Ricardo -> RE: Comparing PDL and Sabicas... (May 7 2006 4:54:35)
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Easy one, Paco kicks Sabicas's butt. [;)] Seriously, it is not easy to compare. Sabicas influenced Paco in a big way, but not the other way around. Paco played a lot of sabicas type falsetas early on. In terms of technique, Sabicas was crystal clean for his time, and that was an amazing sound, tight rhythm and steady tempo when he wanted. Also Esteban Sanlucar and Juan Serrano were very clean players. Guys like Nino Ricardo and Escudero had some very deep complex music for it's day, but at the price of dirtier sound. PDL came along, influenced by all parties, and brought the idea of crystal clean technique together with the very hard music. His right hand style looks a lot more similar to the Nino Ricardo postition than Sabicas, but the idea of clean clear left hand like Sabicas carried into Paco's playing. So Paco raised the bar interms of clean playing and precision, but probably would not have if not for the Sabicas influence. Anyway interms of music style, we know Sabicas is trad. and Paco is modern. Paco use his higher level of techinque to introduce synchopation into flamenco that was very different than the traditional way. That opened a new world of possibilities to flamenco guitar, and "colorized" the music big time. So Sabicas is like black and white tv, PdL is color tv. There is a special charm to watching old movies in black and white, or even some modern movies today are shot that way for artistic reasons. But you can't deny the importance of color in movies nowadays. I learned some Sabicas and played it for an old timer in flamenco, he said one falseta I played was from Nino Ricardo. I said no it was Sabicas, he said he knew sabicas played it, but it was first from N. Ricardo. I went back and listened to some oldies and yeah, Sabicas recorded a lot of falsetas that were not his own. I also found some note for note Ramon Montoya falsetas I had learned from Sabicas recording. Ironic how he was the one to tell Paco to do his own thing. Anyway, the big thing for me that separates these guys musically, is that Sabicas had his style set in stone at a young age. He played the same falsetas in the 80's that he created in the 50's. Paco de lucia had no influence on Sabicas at all. But Paco changed his own playing after Tomatito, Nunez, Vicente Amigo, etc, made their own mark. Paco is still capable of being influenced by his disciples, which is amazing. Perhaps he is just very competative, but you can tell he gets inspired to create very easily, and he is no spring chicken at this point. It is an exciting thought, but maybe the thing that really will put Paco into the musical history books, the "definative work", we have yet to hear. Manolo Sanlucar's personal crowning achievement did not come until he was in his late 40's. But in terms of who plays a faster Picado, I don't know we would have to do a speed test. The fastest I have heared Paco on record is 16th at about 230, but it was controlled and not pushed to the reall limit sounding. Not sure what is Sabicas fastest. For me Paco has a more controlled and deliberate sound when playing really fast, generally speaking. Sabicas loved those chromatic scales, which are not easy. But he liked to drag his finger when decending, which some folks might look at as "cheating". Anyway, there are more important things in flamenco than Picado. Ricardo
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