RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Full Version)

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agujetas -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 22 2021 18:47:00)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mark2

To be fair, I've never sat down and listened to his recordings-just whatever was on the radio or whatever happened to reach my ears. I do remember Albert commenting on the first time he heard Bowie's "Let's Dance" which broke SRV nationally. He said something like he heard "someone playing all my stuff."



Well, if true, he’s right about that - the licks in Let’s Dance are pretty much all Albert King quotes. But as they say, “it’s the way he plays ‘em”. SRV definitely took that style to another level.

Sorry I’m forgetting this is a flamenco forum!



Morante -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 22 2021 19:42:54)

quote:

RV definitely took that style to another level.


That´s like saying that PDL took the style of Nino Ricardo or Melchor to another level. Great artists define a style and nobody ever plays it better.



BarkellWH -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 22 2021 21:07:39)

quote:

It's getting ridicilious here. Recall the Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula, particularly in Andalucia, between 711 and 1492. It's almost 800 years, I repeat 8 hundred years. So Moorish/Arabic influence on Andalucia is huge. I'm pretty sure the word flamenco is derived from the arabic word felah-mengu. Get real!


I think We are all aware of the Moorish conquest and rule over what was known as al-Andalus. That does not mean that Blas Infante's take on the origin of the term "flamenco," derived from the Arabic and eventually applied to the music, was correct. In fact, the etymology of the term "flamenco" as meaning a Flemish, or person from Flanders during the period of Spanish rule over that region, would appear to be more likely. I think most Spanish linguists would agree with the "Flemish" interpretation.

As I mentioned earlier, for me the question is, when and why did the term "flamenco," regardless of its origin, begin to be applied to the music we know as flamenco? One can go back and find the earliest written instance, but clearly the term would have been used to describe the music before written evidence. And why "flamenco"? Just because the term apparently owes its origin as a reference to the Flemish during Spain's rule over the Spanish Netherlands, why did the term come to be applied to the music?

Bill



Ricardo -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 22 2021 21:21:27)

quote:

I'm pretty sure the word flamenco is derived from the arabic word felah-mengu. Get real!


You seem to miss the point entirely that the word “flamenco” already existed in Spanish more than 500 years ago and it referred to Flemings people that were there IN SPAIN and called THAT, doing their textiles in Sevilla. Gypsy people are NOT Arabs anymore than they are DUTCH. The idea that Fleming people were called “fugitive peasants” doesn’t make sense. Why use a word that already exists and pretend it is a miss pronounced Arabic word combo? If the Gypsies spoke Arabic it would make sense, but not for Spaniards to call them that. Hi I am a Felah mengu singing my Felah Mengu music”. “Oh, what was that? YOu are a Flamenco? Singing your Flamenco music? You don’t look Dutch nor sound like this:




agujetas -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 22 2021 23:31:25)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Morante

quote:

RV definitely took that style to another level.


That´s like saying that PDL took the style of Nino Ricardo or Melchor to another level. Great artists define a style and nobody ever plays it better.


I take your point. Another level is probably the wrong way of saying it. A better way would be to say that he took his influences and made them his own. Stevie playing an Albert King lick note for note still sounds like Stevie, not Albert. I’m not saying one is better than the other. They are both unique.



Piwin -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 22 2021 23:46:50)

quote:

And why "flamenco"?


Carlos Muñoz Nieto tells a funny story about the first German-Romani dictionary. I forget the exact word, but some completely anodyne word had been translated by a nasty slur in Romani. It was only later, when some native Romani speakers had a closer look at that dictionary, that they realised the mistake. Apparently the mistake was only noticed after publication. Muñoz Nieto thinks it was probably just some person who wanted to mess with the outsider who had come to compile the dictionary and who was asking all these questions. Or they were just fed up with him always asking "how do you say XXX?".

Maybe that's where "flamenco" comes from. Some señorito went to a juerga and was asking a bunch of questions. When asked "what do you call this music?", the gitano just said the first word that came to mind so he'd get off his back.[:D]



kitarist -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 23 2021 7:19:27)

quote:

The question is, when and why did the term "flamenco" begin to be applied to the music we know as flamenco? One can go back and find the earliest written instance, but clearly the term would have been used to describe the music before written evidence. And why "flamenco"? Just because the term owes its origin to the Flemish during Spain's rule over the Spanish Netherlands, why did the term come to be applied to the music? What is the connection?


I recall reading in several articles that at some point a group of gypsies came into Spain from Flanders bearing a letter signed by some Flemish noble requesting safe passage be granted and they be treated fairly etc. etc. - the letter bearing was a thing at the time for travelling people.

These gypsies then became to be referred to as [being] 'flamenco' - which was the word for 'Flemish' already in existence in Spain - by conflating where they came from and their Flemish letter with who they were.

I've done my own digging to see usage of the word 'flamenco' in Spanish books. Up to 1820s or so 'flamenco' always refers to actual Flemish people, usually painters, or things geographically from there - and never to gypsies or their music. Then something happens between late 1820s and 1850s and by the early 1860s - or as early as 1853 as Richard reports Gamboa found - 'flamenco' starts to refer to gypsy people and their music.

From this, it seems that the arriving, at some point, of a group of gypsies from Flanders with their Flemish letter of recommendation became the event which "moved" the word 'flamenco' near a gypsy context, and then conflating where they came from with them being Flemish was the next step some time after; from there, starting to refer to all gypsies as Flemish i.e. 'flamenco'. Once this was done their music became 'flamenco' music as well. The meaning of 'flamenco' itself bifurcated from the original and acquired its second connotation.



Fluknu -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 23 2021 7:39:38)

Great discussion. I think Konstatin's input seems to me the most probable hypothesis and it puts the pieces together. It does click for me.

Then I wondered if a flemish could play the blues :)

I fell on this:


Joke aside, Dick Annegarn is a great Belgian Flemish folck singer, and his first albums from the 70's are worth a listen.

I find his worried man blues quite...atypical.



JasonM -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 23 2021 14:52:38)

Ah, but can a white guy disguised as a horse play the blues with a butcher knife?




Ricardo -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 23 2021 14:58:29)

quote:

at some point a group of gypsies came into Spain from Flanders bearing a letter signed by some Flemish noble


When?



Piwin -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 23 2021 17:12:04)

[:D] The lockdown has really been hard on people (and horses).

Man, looking for stuff on the internet is ridiculous. Last night I had some fun just trying to see what online sources were saying about this "flamenco" business. I learned nothing about that. But I did learn that Kurt Gödel had a tacky plastic flamingo on his front lawn and he was terrified of refrigerators. I'm not sure what to do with that information. [:D]



edguerin -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 23 2021 17:58:37)

Here's an interesting article (in Spanish) on the subject. Basically the author concludes that "Flamenco" denoted a type of (Flemish) knife used by vagrants. By extension then became a metaphor for the whole group.
http://rdtp.revistas.csic.es/index.php/rdtp/article/view/130/131



chester -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 23 2021 20:43:31)

I give you not only a white man, but an albino white man who sounds like the cookie monster:




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 23 2021 22:05:25)

The paper cited by edguerin also contains an argument against the "fellah-mengu" hypothesis. The Google Translate English version is serviceable:

La hipótesis árabe

Según esta hipótesis 'flamenco' es una homonimia derivada del árabe fellah mengu(s), lo que significaría cante del campesino. Aunque esta tesis se puede defender sabiendo que en 1492 muchos árabes se mezclaron a la población gitana, se plantea un problema en cuanto al tiempo. El tér-mino surge sólo a partir del segundo tercio del siglo XDC^, por lo cual esta hipótesis resulta poco probable. Además, los musicólogos estiman que el aporte de la música árabe al flamenco es mucho menos importante de lo que se pretende. El flamenco es el resultado de una tradición musical hispano-andaluza —que ya contenía elementos árabes, judíos y litúrgicos bizantinos— forjada por los gitanos de la Baja Andalucía con sus propias estructuras melódicas y rítmicas para crear el cante jondo (Leblon 1990, 1991, 1995; Jamard 2001). Sin los gitanos de la Baja Andalucía no hubiera existido el flamenco, y el hecho de que la letra de los cantes y la litera-tura del siglo XIX (Pardo Bazán, Valera, Pérez Galdós, Clarín, Blasco, Ganivet'') utilizan 'flamenco' como sinónimo de 'gitano andaluz' o 'anda-luz agitanado' antes de designar la música, aporta otro argumento para descartar la hipótesis árabe.

^ Álvarez Caballero (1981: 134) cita una tonadilla de 1830 en que se encontraría la primera atestación de 'flamenco' como sinónimo de gitano y su lenguaje.

RNJ



Brendan -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 24 2021 11:04:46)

The version I read somewhere was that some gypsies were granted exemption from the anti-gypsy laws in recognition of their military service in the Spanish Netherlands—presumably this is the content of the letter. And this is why you sometimes see blond gypsies. But as with all these suggestions, it’s a possibility without proof.

There’s a story about Gödel’s naturalisation hearing, at which, having studied the US constitution far more thoroughly than most applicants, he started to explain how the US could become a dictatorship without violation its rules. This in a thick Austrian accent. Fortunately, he had Einstein with him who smoothed things over.

On holiday in Amsterdam, I saw a leaflet advertising ‘El Arte Flamenco’. I got quite excited until I looked more closely and realised it was the Spanish translation of an advert for an exhibition of gloomy paintings of people eating potatoes and staring at jugs.

Tino is indeed a great player and teacher, and an inspiration to all of us who are too tall to pass as Spanish. We went to an evening of ‘real authentic traditional flamenco’ at the Jewish museum in Cordoba, which has a lovely intimate patio. it was Tino, playing unapologetically modern stuff, and it was excellent.



agujetas -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 24 2021 12:00:28)

I also saw Tino at the same place in Córdoba years ago before I knew who he was. He was accompanying a dancer and they were both excellent. He knows how to “trasmitir” as they say.



devilhand -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 24 2021 13:42:11)

quote:

You seem to miss the point entirely that the word “flamenco” already existed in Spanish more than 500 years ago and it referred to Flemings people that were there IN SPAIN and called THAT

How do you know it? We need a proof.

quote:

Gypsy people are NOT Arabs anymore than they are DUTCH.

According to you gitanos are dutch people? Lmao. Also your youtube video above. What the heck is this? You’ve got to be kidding.

quote:

Why use a word that already exists and pretend it is a miss pronounced Arabic word combo?

There are lots of words we know today that are derived from combo of words in ancient language.
A good example is the word melancholy (in arabic also māliḫūliyā (malihulya)) is derived from 2 ancient greek words μέλας χολή (melas chole) translated as black bile.

quote:

The idea that Fleming people were called “fugitive peasants” doesn’t make sense.

No one said fleming people were called wandering or fugitive peasants. Gypsy people were called felah-mengus (wandering peasants) because of their nomadic life style.



kitarist -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 24 2021 17:57:17)

quote:

^ Álvarez Caballero (1981: 134) cita una tonadilla de 1830 en que se encontraría la primera atestación de 'flamenco' como sinónimo de gitano y su lenguaje.


I can't find the source for this, but I found an actual reference to a gypsy woman as a 'flamenca' in a book which was based on the travels of the author in Spain during 1836-1839 (!) - book itself was first published in 1841, in two volumes:




In volume II, which includes many gypsy poetry/song verses with originals and translations and has a dictionary of Roma language at the back, on page 34-35 there are the following coplas:






The book is freely available as it is out of copyright and can be found in various places, for example on project Gutenberg ( link in this wiki article about the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zincali - with searchable text but without the originals, just the translations).

For the originals, see archive.org:

Volume I : https://archive.org/details/zincalioranacco03borrgoog
Volume II: https://archive.org/details/zincalioranacco06borrgoog

Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px



Ricardo -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 25 2021 0:03:59)

quote:

Gypsy people were called felah-mengus (wandering peasants) because of their nomadic life style.


How do you know it? We need evidence. [;)][:D]

Anyway, yes flemings are called flamenco people from Flanders in spain going back to medieval times. Tons of proof in documents (not going to prove it to you). Yes music and people called flamenco in 1830 is a mystery as I am sure the word is still in use. Did you look up my link earlier about belgica?

Thanks to Kitarist for the great info, looks like essential reading I am sure all the flamencologists have done already.



Richard Jernigan -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 25 2021 1:29:50)

quote:

ORIGINAL: devilhand
Gypsy people were called felah-mengus (wandering peasants) because of their nomadic life style.


So you say. But speaking Arabic was outlawed with the expulsion of the Moriscos in the early 17th century. The term "flamenco" was not applied to gitanos until the first third of the 19th century, according to numerous scholarly sources who have searched for the origin of this use, among them the one I cited above in Spanish. (Google Translate does a good job rendering it into English.)

RNJ



devilhand -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 25 2021 13:36:32)

quote:

But speaking Arabic was outlawed with the expulsion of the Moriscos in the early 17th century.

Talking in arabic and using a word felah mengu, which was pronounced and written as flamenco, to name a certain group of people are 2 different things.

quote:

the one I cited above in Spanish

Your source contains sentences like this. So it's not worth reading.

"Furthermore, musicologists estimate that the contribution of Arabic music to flamenco is much less important than is claimed"

He keeps writing this which is also contradictory to what he wrote before.

"Flamenco is the result of a Spanish-Andalusian musical tradition - which already contained Arab, Jewish and Byzantine liturgical elements - forged by the gypsies of Baja Andalusia with their own melodic and rhythmic structures to create the cante jondo."



tf10music -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 25 2021 15:17:56)

quote:

Talking in arabic and using a word felah mengu, which was pronounced and written as flamenco, to name a certain group of people are 2 different things.


True, but really all you've done is assert a belief that this is the origin of the word "flamenco" without providing any evidence to support your claim, and then you've proceeded to dismiss evidence that at least indicates that you are mistaken, even as you fail to provide affirmative evidence. It sounds like you want the felah mengu explanation to be true.

The history of the Gitanos in the Iberian Peninsula is actually quite muddled and complex -- especially the first 100 years or so. For starters, gitanos entering the Iberian Peninsula during the first half of the fifteenth century were not identified as such, so your whole "felah mengu was used to refer to Gitanos" theory certainly doesn't apply to any period predating the Reconquista. It was only at the end of the fifteenth century that the Spanish government even acknowledged the gitanos as a group and decided to deal with them, beginning with the Ordinance of 1499, and even then, the Gitanos were referred to as "Egyptians" and "pilgrims" (many entered Spanish territories by claiming to be on a pilgrimage). Notably, the 1499 Ordinance, as well as the ones to follow it, were designed to effectively curb the wandering of the Gitanos, such that by the time we see the first recorded reference to "flamenco" as something associated with the Gitanos, Spain's Romani population had been forcibly sedentarized for a good period of time. So the idea that the use of the word "flamenco" to refer to a musical style comes from some adaptation of an Arabic term employed to refer to a wanderer seems unlikely. It's not impossible, but it is a far-fetched explanation, given that Gitanos were often compelled to serve in the Spanish army in Flanders throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, and the word "flamenco" was used to refer to the Flemish during that period (you want evidence? Lope de Vega uses it that way in his plays, for one -- you can find an example in "El asalto de Mastrique, por el príncipe de Parma," which was published in 1614). It's far more likely that the modern usage of "flamenco" derives from that association.



tf10music -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 25 2021 15:27:35)

quote:

Your source contains sentences like this. So it's not worth reading.

"Furthermore, musicologists estimate that the contribution of Arabic music to flamenco is much less important than is claimed"

He keeps writing this which is also contradictory to what he wrote before.

"Flamenco is the result of a Spanish-Andalusian musical tradition - which already contained Arab, Jewish and Byzantine liturgical elements - forged by the gypsies of Baja Andalusia with their own melodic and rhythmic structures to create the cante jondo."


I know you hate books, but if you would only sit down and read Cruces Roldán, you'd know that there is a marked difference between música andalusí and "Arabic music." Those two sentences are not contradictory at all, given that the first one didn't say that Arabic music played NO role in flamenco's development, and instead simply downplayed its influence relative to what previous commentators have claimed. This is an entirely reasonable position to take, given some of the wildly romanticized takes out there. The influence of Arabic music on flamenco is indirect and mediated by layers of other cultural mixtures, but some writers claim, for instance, that duende in flamenco is exactly the same thing as tarab/sama as it existed in medieval Muslim musical/expressive practice. Claims like those SHOULD be downplayed.



Piwin -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 25 2021 15:54:00)

From the same book:

"That they were called Germans, may be accounted for, either by the supposition that their generic name of Rommany was misunderstood and mispronounced by the Spaniards amongst whom they came, or from the fact of their having passed through Germany in their way to the south, and bearing passports and letters of safety from the various German states. The title of Flemings, by which at the present day they are known in various parts of Spain, would probably never have been bestowed upon them but from the circumstance of their having been designated or believed to be Germans,—as German and Fleming are considered by the ignorant as synonymous terms."

Talk about a book of its times though:
"I shall here content myself with observing that from whatever country they come, whether from India or Egypt, there can be no doubt that they are human beings and have immortal souls; and it is in the humble hope of drawing the attention of the Christian philanthropist towards them, especially that degraded and unhappy portion of them, the Gitános of Spain, that the present little work has been undertaken"

[:D][8D]



estebanana -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 26 2021 4:37:59)

Always with the horse jokes. I bet you just flounder with fish jokes.



estebanana -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 26 2021 4:52:40)

When you go to the Prado museum, you’ll see a title description plaque for each painting. The titles are in English and Spanish. In the case of the artists who are from ‘the low lands’ or Flanders the translation on the plaque for Flanders is Flamenco. In the example of a Flemish painter like Rubens, he’s known as a Flamenco artist, a Flemish artist. If the painters name is not know as is in a a few cases of some very nice pictures in the Prado, the artist will be listed as country first, then anonymous. For the unknown Flemish painters in the collection they are known as Flamenco Anonymo. Unknown Flemish.

I posit another darker theory, and one that’s not so dark, that’s actually respectable.

The dark name theory first- because the Gitano- Rom people in Spain were discriminated against it’s possible they were labeled Flamencos as a slight because Spain and the Low Lands has a bitter long war during which the northern low landers resisted Spain. The Gitanos could have gotten that nickname for being pesky resistors of being forced to be sedentary.

Possibility number two. The name Flamenco is derived from the music composers of the late Middle Ages and early renaissance that came to the fore in Flanders. Josquin des Pres was a developer of polyphony who was very important to early Spanish music in the 16th century. The models of polyphony that came from the Flemish Flamenco composers were so important that fine music practice and theory was almost exclusively based on the Flemish- Flemings music. It was copied and studied copiously in Iberia as the grand model until late 16th century.

I posit that Flamenco and the custom of calling music making Gitanos flamencos is due to Flanders being known for and synonymous with ‘good music’ or well studied music. Now that name could have been given sarcastically or sincerely, but indeed Flamenco country was the low lands and the manuscripts and music knowledge that came from there informed late medieval music in Spain and existed side by side with any popular or street idioms and forms.

Calling Gitanos Flamencos could have been a backhanded compliment.

Stay in compas matey.



estebanana -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 26 2021 5:17:04)

SRV had his own sound and his own footprint, he was steeped in blues, but he was not a copyist.
As for Albert King talking smack about him, allegedly, show me a black man who played and got famous for being a musician in that time who was not self protective of his work? That guarded attitude goes with the job.
Lightning Hopkins was playing in a bar and a robbery was about to happen or some shenanigans he didn’t like. He pulled out a gun and said not during my set, either fired the weapon of brandished it ( depending on who wrote the history) and the fella who was causing trouble left and Mr. Hopkins picked up where he left off.


The Edge from U2 played with BB King, I saw this, BB King says to him, “You play those chords, you’re good at that, let me solo.”

Albert King didn’t say SRV was good at chords, he says you stole my stuff. It’s a compliment, stupid.



estebanana -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 26 2021 5:41:18)

David Serva and Marote used to hang out together everyday for a decade. One day, or many times in the bar, one or the other says: You stole my toque!
And other says: Yeah so what?
Well that proves my toque is better!
No, no it doesn’t.
Yes well you took it because you know it’s better.
No, I took it to save for when I’m a decrepit old man.
What?
Yes, I’ll be playing on the train platform for spare change.
Hahah you sure will you hack.

I may be hack, but I’m not playing MY toque on the anden, I’m going to play your crappy toque. Mine is too pure for the train station.

Joder! Outrageous!



Ricardo -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 26 2021 14:10:33)

quote:

I posit that Flamenco and the custom of calling music making Gitanos flamencos is due to Flanders being known for and synonymous with ‘good music’ or well studied music. Now that name could have been given sarcastically or sincerely, but indeed Flamenco country was the low lands and the manuscripts and music knowledge that came from there informed late medieval music in Spain a


Yep, it is this.



etta -> RE: Can a white man play the blues? (Apr. 26 2021 14:30:26)

Great job of exhausting most elements of the question. So, can a banjo player in Tennessee learn to play flamenco guitar? For me, as a kid, it was flamenco guitar in a culture that had never heard the term "flamenco ". I struggled to learn guitar with no instructions and only LP's by Montoya and Sabicas. Much later, by chance, I came into possession of a banjo and was also fascinated by this instrument. Five string banjo is somewhat difficult but soon I was very proficient in bluegrass and later jazz on the 5 String ("state champion", etc. etc.). The point is that the facility of both my hands, and perhaps my brain, was improved by the banjo which enabled me to return to the Flamenco guitar after over forty years of leaving it. Today I enjoy both, but I will never be seen as "authentic" as a flamenco player by critical players. But, music, first and foremost is about enjoyment regardless of how authentic or proficient one is.



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