados.
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Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: How not to sing alegrías (in reply to El Burdo)
quote:
Plus ça change then.
I have just finished reading DE Pohren's Lives and Legends and many, if not most of the real deal worked in day jobs. The idea of a professional who sought fame and fortune is given short shrift by the author and he saw compromise in all those who succeeded. I wonder if we like it, that they struggled.
Two things struck me in reading that book: 1) they all wore suits and formal clothes so the notion I had of the landless peasants breaking their hearts to the moon was erroneous - it was even then a performance art, and 2) 'proper' flamenco seems always to have belonged in the past, yea even unto El Mellizo. IOW the past holds the key that is missing 'today' - for the last 100 years!
Modern flamenco will become something else representing modern concerns and cultural influences and it may even be called 'flamenco'
I am predicting something very different than what your quote, cited above, suggests. Your quote states there has always been something "missing" in "today's" flamenco that was present in the past, according to some. That may or may not be true, but for the last hundred years flamenco has had a lineage that is easily traced as "flamenco." I am suggesting that that lineage will be broken in the next ten to 20 years, and flamenco will have either absorbed, or been absorbed by, so-called "World Music" and its various influences to the point where we will be unable to recognize it as flamenco.
As to those few who will still be able and willing to play flamenco as we know it holding "day jobs," I meant it in the same way that the Folger Consort players of Medieval and Renaissance Music hold day jobs. They play for the love of it and for the small, dedicated audience who equally loves it. Flamenco has never had a large audience, and what popularity it has had has diminished. In order to survive, most of those artists who play in the future will have to conform to the tastes of the lowest common denominator and that means cante, in particular, but guitar as well, will be transformed in ways that will leave traditional flamenco and its lineage behind for the latest "trend" in World Music.
I may be wrong. I don't hold a claim to "ground truth." But that's my prediction.
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."
If you are interested in a cultural product of abject poverty, living on the brink of actual starvation, may I recommend the biography of the matador Manuel Benitez Perez, El Cordobes, "...Or I'll Dress You in Mourning."
The title is a quotation from the matador on the event of his first corrida that paid a significant fee. His older sister raised him and the rest of his orphaned siblings. She always tried to dissuade him from his ambition to become a torero. She was very concerned for him on the day of the corrida. He told her, "Don't worry, today I will either buy you a house, or I will dress you in mourning."
The grit and determination of El Cordobes must be admired. His struggle and success certainly provided inspiration for others. El Cordobes was the matador of the moment in his time. Nevertheless, to many aficionados El Cordobes was a "showboat" who lacked refined technical skills in the corrida. Many would suggest that the popularity of El Cordobes was the result of his fans' diminished ability to appreciate those refined skills, as fans of, say, Belmonte did in an earlier era of the corrida.
Probably the greatest period of the corrida in Spain in our lifetime was the rivalry between Luis Miguel Dominguin and Antonio Ordonez. During 1959, Luis Miguel Dominguin and Antonio Ordonez were involved in a bitter rivalry in the corrida. Ernest Hemingway chronicled that rivalry in his book entitled "The Dangerous Summer," which still makes good reading today.
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."
RE: How not to sing alegrías (in reply to BarkellWH)
Hello Bill - I actually agree with you. In jazz music where I exist mostly, the word has almost no meaning anymore such is the diversity amongst the music identifying as such. Those who cleave to a distinct (read historical) identification point to Ellington or Charlie Parker or Bix Beiderbecke (all quite different), disregarding bands like The Bad Plus, John Zorn, John Scofield etc. But the principles are the same - melodic and rhythmic improvisation over sophisticated harmony, by and large. There is always a debate as to whether 'jazz is dead'. I do feel that that is healthy for a genre to be truly creative and not to have to stick to definitions. Jazzi-ish doesn't have to mean 'smooth' or pop-jazz, but as there is and always will be a small fanbase it probably doesn't matter. It almost seems to be a tautology to want to produce more of what has been done pretty well before.
And that is the exact reverse of what I feel about Flamenco today....I am far more interested in the golden era for some reason. I mention the evident dissatisfaction that the flamenco of 'today' is not what it used to be because I think that points to something else, something more to do with our mortal coil and that is why it seems to have been a permanent attitude. It's not really to do with the music. With Flamenco I get great satisfaction in associating it with different and less money driven times. Of course, I wonder if I am being naive - in that it seems always to have been a performing art with opportunities to be rich and famous - though I prefer Manolo el de Maria to Antonio.
So, yes, I think it will change into something else more reflecting of current times. If that is unrecognisable as Flamenco, no bad thing, creativity could also lie that way. But there needs to be some integrity if the music is to be called Flamenco. Maybe that will be the modality of the singing and the compás. As I said elsewhere, it's difficult to make not being able to decide which mortgage offer to take up into anything remotely 'jondo'. That is not the case in Iraq or Syria, or Baltimore - but that won't be called Flamenco.
Your point about The Folger Consort is the case in my world too. I can think of very few jazz/similar musicians who don't do something else to be able to afford to live and have a family. Some can due to saleable facility in a small market, others make compromises.
Sorry to not address the singer - it's about her lovely singing and delivery. I don't ever feel that about Flamenco done right.
RE: How not to sing alegrías (in reply to Morante)
quote:
Rocio Marquez is a young female singer who won various prizes at cante competitions. I was very attracted to her teenage performances, though some were very close copies of great classics. One example was her performance of media granaina, which essentially reproduced a great performance by Chacon.
WHEN she sings Flamenco she’s possibly my favorite singer but I think I may see what Morante’s driving at. Too poppy sounding, fair enough. I suppose I was looking for more major structural issues. Feels a bit like the Caracol vs Mairena thing though.
RE: How not to sing alegrías (in reply to Leñador)
quote:
WHEN she sings Flamenco she’s possibly my favorite singer but I think I may see what Morante’s driving at. Too poppy sounding, fair enough
I don´t think you understand. Alegrías has a recognized structure which she does not follow, so she is not singing alegrías, but a version personal of something.
Encima she provides a soniquete de coplas, when she should be singing flamenco.
RE: How not to sing alegrías (in reply to Morante)
She needs some refinement, but I for one welcome some change because I am bored of the same Tran Tran Tran for the thousandth time. Flamenco has always been World music lol. And I'm surprised there are even young chics interested in flamenco at all these days. But often their voices get to be too Chica after a while.
Posts: 14806
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: How not to sing alegrías (in reply to Morante)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Morante
quote:
WHEN she sings Flamenco she’s possibly my favorite singer but I think I may see what Morante’s driving at. Too poppy sounding, fair enough
I don´t think you understand. Alegrías has a recognized structure which she does not follow, so she is not singing alegrías, but a version personal of something.
Encima she provides a soniquete de coplas, when she should be singing flamenco.
She finally sings Alegrias at about 5:45 at the end actually
RE: How not to sing alegrías (in reply to Morante)
quote:
I don´t think you understand. Alegrías has a recognized structure which she does not follow, so she is not singing alegrías, but a version personal of something.
Encima she provides a soniquete de coplas, when she should be singing flamenco.
Ahh, now we're getting somewhere. I'll listen again next chance I get.
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