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Just to let everybody knows that "The Fantastic Guitar Of Sabicas And Escudero" will be available in CD probably in January 2012 on Amazon. Somebody is selling it already on eBay.
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RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to frhout)
I have the original 1959 vinyl disc of this album which has 10 tracks. Also you have to crank the volume on the stereo up to 3/4 to hear it properly but the playing is unbelievable. These guys were the Paco/Mclaughlin duo of their day. Even by todays high standards there are few people who could attack those harmonised picado lines with the speed and precision that Sabicas and Escudero did.
This CD is 2 albums together and represents a greater portion of their recorded duo repertoire. I am really looking forward to getting a good digital copy of this material. Here is a scan of the blurb from the original back cover.
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Posts: 1025
Joined: Oct. 14 2009
From: New York City
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to frhout)
I also have the original vinyl record which Mario gave me for my birthday in the seventies. It's one of my most prized possessions. But it's been played to death, and those old records don't wear well. It will be great to have this on CD. Just fabulous playing.
Posts: 1108
Joined: Sep. 29 2009
From: Back in Boston
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to frhout)
I have this CD as well. A lot of pieces Sabicas recorded have been vultured and you will find a given piece, or even complete albums, put on CDs under a new title or pieces mixed and matched. I have seen pieces from Flamenco Puro on at least 5 different CD's with 5 different titles. Sadly, somehow I doubt Sabicas' estate gets one penny from the vultures.
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to keith)
Sabicas sadly had a lot of material that was recorded and released as "traditional" without acknowledging the master as the author or writer of the music. The same is also true of other styles of ethnic music, gospel, soul, blues etc. Record companies at the time would often make a record of an obscure musician and simply release it as traditional material. Artists were paid for recording sessions and had no understanding of the future possibilites of international royalties and publishing. Sometimes a company would sell music without crediting the author. Anything recorded before 1961 is out of copyright now so music by Sabicas (and many other artists) written before then will not generate income for those estates.
Posts: 15268
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to Pimientito)
quote:
Sabicas sadly had a lot of material that was recorded and released as "traditional" without acknowledging the master as the author or writer of the music.
You mean the same way that Sabicas acknowledged all the Ramon Montoya Falsetas he stole???
Man, I keep trying to point out flamenco falsetas and copyright pop music laws don't mix.
I have this CD for a while. I like escuderos stuff, but most of this sounds like Sabicas style. Infact I am not so sure this was not simply a bunch of overdubbed guitar of sabicas and the duet idea was a marketing ruse. But maybe it really was pure duets.
Paco and Ricardo MOdrego borrowed heavily from the ideas on here with their 3 duo albums. Now those more clearly reveal the stylistic differences between the two players IMO. I only wish Paco and Manolo had fleshed out their duo concept more than just a sevillana and a buleria.
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
You mean the same way that Sabicas acknowledged all the Ramon Montoya Falsetas he stole???
I had a similar thought when I read Mark's post, but, as you probably know, Montoya was copied by everyone in subsequent generations. Even some of Paco's ideas are clearly based on Montoya (one of the rondeñas, for example). It's most often said about Sabicas, and not always in a favorable light, but for the last year or so I've noticed that Niño Ricardo copied Ramón more closely, especially in malagueñas, granaínas and tarantas, etc., in falsetas and cante accompaniment. In my opinion, Sabicas would more often add small variations but the clarity of his playing made him sound like a carbon copy of Montoya. Niño Ricardo tended to play Montoya's ideas note-for-note but it isn't as obvious, probably because of his "dirty" sound, which I think was caused by his unusual fingernails (they grew in an upward curve).
Posts: 1809
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to NormanKliman)
Certainly Sabas’s debt to Montoya was large, but then so was everybody’s. And where is Montoya’s garrotín? His colombiana? What bulería of Montoya’s can compare with Sabicas’s?
Listen to jaleo canastero, with Carmen Amaya. There was much more to Sabicas than recycled Montoya.
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to frhout)
The unfortunate reality is that most Sabicas' CDs are compilations these days, and we have the same pieces over and over again. I would have loved to have all his vinyls remastered into CDs.
Posts: 1108
Joined: Sep. 29 2009
From: Back in Boston
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to frhout)
i was not necessarily commenting about sabicas not getting royalities for songs he may or may not have written, rather, that the same cd's get repackaged under a new name or a chunk of an album get pieced into a cd with a new title. essentially one can get the same cd with 3 or 4 different titles which sucks once you buy it and realize it is the same cd you bought 15 years ago.
Posts: 1809
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to keith)
quote:
essentially one can get the same cd with 3 or 4 different titles which sucks once you buy it and realize it is the same cd you bought 15 years ago.
This is the kind of thing I try to sort out on my Amazon reviews. But Sabas’s recording career was so complex and prolific that it’s almost impossible to keep track of everything.
Posts: 3452
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
The tradition of mislabeling pieces on Sabicas's recordings is adhered to by one and all. I have one LP which was a bit puzzling until I realized the A-side label was pasted to the B-side of the disc and vice-versa. The resultant mislabeling is faithfully reproduced on reissues.
I have a CD which purports to contain two different takes of each piece. Instead, the bumbler who put it together found one master tape and a second, several-generations removed copy. So you get one set of mislabeled pieces, followed by exactly the same material in lower fidelity.
Posts: 1809
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to keith)
quote:
Sadly, somehow I doubt Sabicas' estate gets one penny from the vultures.
My understanding, confirmed by other people who knew him, was that he didn’t trust royalties, and used to ask for flat fees for his recordings. So his estate would be getting nothing even if the letter of the law were observed.
He would probably have done far better from the royalties.
I was once told that Sabicas and Escudero actually had the chance of their own late-night television show in New York, where there is of course a large Hispanic population. But Mario asked for too much money, and the deal fell through.
Update 8 April 2012 I’ve just received an e-mail from Mario’s ex-wife Anita, who tells me that this story is definitely untrue, no such offer was ever made. Sorry about that, I guess I was wrongly informed.
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
quote:
And where is Montoya’s garrotín? His colombiana? What bulería of Montoya’s can compare with Sabicas’s?
Listen to cante. He recorded seven garrotines and two colombianas from around 800 recordings. Far from my favorite por bulería, but he's got a few good ones.
quote:
There was much more to Sabicas than recycled Montoya.
Of course, but he and Ricardo played many more of Montoya's ideas than other guitarists did. It seems that they had a much better understanding of those ideas, too, insofar as getting all the fingerings and nuances right. Obviously, it's a characteristic of both and IMO only shows that they were unusually good guitarists.
I have a CD which purports to contain two different takes of each piece. Instead, the bumbler who put it together found one master tape and a second, several-generations removed copy. So you get one set of mislabeled pieces, followed by exactly the same material in lower fidelity.
Posts: 1108
Joined: Sep. 29 2009
From: Back in Boston
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to frhout)
richard, i have that cd with each piece played twice. the title of the c.d. which i have is "flamenco on fire" which i suspect has been relabeled--probably using a title such as "sabicas plays sabicas". of course, the pieces on that c.d. can be found on several other c.d.'s with differing titles.
Posts: 1809
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to keith)
quote:
the pieces on that c.d. can be found on several other c.d.'s with differing titles.
The original album was The Art of the Guitar (1976). It’s been reissued and anthologised so many times on cheap labels that I can’t help wondering if someone screwed up, and it’s fallen into the public domain for some reason.
On a similar topic: has anyone noticed how some Spanish labels have been taking scratchy versions of Sabas’s recordings from the ’60s and ’70s, and reissuing them as from 1930–40? Example:
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
quote:
This is the kind of thing I try to sort out on my Amazon reviews.
I couldnt help noticing your excellent reviews on Amazon. Can I ask how many of the original recordings do you have? I have been looking through second hand shops for ages and only have about a half dozen of the original albums.
Posts: 1809
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to Pimientito)
Thank you. Whenever I think I have most of them, new stuff is always turning up. For instance, there are tracks on Flamencan Guitar Solos that I’d never heard before.
I started buying them in the ’60s, and took care of them. I’ve since managed to acquire others second-hand, in varying degrees of scratched-upness. In the last fifteen years I’ve been converting them to CD, but it’s a slow process — especially if I try to eliminate all the clicks.
Searching for "Sabicas vinyl" on Amazon will show up quite a lot. Unfortunately you can’t always tell from the listing whether the record is stereo or mono; and stereo is crucial for the double-tracked ones.
Although some pieces show a certain amount of repetition of falsetas, especially around 1960, I can hardly think of Sabicas album that isn’t worth having — except of course Rock Encounter.
I’m glad to see that some of it is now being reissued, on mp3 at least if not on CD.
One of the side-effects of this collecting has been a Sabicas discography I’ve put together over the years. I’ve put most of this information on SoundUnwound.
Posts: 15268
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
quote:
Why would it be? They were cousins, lived within a couple of blocks of each other, and were close friends.
Most gitanos are "cousins". Maybe they truly are I don't know. But I know that the record Flamenco Fiesta with Sabicas and Niño de Alicante (Escudero) contrasts the two players pretty clearly as they duet por bulerias. Compare that track with the buleria duet on "Fantastic Guitars of Sabicas and Escudero" and it really sounds like the same player, same tone and attack and following so tight the tempo fluctuations it sounds more like overdubbing to me, which was a new recording trick back then. Plus the spliced together sevillanas...sounded like folks were having fun with the new technology available rather then doing the traditional "live" recording in the studio. But this is just my theory I have no proof either way. Later we see the infamous PDL and Paco Peña record where one side was PP the other was PDL and his brother Ramon yet we are led on to believe they are making a special duo.
Also about Ramon Montoya, I did not mean to make it sound as though Sabicas was the only guy taking from that source, my point was to show that copyright stuff for flamenco is kind of dumb when you realize the importance of ALL the tocaores to draw heavily from specific sources, venturing into the realm of true unique creations with baby steps as to be respectful of the tradition and unwritten laws of the music itself.
For buleria of Ramon check him playing for Juan Mojama for example, some sabicas signature licks in there.
Here is a classic buleria falseta in A minor Sabicas used to do at 1:36 and of course his closing chord prog should be familiar:
Posts: 3452
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to frhout)
Just ordered this CD from Amazon, USA. According to the web site it was the last one at Amazon itself, but more are on the way. The Amazon site lists several other sellers with copies of this CD.
BTW, the original Decca LP carried the proclamations “FULL STEREO” and “the ultimate in HI-FI”, but I can’t distinguish it from mono — it’s not the fault of the CD transfer.
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to frhout)
Speaking of guitarist duets, I have access to duet recordings by Sabicas and Nino Ricardo. Apparently this copy is one of the few in existence and has never been published... Humberto found it in one of Ricardo's drawers after Ricardo's widow let him peruse all the old tapes/recordings...
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to frhout)
this is kind of on topic
so any of you know if "queen of the gypsys" with sabicas and carmen amaya is available on cd? (im not sure if its the soundtrack for the movie or if they recorded it seperate)
I saw that movie once last year and noticed that the title was also in a discography about sabicas
Posts: 1809
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Sabicas and Mario Escudero (in reply to marduk)
No, it seems not to be on CD yet, although a few tracks have appeared on anthologies. It’s not a movie soundtrack, but a sibling disc to Flamenco, which has just been re-released on CD (see my post on that topic), so maybe Queen of the Gypsies will follow.
Both seem to have been recorded in 1959, and feature Carmen, Sabas, Diego Castellón and Domingo Alvarado.
P.S. There is an album by Carmen on Amazon called Queen of the Gypsies, but it’s not the one we’re talking about. Caveat emptor!
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