Miguel de Maria -> Paco Pena-comments (Mar. 12 2005 3:31:39)
|
I recently acquired a Paco Pena double CD, half a "recital" of solo pieces, the other half segmented into Paco playing the pieces of Ramon Montoya and Nino Ricardo. As I listened to Paco, a few random thoughts came to me: 1. the main reason Paco de Lucia sounds better than Pena is rhythm--PDL's sense of rhythm and how he accentuates it is simply on a different level than PP. 2. that being said, PP is a highly accomplished technical guitarist. 3. His duos, again, fall short of the gold standard accomplished by Paco's ensembles and recording work. 4. Fandangos de Huelva makes a dynamite guitar solo. Like Ron said--what's up with that, man? Why aren't more people playing them? 5. one of the pieces, "Cancion", is a Peteneras based on a theme popularized by Lorca. This is a beautiful piece. 6. It is official--I am "old school". Listening to this stuff makes me realize that I much prefer this era, roughly--maybe 1950-80 to broadly generalize. I really don't care for recent stuff very much (except for some exceptions, including the artistry of Vicente Amigo). 7. I am going to learn about every falseta on this record! Except for the bulerias. I don't think bulerias is PP's strength! 8. In his liner notes, it becomes obvoius that PP is not ashamed of being an exponent of the solo flamenco guitar. I think he feels that it is a worthwhile endeavor and an art form of itself. I saw PP last year, and about 1/3 of the show was solo, and the rest with various ensembles. I have to say that I enjoyed the duo and trio (guitars) the most, followed by the fin de fiesta, then the guitar and bailaor, and finally solo guitar... 9. PP believes that the two most important guitarists in flamenco have been Ramon Montoya and Nino Ricardo (he wrote this in 1987). I have only heard a little bit of Nino Ricardo and didn't care for his playing in the least. It's hard to believe there is a whole generation of players that idolized him.
|
|
|
|