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Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
Carlos Montoya
He does not come up that often. Notice those strings tunned down like a 4th or something, then he capos way up and it still sounds like low open tuning. The comments are great "he invented the hammer on pull off" etc.
I wonder if he slacks his strings down and then puts the capo on so he gets that slappy sound. It would also be a lot easier to play the guitar, slack strings down put capo on and you have the equivalent to some 9 gage electric strings.
I have actually tried this before and it sounds really great, you just cant jam with anybody.
I fee like I need to explore Montoya now thanks Ricardo.
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May we find God through Flamenco instead of Angels and Demons
well the flamenco nerd in me comes up. Why the hell is this a Tientos?? It starts like Rumba, then Tangos, then crappy compas tangos (with the golpes), a little bit of seguriya pulgar motifs (?), then tangos, then tanguilloslike happy melodies,... ??
I really liked his Granadinas because of fast hammer ons etc and because its virtuosly played, but this "Tientos" i couldnt stand. But i found this comment very helpful:
quote:
The Juan Martin of his day lol
LOL !!!
quote:
this is guitar. There is no technique, it is all straight from the heart. Greatest guitarist ever. You can listen to the same song 100 times and find something new every time.
Having grown up in Canada, Carlos Montoya was an introduction to flamenco guitar for me, and apparently many others. He toured here at least a few times and his recordings used to be fairly visible in stores. Quite often when I was playing a solo guitar gig I would play my attempt at Soleares and Fandango de Huelvas and after my set someone would come forward and comment of my "flamenco" and then immediately ask me if I was familiar with Carlos Montoya. I have several of his recordings and I like them but I've always thought he was doing something a little different than Sabicas, Mario Escudero etc...., I'm guessing as I learn more about flamenco that he was taking some liberties with the compas and mixing forms here and there.
Something isn't right with his music! What is it? its like really messy or somethin.
Plus, no one applauds at the end have they all left, I've never really checked his music out cos of negative comments I'd heard about him. Can anyone give a factual, unbiased history or something???
I have some very early recordings of Carlos Montoya somewhere where he is accompanying cante and baile. His compas was impeccable and his playing was inimitable. I saw him many times in concert and was always amazed at his facility. He was from a different era. If you listen to Ramon Montoya, Nino Ricardo, Manolo de Huelva, etc. you'll find they were not terribly concerned with staying on compas when playing solo but obviously the compas of these great masters was never in doubt.
Carlos Montoya did one recording in the early 60's (I think) which had a couple of cuts accompanying Tere Maya in Tangos and Buleria. If you can locate them you might be surprised at how well he accompanied the cante.
That was great I Love Youtube. I didnt know there was footage of Carlos Montoya. I found quite a bit of Montoya vinyl including a live concert in new york where in does a flamenco blues (way before Pata negra) Gotta agree with John about compas with baile and Cante. Stu this is roots flamenco. Musically it was a different era. Its only with hindsight that you really appreciate the influence of PDL. Now everyone has a musical vocabulary in famenco. Apart from guys like sabicas, flamenco was generally pretty raw, highly percussive and the falsetas were more like rhythmic breaks than musical compositions. No need to know Jazz theory then although Sometimes i think that the flamenco today loses some of that rawness of the past players. That technique is so agressive, you think he is going to rip off the strings. What i dont understand is how Montoya and Sabicas were shadowed by the poularity of manitas de plata at that time. Questions. Ricardo, you said he tuned the guitar down and then put a capo on to make it sound like open tuning. Was that common to do back then or was that just montoya? Does that make the rasgeos easier with the lower string tension? (i should try it) Also 5 strings are wound. Only the top string is like a normal treble string? Did he use a wound G string as his second string?
"En este stilus, gitano, Manitas de Plata es sin igual. Pero sin duda que Montoya es un maestro!"
I think most of us would also agree that there was no equal to Manitas de Plata, let alone in the 'gitano stylus'
Or that it was uncle Ramon who is the real master.
But as Carlos Montoya said - "I do not play the way I do to please the public, though it certainly does, on five continents so far, and no other flamenco guitarist will ever fill the Houston Astrodome as I have. No, I play the way I do because to me, that is exactly the way the flamenco guitar should sound. It seems strange to me that the unknowing public should agree, while the real flamenco aficionados clearly do not...but that's the case." Hmmm.. maybe there's more to that comment about JM than first seems...
CM has to get some credit for popularizing flamenco in the US in the 60's and 70's; back then, you couldn't bring up the subject without someone telling you how wonderful he was. Likewise Jose Greco.
I guess he helped get me interested in flamenco, but as soon as I bought recordings of Sabicas, N. Ricardo, etc, I quickly decided there were better guitarists out there, even if they were less popular than CM. I felt like he was too sloppy with technique and too casual with compas. His uncle, Ramon Montoya, didn't think much of him, according to my teacher (who was also a student of Ramon Montoya).
You're right, though, Ricardo. He tuned his guitar down and then put on a capo to make it easier/faster to play, despite the negative effect on the sound. Not a decision that adds to my respect for him as a musician. The left hand needs less strength to fret the strings quickly and the right hand can easily overpower the strings and make him sound stronger than he is.
Sabicas, on the other hand, achieved a clean, strong sound, and did it honestly.
Here's a story I've only ever told one other person; I never told it while Carlos was alive out of respect for his feelings.
I used to live in New Jersey, and drive into New York to take lessons from Mario Escudero.
Mario's policy was never to diss another artist. If you asked his opinion, he'd always nod and say, "Very nice!". ("What do you think of Jimi Hendrix, Mario?" "Very nice!"). So if you wanted to get his real opinion, you had to catch him off guard.
One day I was driving him back home from Orozco's (he didn't have a car) and Montoya's name came up in the conversation. I said "Oh, well. They say he used to play passable Flamenco twenty years ago."
Mario: "Who say?" Me: "Well, Donn Pohren for one." Mario: "Let me tell you. Twenty years ago, was same **** like today!"
Some of the criticism is justified, but Montoya held me spell bound as a teenager though I knew nothing about flamenco; then he sold me a guitar, a Hernandez y Aguado blanca. For that, I will always appreciate him.
I heard somewhere that Calros Montoya had some kind of injury that required him to have very slack string tension for more comfortable playing. I dont know if that is true though.
Carlos Montoya is criticized for not keeping compas and for using too much ligado and tremolo. As a teenager, I was hooked on his albums, and I saw him perform several times in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. Montoya introduced me to flamenco, as he did so many others at that time, before I knew a thing about it. He instilled in me a life-long love of the genre. Later, as I gained more knowledge of flamenco, I understood some of the criticism, but I still don't completely agree with all of it. In his early years he did accompany dancers and cantaors. And when he wanted, he could play in compas. That he did not always do so does not alter the fact that he could play very well indeed when he wanted to. As mentioned above, I agree that he could be sloppy (although I still like his ligados and tremolos), and that Sabicas, Nino Ricardo, and others were better overall. Nevertheless, I do not think that montoya was as bad as many make him out to be. Of course, he was a showman, and a very successful one at that. And therein, I think, lies the source of much of the resentment against him.
Cheers,
Bill
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And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
Come to think of it, I saw an interview with Rafael Riqueni once wherein he said he hates his own playing: he only plays that way because it seems to be what people want.
I have a this very very old Carlos Montoya booklet that came from a second hand shop many years ago called Flamenco Fire and it looks like this......
Album is HMV CLP.1177 and has Bolera Corralers Tientas Gitanos Temas en Farruga Chufla Melodias de Jerez Buleria Ecos de sierra Nevada Compas Flamenco
Anyway I did find what I think is the album once online and downloaded some tracks but the transcription is so bad ,,, its like not worth having .... Plus it seems to me like it was transcribed by maybe a piano player as many of the tunes are written in strange keys ...because of the Capo effect .. for example Tientas gitanos is written in Ab but he might have played it with the capo on the 4th . for example, I'm sure he didnt do it in such a strange key with no capo .... Anyway , I did learn a sevillanas from it once , ... I was thinking one day of putting it into a midi programe and thereby being able to transpose it at the flick of a switch ,,,, anyway I have the tracks and the very bad booklet ...
I could scan some if you wanted
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