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RE: Can a white man play the blues?
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to devilhand)
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quote:
It's getting ridicilious here. Recall the Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula, particularly in Andalucia, between 711 and 1492. It's almost 800 years, I repeat 8 hundred years. So Moorish/Arabic influence on Andalucia is huge. I'm pretty sure the word flamenco is derived from the arabic word felah-mengu. Get real!
I think We are all aware of the Moorish conquest and rule over what was known as al-Andalus. That does not mean that Blas Infante's take on the origin of the term "flamenco," derived from the Arabic and eventually applied to the music, was correct. In fact, the etymology of the term "flamenco" as meaning a Flemish, or person from Flanders during the period of Spanish rule over that region, would appear to be more likely. I think most Spanish linguists would agree with the "Flemish" interpretation.
As I mentioned earlier, for me the question is, when and why did the term "flamenco," regardless of its origin, begin to be applied to the music we know as flamenco? One can go back and find the earliest written instance, but clearly the term would have been used to describe the music before written evidence. And why "flamenco"? Just because the term apparently owes its origin as a reference to the Flemish during Spain's rule over the Spanish Netherlands, why did the term come to be applied to the music?
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 Apr. 22 2021 21:07:39
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kitarist
Posts: 1715
Joined: Dec. 4 2012
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RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
The question is, when and why did the term "flamenco" begin to be applied to the music we know as flamenco? One can go back and find the earliest written instance, but clearly the term would have been used to describe the music before written evidence. And why "flamenco"? Just because the term owes its origin to the Flemish during Spain's rule over the Spanish Netherlands, why did the term come to be applied to the music? What is the connection?
I recall reading in several articles that at some point a group of gypsies came into Spain from Flanders bearing a letter signed by some Flemish noble requesting safe passage be granted and they be treated fairly etc. etc. - the letter bearing was a thing at the time for travelling people.
These gypsies then became to be referred to as [being] 'flamenco' - which was the word for 'Flemish' already in existence in Spain - by conflating where they came from and their Flemish letter with who they were.
I've done my own digging to see usage of the word 'flamenco' in Spanish books. Up to 1820s or so 'flamenco' always refers to actual Flemish people, usually painters, or things geographically from there - and never to gypsies or their music. Then something happens between late 1820s and 1850s and by the early 1860s - or as early as 1853 as Richard reports Gamboa found - 'flamenco' starts to refer to gypsy people and their music.
From this, it seems that the arriving, at some point, of a group of gypsies from Flanders with their Flemish letter of recommendation became the event which "moved" the word 'flamenco' near a gypsy context, and then conflating where they came from with them being Flemish was the next step some time after; from there, starting to refer to all gypsies as Flemish i.e. 'flamenco'. Once this was done their music became 'flamenco' music as well. The meaning of 'flamenco' itself bifurcated from the original and acquired its second connotation.
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Konstantin
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Date Apr. 23 2021 7:19:27
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to edguerin)
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The paper cited by edguerin also contains an argument against the "fellah-mengu" hypothesis. The Google Translate English version is serviceable:
La hipótesis árabe
Según esta hipótesis 'flamenco' es una homonimia derivada del árabe fellah mengu(s), lo que significaría cante del campesino. Aunque esta tesis se puede defender sabiendo que en 1492 muchos árabes se mezclaron a la población gitana, se plantea un problema en cuanto al tiempo. El tér-mino surge sólo a partir del segundo tercio del siglo XDC^, por lo cual esta hipótesis resulta poco probable. Además, los musicólogos estiman que el aporte de la música árabe al flamenco es mucho menos importante de lo que se pretende. El flamenco es el resultado de una tradición musical hispano-andaluza —que ya contenía elementos árabes, judíos y litúrgicos bizantinos— forjada por los gitanos de la Baja Andalucía con sus propias estructuras melódicas y rítmicas para crear el cante jondo (Leblon 1990, 1991, 1995; Jamard 2001). Sin los gitanos de la Baja Andalucía no hubiera existido el flamenco, y el hecho de que la letra de los cantes y la litera-tura del siglo XIX (Pardo Bazán, Valera, Pérez Galdós, Clarín, Blasco, Ganivet'') utilizan 'flamenco' como sinónimo de 'gitano andaluz' o 'anda-luz agitanado' antes de designar la música, aporta otro argumento para descartar la hipótesis árabe.
^ Álvarez Caballero (1981: 134) cita una tonadilla de 1830 en que se encontraría la primera atestación de 'flamenco' como sinónimo de gitano y su lenguaje.
RNJ
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Date Apr. 23 2021 22:05:25
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Brendan
Posts: 353
Joined: Oct. 30 2010
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RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to Piwin)
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The version I read somewhere was that some gypsies were granted exemption from the anti-gypsy laws in recognition of their military service in the Spanish Netherlands—presumably this is the content of the letter. And this is why you sometimes see blond gypsies. But as with all these suggestions, it’s a possibility without proof.
There’s a story about Gödel’s naturalisation hearing, at which, having studied the US constitution far more thoroughly than most applicants, he started to explain how the US could become a dictatorship without violation its rules. This in a thick Austrian accent. Fortunately, he had Einstein with him who smoothed things over.
On holiday in Amsterdam, I saw a leaflet advertising ‘El Arte Flamenco’. I got quite excited until I looked more closely and realised it was the Spanish translation of an advert for an exhibition of gloomy paintings of people eating potatoes and staring at jugs.
Tino is indeed a great player and teacher, and an inspiration to all of us who are too tall to pass as Spanish. We went to an evening of ‘real authentic traditional flamenco’ at the Jewish museum in Cordoba, which has a lovely intimate patio. it was Tino, playing unapologetically modern stuff, and it was excellent.
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https://sites.google.com/site/obscureflamencology/
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Date Apr. 24 2021 11:04:46
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tf10music
Posts: 112
Joined: Jan. 3 2017
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RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to devilhand)
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quote:
Talking in arabic and using a word felah mengu, which was pronounced and written as flamenco, to name a certain group of people are 2 different things.
True, but really all you've done is assert a belief that this is the origin of the word "flamenco" without providing any evidence to support your claim, and then you've proceeded to dismiss evidence that at least indicates that you are mistaken, even as you fail to provide affirmative evidence. It sounds like you want the felah mengu explanation to be true.
The history of the Gitanos in the Iberian Peninsula is actually quite muddled and complex -- especially the first 100 years or so. For starters, gitanos entering the Iberian Peninsula during the first half of the fifteenth century were not identified as such, so your whole "felah mengu was used to refer to Gitanos" theory certainly doesn't apply to any period predating the Reconquista. It was only at the end of the fifteenth century that the Spanish government even acknowledged the gitanos as a group and decided to deal with them, beginning with the Ordinance of 1499, and even then, the Gitanos were referred to as "Egyptians" and "pilgrims" (many entered Spanish territories by claiming to be on a pilgrimage). Notably, the 1499 Ordinance, as well as the ones to follow it, were designed to effectively curb the wandering of the Gitanos, such that by the time we see the first recorded reference to "flamenco" as something associated with the Gitanos, Spain's Romani population had been forcibly sedentarized for a good period of time. So the idea that the use of the word "flamenco" to refer to a musical style comes from some adaptation of an Arabic term employed to refer to a wanderer seems unlikely. It's not impossible, but it is a far-fetched explanation, given that Gitanos were often compelled to serve in the Spanish army in Flanders throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, and the word "flamenco" was used to refer to the Flemish during that period (you want evidence? Lope de Vega uses it that way in his plays, for one -- you can find an example in "El asalto de Mastrique, por el príncipe de Parma," which was published in 1614). It's far more likely that the modern usage of "flamenco" derives from that association.
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Date Apr. 25 2021 15:17:56
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tf10music
Posts: 112
Joined: Jan. 3 2017
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RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to devilhand)
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quote:
Your source contains sentences like this. So it's not worth reading.
"Furthermore, musicologists estimate that the contribution of Arabic music to flamenco is much less important than is claimed"
He keeps writing this which is also contradictory to what he wrote before.
"Flamenco is the result of a Spanish-Andalusian musical tradition - which already contained Arab, Jewish and Byzantine liturgical elements - forged by the gypsies of Baja Andalusia with their own melodic and rhythmic structures to create the cante jondo."
I know you hate books, but if you would only sit down and read Cruces Roldán, you'd know that there is a marked difference between música andalusí and "Arabic music." Those two sentences are not contradictory at all, given that the first one didn't say that Arabic music played NO role in flamenco's development, and instead simply downplayed its influence relative to what previous commentators have claimed. This is an entirely reasonable position to take, given some of the wildly romanticized takes out there. The influence of Arabic music on flamenco is indirect and mediated by layers of other cultural mixtures, but some writers claim, for instance, that duende in flamenco is exactly the same thing as tarab/sama as it existed in medieval Muslim musical/expressive practice. Claims like those SHOULD be downplayed.
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Date Apr. 25 2021 15:27:35
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Piwin
Posts: 3559
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
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RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to kitarist)
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From the same book:
"That they were called Germans, may be accounted for, either by the supposition that their generic name of Rommany was misunderstood and mispronounced by the Spaniards amongst whom they came, or from the fact of their having passed through Germany in their way to the south, and bearing passports and letters of safety from the various German states. The title of Flemings, by which at the present day they are known in various parts of Spain, would probably never have been bestowed upon them but from the circumstance of their having been designated or believed to be Germans,—as German and Fleming are considered by the ignorant as synonymous terms."
Talk about a book of its times though:
"I shall here content myself with observing that from whatever country they come, whether from India or Egypt, there can be no doubt that they are human beings and have immortal souls; and it is in the humble hope of drawing the attention of the Christian philanthropist towards them, especially that degraded and unhappy portion of them, the Gitános of Spain, that the present little work has been undertaken"
 
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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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Date Apr. 25 2021 15:54:00
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to agujetas)
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SRV had his own sound and his own footprint, he was steeped in blues, but he was not a copyist.
As for Albert King talking smack about him, allegedly, show me a black man who played and got famous for being a musician in that time who was not self protective of his work? That guarded attitude goes with the job.
Lightning Hopkins was playing in a bar and a robbery was about to happen or some shenanigans he didn’t like. He pulled out a gun and said not during my set, either fired the weapon of brandished it ( depending on who wrote the history) and the fella who was causing trouble left and Mr. Hopkins picked up where he left off.
The Edge from U2 played with BB King, I saw this, BB King says to him, “You play those chords, you’re good at that, let me solo.”
Albert King didn’t say SRV was good at chords, he says you stole my stuff. It’s a compliment, stupid.
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https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Apr. 26 2021 5:17:04
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etta
Posts: 342
Joined: Jan. 20 2010
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RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to agujetas)
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Great job of exhausting most elements of the question. So, can a banjo player in Tennessee learn to play flamenco guitar? For me, as a kid, it was flamenco guitar in a culture that had never heard the term "flamenco ". I struggled to learn guitar with no instructions and only LP's by Montoya and Sabicas. Much later, by chance, I came into possession of a banjo and was also fascinated by this instrument. Five string banjo is somewhat difficult but soon I was very proficient in bluegrass and later jazz on the 5 String ("state champion", etc. etc.). The point is that the facility of both my hands, and perhaps my brain, was improved by the banjo which enabled me to return to the Flamenco guitar after over forty years of leaving it. Today I enjoy both, but I will never be seen as "authentic" as a flamenco player by critical players. But, music, first and foremost is about enjoyment regardless of how authentic or proficient one is.
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Date Apr. 26 2021 14:30:26
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