Richard Jernigan -> RE: Paco de Lucia's Performance in Washington, DC (Apr. 24 2012 6:46:52)
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ORIGINAL: Ricardo My point is you might not like the toque of player X for whatever reason.....thats fine because there are so many different styles, but you shouldn't say if its not what you like, it's not flamenco music. Personally, my taste in music is fairly broad. I find most of what is called flamenco to be interesting and enjoyable. I do listen to cante much more than I do purely instrumental flamenco. In fact I probably listen to more western classical, Bengali and Karnatic classical, Javanese and Balinese gamelan, and various jazz styles than I do to purely instrumental flamenco. And "gimme that old time rock 'n roll" as well as blues. I make it to my favorite cheap Mexican restaurant about once a week not just for the food, but for the music as well. My interest in flamenco began, as with most non-Spaniards, with the guitar, and I devoted a lot of work to learning to play. But as time went on, my listening moved to the cante. It's not a value judgment, just personal taste that has developed over the years. I meant to contrast the scene of a small peña where the emphasis, almost the total focus, is on the cante, to the scene of a Paco concert where the emphasis is instrumental, with a much wider harmonic palette. I enjoy Paco's concert and recorded stuff, but I listen more to cante. Paco's toque has very deep roots in traditional flamenco. If he says what he and his ensemble play nowadays is flamenco, who are we to dispute it? But his toque has come a long way from traditional flamenco, and there is no brief way to distinguish the two. The thrust of my post was meant to agree with your last sentence. The reason people end up making such statements "it's not flamenco" is, in my opinion largely due to a lack of vocabulary. The term "flamenco", as applied by Paco, covers a much wider range than the personal tastes of many fans for narrower aspects of flamenco. As I've said before, I'm reminded of the early 1960s when I met quite a few Spanish aficionados who said they didn't like Sabicas. As an ardent fan of Sabicas' toque, I was puzzled. A lot of Spanish guitarists though were blown away and many were copping Sabicas' stuff off records as fast as they could. RNJ
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