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Ricardo -> RE: Books about Flamenco (Feb. 29 2024 12:47:02)
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I enjoyed the book by Leblon about gypsies and flamenco (it is in English too). He does a good job isolating the Flamenco “dynasties” and discusses their important contribution to the art. I did track down some miss information (such as Gypsies fighting in the Flanders war. That was misrepresented, it was only Montoya early on in the war, late 1590’s and then the later story was about a militia of misfits that the Spain gov never allowed to leave the country, for obvious reasons. He made it sound like many gitanos fought and returned as “Flemish” soldiers, which is false). But I like the way he presents a lot of the information. The other issue with his book is like many pro-gitano authors, after making the distinction between the FLAMENCO artists and the nomadic Roma, they go on to talk about the problems Roma endure racially, in a GENERAL way…leading the readers to wrongly assume the wandering nomadic people in Spain are carrying the flamenco music traditions.
For Spanish, Guillermo Castro Buendia has a definitive work that focuses on Silverio epoc and provides pretty much ALL the information, in a free to download dissertation (also a book that is sold that goes with this) that is basically one-stop shopping on the huge subject. I did not find it hard to read, and it is well organized, however, I would recommend the reader take all the opinion/conjecture/conclusions with a grain of salt. It is 3000 pages, but that is because more that half of it is musical scores that are discussed in the appendix. There is some technical musicology there as well, but maybe that is why I prefer it to general writing of the subject. But in terms of information, every thing is in there, and I asked him online earlier this year if there is any updated info to what is in there and he said no. One relevant historical thing is the familial links of Planeta’s lineage to Caracol, because it ties the story of flamencology (much is based on the book by Estebañez Calderon) to modern traditions in a personal way. I don’t recall if that was known when Castro Buendia published, but it is important to me anyway, because it forces us to take that early record seriously. And again, he and most scholars, tend to downplay the contribution of the gitano to the art, making sure the readers accept ANDULZ people in general carry the flamenco traditions, and the gitano community that is involved are interpreters.
I really dislike that stance and everyone needs to know that the gitano contribution is deliberately downplayed as to counter the public misconception that GITANOS are the first and only CREATORS of the genre, as if the non-gypsy Andalusians are “pretending” to be gypsies by doing the flamenco music. While the art is certainly a shared cultural phenomenon amongst Andalusian people, it should always be emphasized that the gitano contribution is not mere “interpretation” but a MASSIVE dominant creative element to the whole genre. It is therefore not made very clear the situation: flamenco is DOMINATED by a specific subset of the gitano community, and likewise as specific subset of non-gypsies that share in this. It is NOT all of andalucia, or all of gitanos in spain that are the stewards of the art form. It is an elite specific group of families. Leblon shows clearly how those families are tied together, but majority of flamencology does not seem to focus on this aspect. Perhaps the more glaring obvious situation not discussed is that at the heart of flamenco we actually have the racially mixed artists that seem to be a central part of cultural story. The literal “mixing” of peoples culturally and physically is going hand in hand with this unique art form, and, perhaps, the most beautiful thing about it.
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