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Ricardo -> RE: PdL too clinical (Aug. 28 2011 4:03:49)
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quote:
I can respect what Mozart did but listening to his music is just not my cup of tea. Maybe if you look at music from the standpoint that if you like a certain kind of music you are obligated to keep up with the new movers and shakers then not listening to Paco is missing out. But there is not reason other artists cannot be an inspiration. Paco, as great as he may be is a person and he has his own personal style like any great artist and I don't understand how some of you can say that if you don't like this style you don't get Flamenco. A lot of great artists came and went and Paco will go as well. I think it's silly to define a genre in terms of one artist (although Paco did to a great extent define the genre) when IMO flamenco is bigger than any one artist.
Ok, well I agree with you when we talk about a casual listener. But on THIS forum I consider everyone either a student of flamenco guitar or some other flamenco discipline, OR, an aspiring aficionado of the art form. If you are NOT any of these, but simply a casual listener then good for you, you can stop reading now. Any music student that studies classical music in school, intentionally, that doesn't "like" Bach, mozart, and beethoven, well....has issues IMO. Especially if it is because they only "like" Schoenberg or something. No one that is well versed in music theory "dislikes" Bach's music for example, it just doesn't make sense. Sure you can like some one or form of music BETTER, but totally not get into it??????
Anyway, I have been thinking about this because I am a serious aficionado of the art, and to write off certain artists cuz they are not to taste is a hinderance to the learning road from my point of view. In the case of cante, we can go back to the recording history and trace the evolution of a single palo of, lets say Solea, by comparing the different recordings of various singers. (see Norman Kliman's site). If along the way we decide we don't "like" the singing of Mairena say, and avoid his recordings, well, we loose out BIG TIME on some important cante's....again this assumes we are TRYING TO LEARN something about the art form overall, not just entertain ourselves.
Now, if we try to trace evolution of Solea with just a single singer, well we don't get very far at all because most singers sing the same melodies as adults that they did as youths. Perhaps the voice changes, but usually style does not so much. With guitar, it actually is THE SAME THING. Ramon Montoya recorded a lot and he plays the same pretty much over all that time period, even though fidelity got better. Same goes for his followers, Sabicas (playing the same falsetas up till his final concerts) N. Ricardo, Gastor, Morao, Moraito (see his teenage siguiriya and compare to his last recordings), Cepero (recorded a solo album, in 2003 or so, same falsetas he did in 1975), Paco Peña, Niño Miguel and moving on to modern players like Tomatito Gerardo, Riqueni, VICENTE AMIGO.....check the first and last solea's and you can see they could all fit together in the same piece if you wanted (well actually Gerardo has a weird one in there, but it could easily fit in the scheme of his first or second album). And the dynamic of improvisation in flamenco allows for that mixing of falsetas without things seeming too strange. (M. Sanlucar I will say is a parallel to Paco in the sense he evolved a lot too, but his body of work is not as enormous to say he is more important to the genre)....and now we have the young guys struggling to put out unique albums. Diego d. Morao with the same falsteta he did when he first popped up on the scene a few years ago....
Well it just so happens there is ONE SINGLE artist who's Solea recordings you can line up BY DATE OF RECORDING, both solo and as accompanist, and literally TRACE THE EVOLUTION of the genre. 1967, the solea on Fabulosa not far off from Montoya and N. Ricardo style, then 69 Solea por medio, then 72 Duende Flamenco, 73 an other solea por medio, Live teatro royale 75, 76 Almoraima, (all the records with singers along the way BY DATE, show even more detail of how solea has changed note by note...chiquitos in 64, Camaron and maria vargas, fosforito, Nino de Barbate, all in 70 fill in the evolution gaps perfectly), then Sirocco in 87 was a jump start to a new direction, the solea dedicated to N. Ricardo, then Luzia in 98, and finally we arrive at his Solea por buleria in Taranta modality on Cositas buenas....a slow steady evolution. Not to say he was not ever influenced by others around him, but few of those that influenced him have evolved in kind. If they do it is on a small scale compared to where Paco is coming from.
And all that is just ONE PALO, by ONE artist. You can do the same with almost any palo Paco has recorded, so hence the "Hype" of why so many regard the man so highly, both artists and aficionados alike. So many students get "stuck" on one particular period of time or style they think they have "figured out", and the way things were done THEN that they miss out on all the beauty of the unbroken thread of a living breathing GROWING and changing art form...simply because they refuse to open the mind and the ears and listen.
So in the case of Paco, I think it totally unfair to compare a video from 1976 of his bulerias, to a bulerias recorded specifically for an album released in 2004. It is a disrespect to all the work it took him to GET there as an artist.
Again casual listening is fine if you want to just scrape the surface, but if you are seriously interested in developing an ear for the genre, it requires a LOT of work and time. Ottmar, Rodrigo and gabriela, C. Montoya Manitas etc, should not be a distraction from digging deeper into the art, but it often is for new comers. A good aficionado can see a live performance that is mostly "improvised" and recognize where letras came from, and guitar falsetas and compas"ings" too. That is the fun of seeing live flamenco performances and juergas, and when you KNOW, and something clever is done, it is a more strong and personal impact. In fact that should be EVERY listener's goal, to get to that point where you truly understand if not participate.
As an aside, there are those so deep into the cante dimension of flamenco (or baile) that they could care less about ANY guitarist's evolution or style. In the case of such aficionados, I totally understand a blatant disregard for Paco or any other guitarist's work. If a guitarist is in compas and plays the correct tonos, then he doesn't suck...it is that simple. [;)][:D]
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