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RE: Can a white man play the blues?   You are logged in as Guest
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Ricardo

Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to kitarist

I am talking about this portion:

quote:

The gitanos are called flamencos in Andalusia. This name was given to them out of sympathy and also out of jest, because the gitanos form such a contrast with the white and blushing Flemings. After all, the Andalusians are jokers by nature. The name flamenco was later transferred to the dance and songs of the gitanos. And since their songs are really beautiful and their wives graceful and graceful, flamenco took on the meaning: lovely, sympathetic, cheerful and beautiful.'
Until now, the masters of etymology have neglected the treatment of flamenco 'gitano'. Vercoullie only touches, in a rather romantic way, flamingo (the bird) and writes (Etym. Wdb.): 'Flamingo: from Sp. flamenco. actually Flemish; the bird comes from the Flemish Islands, i.e. the Azores.” This explanation makes no sense.
Flamenco as a bird name is like fra. flamant, portug, fiamingo, borrowed from Provencal flamenc, which itself is derived from lat. flama 'flame' with suffix of germanic origin - enc. The piedmont, fiamengh means: beautiful, delicious; the old catalan flamenc: fresh in complexion, blushing.
It may be accepted that flamenco 'gitano', just like flamenco as a bird name, is of Romanesque origin and is linguistically unrelated to the Germanic 'flaming > flameng' formed flamenco 'flaming'. Similarity with the Germanic flamenco 'Vlaming' may, however, have influenced the development of the meaning of the Romanesque flamenco 'gitano' to a certain extent.
The fortunes of our national name in the Germanic language area may perhaps contribute something to shed light on the semantic flamenco puzzle in Spain.
In German tongues flämisch has been established since the 17th century with the meaning: sad, grumpy. The great Weigand provides the following explanation about this. The French influence on the mores, costumes and language in Germany since the 12th century was mainly mediated by half Romanesque, half Germanic Flanders.


On and on and on, continuous error that flamenco and gitano are not only synonymous, but the only people that did flamenco music and dance which is false from the start. And Aurelio would not want to be called “flamenco” if it meant “dark skinned gypsy” even ironically. It never meant that, and they have it backwards again, the music NOT the people is flamenco and the people that DO the music by association, payo or gitano.

In any case the point about the the boys choir singing in “flamenco style” is more than “interesting”, I am actually doubtful that people know what they are talking about. Flamenco cante can’t be sung by a “choir”, only estribillo style things which is arguably not really “cante” (thinking about stuff like Tauromagia fandango and bulerias de cadiz, or soy gitano by camaron). In any case, whatever they are talking about would be interesting to hear that recording.

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 9 2021 11:50:23
 
kitarist

Posts: 1731
Joined: Dec. 4 2012
 

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to Ricardo

And I was referring to the following, which was Viaene's own words, on page 17:

quote:

The modern term 'flamenco' belongs to the field of folklore of the Andalusian gitanos or gypsies, especially to the modern forms of their music and dance. The cante flamenco became the new name of that new gypsy genre. [] The word [flamenco] covers a new concept; flamenco nowadays says: the folklore - music, dance and song - of the Andalusian gitanos. And the practitioners of that flamenco genre are called: flamencos and flamencas.


'of the gitanos' is here to give them credit as creators I think; he phrases it differently when mentioning practitioners, so he must have been at least aware that practitioners of the gitano art can be payos.

What you quote I thought was within Viaene's recounting of some historical claims by others.

Anyway, as I said before, I agree with you on scope as I now suspect that trying to find when and why 'gitanos started to be referred to as flamencos' is bound to be fruitless as the premise is wrong - they never were; just the art and thus its practitioners (which were overwhelmingly, but not exclusively, gitanos, so a scope and category error was easy to make)

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Konstantin
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 9 2021 17:47:43
 
Ricardo

Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to kitarist

Right and even the quote there “of Andalusian gitanos” again implies they are the only ones that do the flamenco music. Saying those that do it are called “flamencos and flamencas” right after that does not assume NON-gypsies are engaged in the activity. Anyway, the point is moot now.

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 9 2021 19:34:35
 
Escribano

Posts: 6440
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to kitarist

quote:

basically the entire "Parola" - I think meaning this is spoken, not sung - section


Not sure of the context for this but "parola" means "word" in Italian.

As you know "chulo" means "cool" or "pimp", and that is also the name of my little bodegero dog from Granada:-)

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 9 2021 21:14:14
 
kitarist

Posts: 1731
Joined: Dec. 4 2012
 

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to Escribano

quote:

ORIGINAL: Escribano

quote:

basically the entire "Parola" - I think meaning this is spoken, not sung - section


Not sure of the context for this but "parola" means "word" in Italian.


Yes I got that far Then I could see that there were words written inline with melody, apparently these were songs; then in between it will have paragraphs of just text starting with 'Parola" and no melody. So it was my assumption that in the tonadillas 'Parola' means the spoken (but not sung) parts.

quote:


As you know "chulo" means "cool" or "pimp", and that is also the name of my little bodegero dog from Granada:-)


Do you still have it? As for the tonadilla context, I think we are waiting for Ricardo or someone else fluent to read through more handwritten pages from 'La Discordia'.

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Konstantin
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 9 2021 22:55:22
 
Richard Jernigan

Posts: 3446
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to kitarist

It's hard enough to agree on what is or is not "flamenco" in the present day. Trying to figure out what it meant a couple of centuries ago is an even more vexed question. To answer the question requires a detailed knowledge of Spanish popular culture of the times that is beyond me.

However, one meaning of the word that is somwhat rare, but still current is given by the Diccionario of the Real Academia Española:

6. adj. coloq. Chulo, insolente. Ponerse flamenco. U. t. c. s.

This seems to me the likely use of the word in the tonadilla. Romero and Concha are quarreling over her absence from home, Concha refuses to say why she has pawned her petticoat, Romero accuses here of insolence.

To me it looks as though in this case ¨flamenco¨ has nothing to do with Flanders, el arte flamenco, German, gitanos or any of that. Romero is just complaining that Concha is being obstreperous.

RNJ
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2021 7:57:45
 
Piwin

Posts: 3566
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
 

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to Richard Jernigan

quote:

To answer the question requires a detailed knowledge of Spanish popular culture of the times that is beyond me.


Just a tangent, but that's one part of the disagreements over whether linguists should give any credence to the quantitative analysis of diachronic corpora, and if so, under what conditions. The likelihood of spurious inferences is pretty high if one does not check the quantitative analysis of the corpora against other, independent and non-linguistic evidence.

The late C.J. Fillmore made that case using the example of the phrase "with a screwdriver" (and the argument is now just called "Fillmore's screwdriver"). Checking large online corpora, he found that the most frequent immediate co-text (so, words either directly to the left or to the right of "with a screwdriver") was things like "stabbed", "assaulted", "killed", etc. From which some linguist far in the future might mistakenly conclude that screwdrivers were dangerous weapons in our day.

In that case it was suggested that the semasiological frequency (how often speakers verbalise a concept) was not aligned with the onomasiological frequency (how often speakers experience a concept). Basically, using a screwdriver for its intended purpose is such a mundane action that it is not often verbalised in that way. But using it as a weapon is extraordinary, and thus verbalised, leading to an overrepresentation of that violent use of "with a screwdriver" in the corpora. Something like that.

Anyway, the point is just that there's a lively debate in linguistics around what use can be made of large corpora and to what extent quantitative analysis of those corpora can lead to reliable conclusions. It's of particular relevance today when everyone is rushing to Google Ngrams as evidence of everything and anything.

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2021 13:23:26
 
Richard Jernigan

Posts: 3446
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to Piwin

Apparently the linguists were there well ahead of me. While I was writing my last post the image in mind was the ever shifting, constantly revised theory of human origins. The world of the anthropologists is turned upside down from time to time by some DNA from a tiny bone fragment found in a remote cave, or the discovery of some other rare and fragmentary fossil. This is not to cast aspersions upon the importance or validity of their work. It is to sympathize with the difficulty of their task in light of the character of their data.

Meanwhile the flamencologists are delving through newspaper archives, thumbing through dusty manuscripts and trying to reconcile occasionally contradictory oral histories, while it is difficult to corroborate their data. They have my gratitude and sympathy.

By the way, “petticoat” is a clumsy translation of “basquiña” which I chose for brevity. Since Concha’s was evidently worth some money, it was probably a decorative overskirt, part of a traditional regional costume.

RNJ
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2021 17:51:04
 
Ricardo

Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to Piwin

quote:

From which some linguist far in the future might mistakenly conclude that screwdrivers were dangerous weapons in our day.


It depends how much Vodka you use.

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www.ricardomarlow.com
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2021 17:52:50
 
Richard Jernigan

Posts: 3446
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to Ricardo

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ricardo

quote:

From which some linguist far in the future might mistakenly conclude that screwdrivers were dangerous weapons in our day.


It depends how much Vodka you use.


...or how chulo you are. Remember the guy on the New York subway who was tried for shooting the gangbanger threatening him with a screwdriver?

RNJ
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2021 18:07:42
 
Ricardo

Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to Richard Jernigan

quote:

This seems to me the likely use of the word in the tonadilla. Romero and Concha are quarreling over her absence from home, Concha refuses to say why she has pawned her petticoat, Romero accuses here of insolence.

To me it looks as though in this case ¨flamenco¨ has nothing to do with Flanders, el arte flamenco, German, gitanos or any of that. Romero is just complaining that Concha is being obstreperous.


Interesting, but I he doesn’t call HER flamenco, she calls HIM flamenco, or rather she says it was because of the “air” spelled “ayre” that he was “so flamenco”, in response to him having shuddered, or shivered at the thought the she refused to tell him the reason. Flamencologists have jumped on the phrase “aire tan flamenco estas” as it is a common thing to say as a complement to a performance of flamenco music. However they are ignoring the words “es con” el aire, and “COMO” tan flamenco. Emphasis here is that he shuddered and she says it was because of the AIR, not that this guy exhibited a musical atmosphere that constitutes “flamenco music”. What he says before that, showing frustration that she won’t tell him the reason and that her mind is made up and finalized, whatever THAT trait is, is what she implies “flamenco” means about his character, or perhaps his shivering refers to “coldness”. Any way you look at it, HE is not the stubborn one. But nothing in the dialogue points to a knowledge or reference to flamenco the art form.

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2021 18:10:04
 
kitarist

Posts: 1731
Joined: Dec. 4 2012
 

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to Ricardo

quote:

But nothing in the dialogue points to a knowledge or reference to flamenco the art form.


Yes, nor was it claimed that. It is so far the first reference to 'flamenco' meaning something other than Flemish (is all). That's what Faustino Nunez thought when he discovered it; and that's what you guys seem to agree on.

It seems important as a milestone because it indicates movement toward assigning new meaning(s) to 'flamenco' which before that was used only to refer to flemish(ness).

@Piwin: Interesting point with "Filmore's screwdriver", but it seems to me that his chosen example word is not optimal. After all, 'screwdriver' is one of these words where the meaning or use of it is locked in its actual name. (And in this case it is even the literal meaning not even a figurative one like it would be for 'bootlicker' which still describes itself but is not the literal action)

This makes it much less likely that someone would be elaborating on using a screwdriver properly - there is no need. Yet there is virtually no chance a future linguist will get confused as to what it was or its primary use, which makes the example less potent as an illustration of the interesting concept he brings up as this object is not just ordinarily mundane, it is mundane cubed to write about . It just seems like Filmore tilted the scales quite a bit with that specific word.. Wouldn't it have been better to use some entirely opaque word for illustrating his point? (opaque as in its name/label contains no clue to its meaning or function - 'pillow'? )

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Konstantin
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2021 20:14:09
 
Ricardo

Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to kitarist

quote:

It seems important as a milestone because it indicates movement toward assigning new meaning(s) to 'flamenco' which before that was used only to refer to flemish(ness).


Although it is not totally clear how to translate what she says to him, it is certainly no guarantee that she was NOT referring to his behavior or something about what he said that was “Flemish”. What I mean is there could still be some associative element about him that people back then considered how Flemish people act feel or behave. All I know is he shuddered and then she said it was “with the air that made him seem so like Flemish”. I don’t see any problem with interpreting it as cold air from the north. Warm or nuetral air does not make someone shiver. Of course there is also the duende but I don’t see that as contextually relevant. Without a crystal clear translation I don’t see how the example proves OTHER usage of the word entirely than “people and things from Flanders”.

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2021 21:17:33
 
Richard Jernigan

Posts: 3446
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to Ricardo

You're right, Ricardo, about who is saying "flamenco." I got confused by the handwriting.

I see here one of the figurative senses of the word "aire," not the literal one:

4. m. Apariencia, aspecto o estilo de alguien o de algo. Me impresionó su aire de tristeza. Diccionario de la RAE.

So as I see it, Concha is accusing Romero of having an insolent attitude, not of being a flamenco artist, a gitano, or a Fleming.

But this opens up a whole new can of worms. When did "flamenco" start to mean "chulo, insolente" according to the Real Academia? This may present an opportunity for original research. As far as I know, far less ink has been spilled in the pursuit of this knowledge than has been used in deciphering the name of el arte.

RNJ
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 10 2021 23:01:12
 
Piwin

Posts: 3566
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
 

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to kitarist

quote:

It just seems like Filmore tilted the scales quite a bit with that specific word.. Wouldn't it have been better to use some entirely opaque word for illustrating his point? (opaque as in its name/label contains no clue to its meaning or function - 'pillow'? )


I suppose. For context, I'd say that, in my (admittedly short) experience, if you have a spectrum of opinions ranging from "quantitative analysis of corpora is useful" to "quantitative analysis of corpora is useless", linguists tend to congregate at the extremes, with not all that many people in the middle. It's pretty obvious where Fillmore landed on that issue. He was known for one particular speech he gave which was a rather long caricature of "corpus linguists" as being nothing more than "armchair linguists" (zing!). Chomsky is another critic. I remember reading an interview of him from the early 2000s, and when the interviewer asked him whether his views on corpus linguistics had changed at all, he replied "Corpus linguistics? There's no such thing." On the other side, they are criticised as being "anti-empirical" by those who support such quantitative analyses.

Ultimately I think it might boil down to different opinions on what linguistics should be about and what kind of questions it should be answering. Personally, while I don't dismiss out of hand the potential of quantitative analysis of corpora, I think there's a lot of spurious connections being drawn out there. The kind of study that tries to relate secularisation to a decrease of frequency of the word "pray" on Ngram, or individualism to an increase of frequency of "get" and the decrease of frequency of "give" on Ngram, yeah...those get a hard pass from me. I put those in the "pointless on the job but might help you get laid" drawer, along with factoids like driving on a parkway vs. parking in a driveway.

edit: completely unrelated to this "flamenco" business, but if ever you want to look into linguistics further, I highly recommend the channel "Abralin" (Brazilian Association of Linguistics) on Youtube. Since the beginning of lockdown last year they've been holding live presentations that are essentially the same thing you'd get at a linguistics conference. They also do a good job at taking questions from the youtube chat, and since there usually aren't more than a few dozen people watching live, there's a good chance to get a reply to your questions. Since we were talking corpora, on June 16th there's this:
"Tore Nesset
Armed with a Corpus: Language Change and Corpus Data

Recent years have witnessed an information revolution in linguistics. With the advent of large electronic corpora, we now have access to enormous amounts of linguistic data. What are the implications of the information revolution for historical linguistics? How can we use corpus data to study language change? In this talk, I will discuss these questions based on case studies from Russian morphosyntax."

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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."
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 11 2021 12:34:48
 
kitarist

Posts: 1731
Joined: Dec. 4 2012
 

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to Piwin

Thanks Piwin!

And I'll check out the ABraLin channel, sounds very cool.

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Konstantin
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 11 2021 17:40:53
 
kitarist

Posts: 1731
Joined: Dec. 4 2012
 

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to Ricardo

Sorry, I got sidetracked by real life; will try to catch up on replies in one post.


quote:

ORIGINAL: Ricardo

quote:

An explanation just occurred to me - it is precisely because Borrow takes so much pride in his deeper knowledge and understanding of gitanos that he does not himself refer to gitanos or their art as 'flamenco'(*) - he knows they are not Flemish and thinks he knows it was a confusion that started this labelling;


The point is, he quotes them and the term was not used. Even by toreros. I can understand himself avoiding it on principle but NOT the people he interacted with and quoted. [] I mean he is very explicit so either it wasn’t used or he deliberately didn’t want his readers to know it was used


I take this to mean that it was not used or preferred by the gitanos themselves at the time, and this is why he did not use it. One might say “ What about the ‘flamenca de Roma’ in the copla?” I feel like it is not enough to deduce from it that ‘flamenco’ as a term was in general use by gitanos themselves. One reason is that Borrow is very explicit about how others call gitanos versus how they call themselves, and ‘flamenco’ doesnot appear in the latter category. Secondly, in introducing the poetry of the gitanos, Borrow says (The Zincali, vol.2, p. 8-9):

“Many of these creations have [] been wafted over Spain amongst the Gypsy tribes, and are even frequently repeated by the Spaniards themselves; at least, by those who affect to imitate the phraseology of the Gitános. Those which appear in the present collection consist partly of such couplets, and partly of such as we have ourselves taken down, as soon as they originated []”

And

“These couplets have been collected in Estremadura and New Castile, in Valencia and Andalusia; [] they constitute scarcely a tenth part of our original gleanings, from which we have selected one hundred of the most remarkable and interesting.”

“Flamenca de Roma” could have been part of the coplas “repeated by the Spaniards”, however massaged (by them) in the process of doing so, possibly by including that strange phrase "flamenca de Roma” which does not occur anywhere else – it sounds like others speaking of gitanos or of practitioners of the art and clarifying - rather than gitanos speaking about themselves. (Also, the fact that this is a curated selection which is 10% of the original – and yet ‘flamenco' occurs just once in that strange phrase - for some reason makes me more certain gitanos were not using ‘flamenco’ to refer to their art or its practitioners/themselves)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:

OK, what about cantes/bailes like caña, polo? For example, the 1604 reference is to a caña.


[] This means that in the same manner that seguidillas are NOT flamenco Siguiriyas, neither are the polos THE Flamenco polo as we know it. I further suspect the referenced cañas are equally not flamenco Cañas, and in fact I now feel all three names were stolen, like we know Guajiras rumba tango etc are only names, but stolen and used as convenient titles to “flamenco” songs, for no musically specific reasons. It is a habit we see, and thusly we can assume there is no reason to assume printed names of forms are in fact the flamenco ones we know.


OK so just to confirm here - does this mean I should remove the 1797 Zamacola volumes from the timeline because the seguidillas, tiranas y polos described there are in fact not flamenco-related?


quote:

ORIGINAL: Ricardo
The 1740 book is 7 pages of sloppy hand, so only one page of info doesn’t reveal much more than the bullet points you supplied. (Glad I did not purchase the 30e facsimile!😂)


No, actually this was just the excerpt that I could find – which is maybe 10% of the entire manuscript. Google and others give the total pages of the book as published in facsimile as around 70-85 pages which includes the transcription.
I was actually very keen on buying it but can’t find the thing anywhere – it seems out of stock. The additional material from it that I provided I gleaned from research papers quoting from it.

BTW did you read through the Ford book “Gatherings from Spain” circa 1830-1833 – especially chapter 23, pp.327-334, the juerga in Triana? The book is written in beautiful English; it is a pleasure to read. But also any comments on “the best guitars are made in Cadiz by the Pajez family”? – Anyone heard of this family and their guitar making?

Now more potentially interesting books:

1. From Christmas 1649 in Jerez (!): “Villancicos que se cantaron en en la Iglesia de San Miguel de Jerez de la Frontera en la Navidad de 1649” (“Christmas carols that were sung in the Church of San Miguel de Jerez de la Frontera at Christmas 1649”), compiled by Francisco Barbosa:

https://archive.org/details/VILLANCICOJEREZ1649/mode/2up

Only 8 pages but I am wondering if any part of the songs are recognizable today as part of saetas, for example?

2. From 1870: “El gitanismo: historia, costumbres y dialecto de los gitanos. Con un epítome de gramática gitana” (“Gypsyism: history, customs and dialect of the gypsies. With an example of gypsy grammar”), by Francisco de Sales Mayo:

https://archive.org/details/elgitanismohist00mayogoog/page/n10/mode/2up

3. From 1915: “Historia y costumbres de los gitanos, colección de cuentos viejos y nuevos, dichos y timos graciosos, maldiciones y refranes netamente gitanos ; diccionario español-gitano-germanesco, dialecto de los gitanos” (“History and customs of the gypsies, collection of old and new stories, funny sayings and scams, curses and clearly gypsy sayings; Spanish-Gypsy-German dictionary, Gypsy dialect”) by F.M Pabanó:

https://archive.org/details/historiaycostumb00pabauoft/page/n7/mode/2up

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Konstantin
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 18 2021 7:26:44
 
Morante

 

Posts: 2247
Joined: Nov. 21 2010
 

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to kitarist

quote:

best guitars are made in Cadiz by the Pajez family”


Guitars by Pages are legendary in Cádiz: Cameron had one, we had one in for repairs in the taller. They are guitars of their time, small bodied etc. Any book on the history of guitars in Spain will mention Pages.

Here is a foto:

https://casasors.com/product/guitarra-josef-pages/

Otro foto con mi amigo Rafael, discípulo de Romanillos.

http://www.rafaellopezehijo.com/restauraciones.php
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 18 2021 11:36:48
 
Ricardo

Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to kitarist

quote:

OK so just to confirm here - does this mean I should remove the 1797 Zamacola volumes from the timeline because the seguidillas, tiranas y polos described there are in fact not flamenco-related?


Well yes and no. Yes because the description of the music and dance that the letras apply to is NOT our flamenco music at all.

However, I feel it also stands as important document to show that the song titles “seguidilla” and “polo” mean something DIFFERENT, like other flamenco palos that have double meaning, and should not be considered evidence of flamenco music when found in print. But the interesting thing, to me, is the USE of the song titles to describe proper flamenco song forms, and the nature of the lyrics…..I believe the titles were appropriated by flamenco singers of the time, and perhaps even some of THOSE lyrics, to cover the true nature of the music they started singing in public, that used to be only sung in private. In other words, the rhythmic nature and rhyme of the polo letra “fit” in place of the the proper flamenco Polo melody, even though it was not called “polo”. Because they borrowed the lyrics, the name “polo” stuck to the song form. So if the artists were singing the manchega songs and dance, then switched to flamenco cante with similar lyric, when people asked “what song is THAT?”, they simply called it “polo”. We know that El Fillo sang siguiriyas and Soleá, via anecdote and tradition….so in literature when we read that they performed “seguidillas polo and tiranas”, there is ambiguity about what exactly they were doing, because it could be flamenco proper (most likely) but there was not a name for cantes at the time known to the public, so they used the popular folk dance titles.

That is how things are looking to me anyway. So as historical evidence keep it in for now.

As for Ford book…hard to read as I don’t like all that writing style compared to Borrows. Very superficial observations he gives, and plus the misspellings like Zaryab and Pajez are not helpful IMO. The description of Caña MIGHT be correct, only because he describes the “ay” at the END. Although his implication that it was “high pitched” doesn’t make sense, because it is the lower register part of the melody. The Borrows book by contrast is gold.

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 18 2021 16:19:36
 
kitarist

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RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to Morante

quote:

ORIGINAL: Morante

quote:

best guitars are made in Cadiz by the Pajez family”


Guitars by Pages


Ah, so it was a spelling mistake in the book. Thanks for the info/pics!

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Konstantin
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 18 2021 22:54:35
 
Morante

 

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RE: Can a white man play the blues? (in reply to kitarist

Spelling mistake by me too! Should be Pagés
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jun. 18 2021 23:10:25
 
kitarist

Posts: 1731
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RE: Flamenco-related Timeline 1740 -... (in reply to kitarist

Here is the updated/corrected Timeline; mostly small edits and corrections, and 'Escenas Andaluzas' moved to 1838, AND adding from the same book a reference to another chapter called 'Asamblea General' where the same characters appear, and a few others.

I also spent a lot of time chasing various other leads that ultimately turned out to be nothing significant or certain enough to include, or could not be sourced properly down to the primary source. Might as well tell you briefly about the most time-consuming one: Jan Potocki.

From Wiki: “Count Jan Potocki (1761 – 1815) was a Polish nobleman, Polish Army Captain of Engineers, ethnologist, Egyptologist, linguist, traveler, adventurer, and popular author of the Enlightenment period, whose life and exploits made him a legendary figure in his homeland. Outside Poland he is known chiefly for his novel The Manuscript Found in Saragossa.”

He also wrote travelogues, a farce called “Les bohémiens d'andalousie” (i.e. “The Gitanos of Andalusia”), and must have kept a detailed diary. In a preface and a bio note to a Spanish edition of the “The Manuscript Found in Saragossa” (which itself was originally written in French, as were all of his writings), it is mentioned (based on his diaries? – because it is not part of the published travelogues) that after his travels in Morocco Potocki spent some months in Andalusia where the very first night he landed in Cadiz he went to a gitano flamenco fiesta and was impressed with the artistry and sounds etc..

The Morocco travels were in Jul-Sep 1791 and were published as “Voyage dans l’empire de Maroc, fait en l’année 1791”. The travelogue ends on Sep 6, 1791. So on Sep 7, 1791, Potocki lands in Cadiz and attends that flamenco party.

The only mention in the Morocco travelogue of anything even remotely relevant is the following as part of the Sep. 6 entry (from the Spanish edition):

“Nos hicimos a la vela el 7 por la mañana y aquella misma noche llegamos a Cádiz. La víspera me encontraba entre los pueblos nómadas del Rif y al día siguiente expuesto a la atención, viendo a bellas españolas con redecillas, francesas con gorritos de París e inglesas con sombreros, grupos de baile, fandangos y castañuelas.”

Which is roughly:

“We set sail on the 7th in the morning and that same night we arrived in Cádiz. The day before I was among the nomadic peoples of the Rif and the next day I was exposed to the attention, seeing beautiful Spanish women with hairnets, French women with Paris hats and English women with hats, dance groups, fandangos and castanets.”

So at the end I gave up as I couldn't find the source of the more detailed and more specific claim that was part of the preface/bio note of the Spanish edition of the Saragossa Manuscrupt. Also I could not find the “Les bohémiens d'andalousie" farce/play to see if there was anything interesting in there from our point of view.

Anyway, here is the updated and corrected Timeline:



Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px

Attachment (1)

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jul. 17 2021 21:02:28
 
devilhand

 

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RE: Flamenco-related Timeline 1740 -... (in reply to kitarist

You put a lot effort into it which is great. How about demystyfing the origin of the word Solea?

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jul. 17 2021 23:57:17
 
BarkellWH

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RE: Flamenco-related Timeline 1740 -... (in reply to kitarist

quote:

From Wiki: “Count Jan Potocki (1761 – 1815) was a Polish nobleman, Polish Army Captain of Engineers, ethnologist, Egyptologist, linguist, traveler, adventurer, and popular author of the Enlightenment period, whose life and exploits made him a legendary figure in his homeland. Outside Poland he is known chiefly for his novel The Manuscript Found in Saragossa.”


Konstantin, you are the only person I have come across (other than myself) who has mentioned Jan Potocki and his major work "The Manuscript Found in Saragossa." I have a hardback copy of the only fully translated (from French to English) version published in 1995. I had read a truncated version that was published in 1960, when I was 17 years old, and found it interesting but it was incomplete.

The manuscript is a diary that was kept by one Alphonse van Worden, a Walloon officer in the service of the king of Spain. It protrays 66 days of his travels and his encounters with a variety of people including a gypsy chief, a geometer, a Cabbalist, and the Wandering Jew, as well as others. At the beginning he stays at a remote inn overnight and is met by several Negresses who are the ladies in waiting for a couple of sisters from Tunis who invite him to dinner. Upon finding that he is a Christian, the sisters, Emina and Zubaida, implore him to convert to their faith, Islam, and he would then be able to taste the delights they had to offer him. He is given a potion by the sisters, falls asleep, and wakes in the morning to find the rotting bodies of two brothers who had been hanged on either side of him.

All the people he meets in his travels have stories, and many have stories within stories. It is a very strange book, but it has an intriguing motif, represented on the dust jacket by a picture of Goya's painting "The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters." Potocki committed suicide in 1815 by making a silver bullet from a tea pot and firing it into his skull.

I am not necessarily recommending this book, by the way, but it's strangeness might be appreciated by some. I found it interesting.

Bill

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jul. 18 2021 16:42:44
 
kitarist

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RE: Flamenco-related Timeline 1740 -... (in reply to BarkellWH

Bill, it is definitely on my to-read list now. I even found a couple of blogs specifically dedicated to discussing the book. (Their authors typically posted for 2-3 years their various thoughts, clearly deeply affected from reading the book and wanting to chat about it, but had virtually no one to talk to and then moved on to other things )

Apparently it is part of the high school curriculum in Poland, and there is a 3-hour Polish film from 1965 that attempted to bring it to the 'silver screen'. (Though I'd read the book but would not watch that film; I generally find film treatments always disappointing in comparison.)

I did read about his supposed method of killing himself, and that he got that bullet blessed by the local priest. He was in ill health for a long time before that moment so it is thought he might have seen that end as a release from suffering. The silver bullet - because he thought he might be turning into a werewolf...

It was so frustrating to see the end of the Morocco travelogue with 'now we set sail for Cadiz', and then - nothing in any other book of his - despite his many travels to many corners of the world which he published, the stay in Andalusia is not documented that way.

So I thought it must be the much less known farce ("parades") of his which has its basis in his stay in Spain, but that exists only in French and is not easily obtainable.

To me the payoff would have been to find any reference to descriptions of fiestas/juergas and/or the use of 'flamenco' in that context, in his writings - which would enter the Timeline somewhere in the 1791-1810 slice, after Cartas Marruecas.

For what it's worth, in the' Manuscript found in Saragossa', Spanish edition, 'flamenco' occurs 5-6 times, all of which are references to Flemish.

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jul. 19 2021 17:45:48
 
Ricardo

Posts: 15242
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RE: Flamenco-related Timeline 1740 -... (in reply to kitarist

quote:

Here is the updated/corrected Timeline; mostly small edits and corrections, and 'Escenas Andaluzas' moved to 1838


I finally read through that one about Planeta etc. I actually don’t find the date 1838, or I am missing it there somewhere. I did see the month of May in text. It is important to note, even though the word “flamenco” is never used in regards to the the artists nor the music, several descriptions of what we know as flamenco music are made in the book. Solea, siguiriyas and bulerias are not expressly mentioned, but other forms are. There were coplas of Rondeña in another chapter, “Fandangos de Cadiz” is mentioned as coming to Madrid in dance form, and I am quite sure (along with a few aficionados) that these songs are the origins of Alegrias/Cantiñas. Before the performance of Planeta description he takes time to describe the Caña song form as being more moorish and the guitar plays “mi menor” and melancholy, which I take to refer to E phrygian, and becomes more lively at the end (which ties in with Ford’s description). We know Caña/Polo relate very close to Soleá de Triana (Apola styles), and to the Soleá in general. The weird thing is how he says the lyrics repeat over and over until the ending. I think he could be interpreting the melody as repeating with different lyric sets, then it speeds up at the end and becomes happy, just like the Solea styles. We know Romance is of course related to Solea family songs, but there are many types and some are more solea like than others (watch Rito y Geografia episode Cantes sin Guitarra for examples).

Several weird or unfamiliar song forms are mentioned (I won’t speculate here) which probably are also flamenco related. The Tonadas sevillanas, are most likely “toná, martinetes” etc type things, since it is El Fillo we are talking about there. So “Toná from Sevilla” is how I am interpreting that. The polo Tobalo is vague. I might have been ok with either the Manchega dance version of Polo, or the cantaor that was mentioned named “Tobalo” could have been the creator of THAT polo, whatever it was. The most important proper flamenco form mentioned later is “Perteneras”. That is certainly flamenco as we know it, and the “Jabera” as a type of Malagueña fits perfectly in the modern picture of that form. Also he mentions Malagueñas and Granadinas as fandango based forms. So this is very early descriptions of flamenco, without even calling it that. He also describes guitars in detail.

I am not sure your source of flamencology that uses Escenas Andaluzas as a reference, but I hope they have also pointed out all of the above?

Only thing I would add is the Bible in Spain which has lots of good flamenco related things I pointed out earlier, and literally complements Zincali when read together. Also the “los del Afición” story in the Zincali is super flamenco related.

What is missing from the timeline is first mention of the song form “Soleares” or “Soleá”. Most sources point to 1840 but I don’t see the evidence. In my head, both Soleares and Flamenco seem to appear together (vs. Siguiriyas which could at any point in time be the manchega dance).

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www.ricardomarlow.com
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jul. 19 2021 19:41:24
 
kitarist

Posts: 1731
Joined: Dec. 4 2012
 

RE: Flamenco-related Timeline 1740 -... (in reply to Ricardo

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ricardo

quote:

Here is the updated/corrected Timeline; mostly small edits and corrections, and 'Escenas Andaluzas' moved to 1838


I finally read through that one about Planeta etc. I actually don’t find the date 1838, or I am missing it there somewhere. I did see the month of May in text.


We went through that earlier in the thread - The author was in Sevilla only for 10 months or so, Jan-Nov 1838, and since he describes what he has seen first hand, it followed that the whole episode in Sevilla is from that year.


quote:

ORIGINAL: Ricardo
[lots of great stuff]

I am not sure your source of flamencology that uses Escenas Andaluzas as a reference, but I hope they have also pointed out all of the above?


No, I have not seen that level of detailed historically-informed musicological analysis applied to the relevant material in these books; and I have seen maybe a couple of cases of historical musicological analysis applied more broadly to flamenco (which may be of interest to you).


quote:

ORIGINAL: Ricardo
Only thing I would add is the Bible in Spain which has lots of good flamenco related things I pointed out earlier, and literally complements Zincali when read together. Also the “los del Afición” story in the Zincali is super flamenco related.

What is missing from the timeline is first mention of the song form “Soleares” or “Soleá”. Most sources point to 1840 but I don’t see the evidence. In my head, both Soleares and Flamenco seem to appear together (vs. Siguiriyas which could at any point in time be the manchega dance).


OK will do. Also I came across some research to do with when the various forms [names?] appear first, and have to find and review it as I seem to recall they had some documentary evidence referenced.

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jul. 19 2021 22:21:50
 
Piwin

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RE: Flamenco-related Timeline 1740 -... (in reply to kitarist

¡Thanks kitarist!

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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jul. 20 2021 4:00:38
 
kitarist

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RE: Flamenco-related Timeline 1740 -... (in reply to kitarist

quote:

Also I came across some research to do with when the various forms [names?] appear first, and have to find and review it as I seem to recall they had some documentary evidence referenced.


Found the paper I was thinking of when I wrote this. Expect a followup in a day or two.

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Konstantin
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Nov. 5 2021 16:51:39
 
Ricardo

Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Flamenco-related Timeline 1740 -... (in reply to kitarist

quote:

ORIGINAL: kitarist

quote:

Also I came across some research to do with when the various forms [names?] appear first, and have to find and review it as I seem to recall they had some documentary evidence referenced.


Found the paper I was thinking of when I wrote this. Expect a followup in a day or two.

Right, since then I came across anecdotal stuff that el Fillo (the guy in Escenas Andaluces, or possibly his son or relative) had a girlfriend (lover or wife) named Andonda who first sang and danced Soleá in public in 1940s. I half suspect that it was a personalized name for her associated styles of Soleá cantes, possibly called something else from the list of forms described in Escenas Andaluces, before her performance. Andonda supposedly passed down her songs to Serneta and others that constitute the core of Soleá melodies (Triana and surrounding Sevillana regions such as alcala, Utrera lebrija etc). The jerez and cadiz soleas either derive from those or from whatever early sources were the Andonda sources. For example Paquirri, who died in Madrid, has styles considered core of both Cadiz and Triana (in other words, in the region of the golden triangle, individual artist attributions of styles can cross Geographic boundaries).

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CD's and transcriptions available here:
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  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Nov. 6 2021 13:46:56
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