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.
Posts: 2006
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
Flamenco Puro
Went to visit my daughter in Carpinteria a few weeks ago and found this in a little record shop. It had a price of 495.00 I’m not sure if it was a mistake but when I got home I checked and I still have my copy. I’d let it go for 450.00 :-)
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
I have one too. The track labels are mixed up on mine, how about yours? I used that quote on the back for a lecture I gave….the one about the Soleá being the oldest form in flamenco and goes back beyond the limits of research. I used it to expose a contradiction regarding Caña (also thought to be oldest form), and also, cuz I sort of found the origins.
Yes, the labels are mixed up on mine too. This created an embarrasing moment. Mariano Cordoba arranged for me to host a flamenco day on a local radio station in Berkeley in the late 80's. I invited some local flamencos to do an hour each and I was going to talk to the host and play records for an hour. I introduced a cut from Flamenco Puro, put on the record, and started talking to the host. Towards the end of the song, I realized I had introduced the wrong cut. Probably three people were tuned in.....
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
I have one too. The track labels are mixed up on mine, how about yours? I used that quote on the back for a lecture I gave….the one about the Soleá being the oldest form in flamenco and goes back beyond the limits of research. I used it to expose a contradiction regarding Caña (also thought to be oldest form), and also, cuz I sort of found the origins.
Spanish name with jr. Probably a pan american name.
In Spain, they use "niño" or "hijo". Since Pedro was active in USA and his dad was as well, as his interview explains, he used jr. to distinguish from his dad. I added that myself, assuming you watched the whole interview and would understand. After time he did not need to use the "jr.", and doesn't anymore of course. Like "morao" vs "moraito Chico". It used to be important to distinguish the generations, but in context we know who we mean.
Cortes is super gyspy/flamenco dynasty/elite Gitano, if you know flamenco artists by their sur names vs artistic names.
This video is from a conference that Meira Goldberg and Antoni Pica organized in New York about. year ago. The topic was American influences on the music of Paco de Lucía. My talk starts around 1:08.
This video is from a conference that Meira Goldberg and Antoni Pica organized in New York about. year ago. The topic was American influences on the music of Paco de Lucía. My talk starts around 1:08.
Excellent talk/overview. I was curious is the 1936 is the OLDEST recorded guitar solos? Ramon Montoya has another set of them and I can't get a solid date for them, before or after the BAM record.
About Sabicas, I play a falseta of his (A minor Bulerías), proving he stole from Niño Ricardo records IN FACT. . But for sure he is mainly drawing from Montoya.
Some said Carmen Amaya deemphasized cante, which is absurd to me. She sings Taranto WHILE dancing it! LOL. Bulerías as well. She IS the first cantaora I ever heard in my life (Queen of the Gypsies).
And I will generalize for you about American flamenco. New York is very "Puerto Rican" flamenco, California (and lets add New Mexico) is very "Mexican" flamenco, and Florida has "Cuban" flamenco. Pretty easy! Here in DC, the "Cuna" if you will ( ), we do Jerez/Sanlúcar de Barrameda style.
I didn't realize that was a Ricardo falsetto (the same one Paco plays on an early recording?).
I think the point is that Carmen Amaya, at first, didn't bring cantaores; rather, she sang herself. Some of her dance/singing performances are spectacular and iconic - e.g., colombianas and garrotín (with Sabicas, often among others, on guitar). Here is a clip of her colombianas - beautiful!
Starting at 2:44 she sings to a spectator, putting her arm around him "quisiera cariño mío que tú nunca me olvidaras" - I'm sure he didn't!
California flamenco is more than Mexican, of course - SF isn't much at all, and San Diego has a large population of Spanish women married to former Navy personnel (including two of Manuel Agujetas' sisters). Here is a talk I did on that:
I enjoyed it very much John. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and experience, as I did the other speakers. I still remember you playing I think a granaina at a flamenco society of San Jose event in the early 80’s.
quote:
ORIGINAL: granjuanillo
This video is from a conference that Meira Goldberg and Antoni Pica organized in New York about. year ago. The topic was American influences on the music of Paco de Lucía. My talk starts around 1:08.
Montoya was more lyrical than Ricardo. Also, Ricardo had a better sense of compás. Both expanded the range of guitar possibilities, using the entire fingerboard, but in different ways. Sabicas added clean technique and compás to a Montoya base, and - in a sense - Paco did the same with Ricardo's music. Diego del Gastor was a fan of Ricardo, but not Montoya (he allegedly said of Montoya "un gitano qua toca mu payo").
Speaking of Ricardo and Paco, here is anecdote that I heard from someone who had been in a conversation with Ricardo, Paco's father (Antonio Sánchez), and El Flecha de Cádiz. It is a bit crude, but very gaditano and andaluz.
Paco's father eked out a living playing in private fiestas. He may have been a rather mediocre guitarist, as this story suggests, but he certainly did help train the greatest guitarist of the 20th century. El Flecha was an old-school Cádiz singer, from around Pericón's generation; his. sons - Chaquetón and Flecha hijo - were active in Madrid tablaos in the 1980s (Chaquetón has some recordings).
Ricardo: Oye Antonio - acabo de escuchar el nuevo disco de tu hijo y, de verdad, está tocando muy bien.
Antonio (presumido): Sí toca bien, pero yo le voy a hacer que toque hasta mejor.
Flecha: Mira Antonio. Tu hijo toca bien porque tu mué tiene peazo shosho pa' parí a un genio de la guitarra. Tú lo único que ha' hesho ha zío dejá eufónico' a to lo cantaore' de Cadi por no dar ningún tono.
Ricardo: Hey Antonio - I just heard your son's new album - he's really playing well.
Antonio (puffed up): Yeah - he plays well, but I'm going to make him play even better.
Flecha: Listen Antonio. Your son plays well because your wife has a piece of ass that gave birth to a guitar genius. The only thing you've ever done has been to leave all the Cádiz singers hoarse from giving the wrong tones.
I didn't realize that was a Ricardo falsetto (the same one Paco plays on an early recording?).
No, but I heard some of the other phrases in Pepe Martinez bulerias too. In fact the dates were so close to Sabicas I had to wonder if Sabicas got it from Pepe?? That would be tricky to pin down. Pepe was super close to Ramon, so he and Sabicas have a very similar toque to my ear, as they both drew from his rep mainly.
quote:
Montoya was more lyrical than Ricardo. Also, Ricardo had a better sense of compás. Both expanded the range of guitar possibilities, using the entire fingerboard, but in different ways. Sabicas added clean technique and compás to a Montoya base, and - in a sense - Paco did the same with Ricardo's music. Diego del Gastor was a fan of Ricardo, but not Montoya (he allegedly said of Montoya "un gitano qua toca mu payo").
There is A LOT of nuance in there that closer inspection contradicts. First, Ramon had excellent compas IMO, it was not just the clean notes (high action guitars). In the cante accompaniment as well, or mainly. I teach falsetas of Ricardo at students request....gosh darn it I had to make decisions to pass bad compas ideas or repair the damage. 15 count buleria and such. For cante he let it breath more than Ramon and his generation (Gandulla and Borrull). Montoya et al were not afraid to break the compas in half for Serneta solea etc.
I feel it is Melchor and Ricardo together that influences very strongly the accompaniment. I mean, the elastic thing and keep 12 like religion (I did notice Ricardo break compas many times too so perhaps even this is not the case). Melchor is under emphasized IMO when we talk about soloists. Melchor had dynamics that were unique. When Paco de Lucia accompanied Mairena he did NOT say he was channelling niño Ricardo...it was MELCHOR that he wanted to emulate. anyway....
The irony statement people love is that Ricardo toque is "gypsy" and Montoya is "payo", and it is really silly imo. Ricardo is very sloppy, like you have to learn it, then figure out what he was TRYING to do. But at the same time he had these devices that are very technical and challenging. What I give Ricardo over all the others before him was the syncopation in the arpeggios. He is first to use subdivision to impose counter phrasing (3 against 4 and such) which is very intellectually sophisticated IMO. Maybe dance was an influence, but there are not clear recordings to study dance before Carmen Amaya when it was already like sophisticated drum rudiments going on with the feet. We only have guitar and Cante to infer things like that which must have evolved concurrently with the dance.
So Gastor certainly was into that syncopating thing he used in buleria that mezmorized the American visitors. But for him to put down Montoya vs Ricardo? I would have to dig into it a bit but years ago I noticed him using Montoya and Javier Molina quotes directly, and assumed that he must have had a record player just like Sabicas and Pepe Martinez.
I will try to dig up that Ricardo falseta that Sabicas stole....
Here we go. So Ramon Montoya is in this movie 1938, and this song Piconeros is the inspiration for these up tempo buleria in A minor, you can hear the melody in the picados. I wonder if Montoya didn't have a similar guitar solo that was not recorded?
So two pieces in the same style by Ricardo...you can first hear the general thing Sabicas is going for, and the scale down remates fast as heck. Cool that at 1:40 a second guitar enters....over dubbing back then or another guitarist? The second piece has the falseta I know...at 3:28...super fast damn!
And Sabicas at 1:13 note for note:
For me, I mean I learned the Sabicas but the Ricardo seems more virtuosic....but sloppy in spots.
Diego del Gastor was a fan of Ricardo, but not Montoya (he allegedly said of Montoya "un gitano qua toca mu payo").
Did you hear that from David Jones? I heard him say that at least twice, both times to counter someone else's admiration of Montoya, which I suspect was the context in which Diego said it, assuming he actually did say that. Because Montoya was the top dog for decades, like Paco in our times, and I think some people got tired of the adulation.
David also spoke disapprovingly of fandangos, an attitude that I think he got from certain people he admired in his youth. Certainly, there are more interesting cantes (that drunks don't usually dare to sing), but fandangos have been a legitimate cante since el Gloria and, in particular, el Chocolate.
The guitarists in Morón adapted one of Montoya's granaína falsetas to bulería por medio. I assume it was Diego, but it could have been someone older.
but fandangos have been a legitimate cante since el Gloria and, in particular, el Chocolate.
How about Manuel Torre and Vallejo? Or was Vallejo a problematic influence on the flamenco opera? I mean doing it por Soleá (compás I mean) makes it pretty serious IMO. But Torre doing emblematic Malagueñas, Taranto, etc., Fandango along for the ride with the serious cantes. My feeling is that the issue with fandango was that they would do round after round of em, like a competition rather than mix all the rest in. Like guitar players starting creating 3 or 4 bulerias new to any other palo, so there was a time when it was just too much fandango going on.
I think most aficionados find Vallejo’s voice to be shrieky and whiny, and Torre wasn’t really known for his fandangos like he is today. In any case, both are from before the advent of the fandango libre, which is what I was referring to. El Gloria is another who sang rhythmic fandangos, but he was known for his extraordinary singing in that style and others (excellent letras, too), which makes him too relevant not to mention, in my opinion. José Cepero deserves credit for laying the groundwork that led to the expansion of the fandango toward free styles, but his voice and, to a lesser degree, his singing are boring. Aficionados in Huelva say Antonio Rengel was the most important fandanguero, followed by Paco Toronjo, but I see Caracol and el Chocolate as the ones who gave fandangos libres their place in the repertoire of core styles. El Chocolate even said he had to learn to sing por soleá by learning to sing por fandangos first. That’s quite a statement.
quote:
...too much fandango going on.
Yeah, that's probably right. Often enough, there's no accounting for Spaniards' taste. Objectively, though, I think it’s doubly tiresome when a drunken crowd is just waiting to shout “ole” at the end of each tercio. I imagine that kind of drunken context was behind David’s aversion to fandangos. It’s a real drag to be stuck behind the guitar like that all night with a bunch of losers.
Printable Version
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