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RE: Paco de Lucia's Performance in W... (in reply to mezzo)
quote:
harmonica
just a thought on this not exactly sure where it first appeared in flamenco but the type of harmonica used is a chromatic harmonica as opposed to the diatonic 'harp' used primarily in american music...ie folk, country and western and blues.. it came to the fore in the 70's [yes 'sesame street' is a great example] through the artistry of belgian born musician toots thielman in the 70's, other than his work in the jazz field, also played alot with brazilian and south american musicians... in fact south american musicians like hermato pascoal and humberto clayber were using the instrument in latin based music over 40 years ago...1965 album "Em Som Maior" for example... could it be a similiar thing to the introduction of the cajon from peru to flamenco...?
i find it difficult to hear the relationship between flamenco harmonica and the american tradition....but can hear a connection to south american/latin music and european music...where harmonica's have a history of being used as a solo instrument...
even pat metheny spent thousands of dollars on a syncalvier synth for his guitar to make it sound like a $5 harmonica..after spending alot of time in south america...
could have been worse...accordians are like an orchestra of harmonica's...they are also popular in latin music
RE: Paco de Lucia's Performance in W... (in reply to XXX)
So ... Complicated this thread. Wow! Talk about intellectualizing something to the point it's not fun. This is a great example of it.
I just saw Paco here in Chicago, and whatever it was he played, well it was a REALLY GREAT show. This is the guy at the top of the mountain, and maybe he's older now, but he's still sitting up there.
RE: Paco de Lucia's Performance in W... (in reply to Florian)
quote:
unless someone tells me better i am making an assumption...american western movies were big in europe for a long time starting from the 60's...every single western movie had harmonica...if anywhere i am assuming that's where the artists that use it in flamenco got influenced
I don't know where the flamencos got it from, but harmonica was already popular in Europe for a long time before the 60's, in popular tunes, dance band music and jazz. It seems to have been particularly popular in the Netherlands and the UK.
Max Geldray played with Django in the late 30s.
Toots Thielemans is a famous player with some famous tunes:
This one is interesting, with Jaco de Pastorius on piano:
When I hear the guys who play with Paco, Vicente and so on, it often seems to me that the sound they're after is the bandoneon, especially in the slow music.
There, did that take up enough space? Oh yeah, Mezzo: "when maestros Leone (& Morricone) came with this particular adaptation of the western movies" - actually Leone adapted Japanese movies, developing a new kind of western. Or eastern...
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Paco de Lucia's Performance in W... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
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.
RE: Paco de Lucia's Performance in W... (in reply to Estevan)
quote:
actually Leone adapted Japanese movies
Yes, the 1st movie of the $trilogy is an adaptation of Kurosawa' Yojimbo. Plagiarism some said coz there's no mention to that film in the Leone' work. Funny thing is that Kurosawa himself was also inspired by J. Ford esthetical for Yojimbo.
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"The most important part of Flamenco is not in knowing how to interpret it. The higher art is in knowing how to listen." (Luis Agujetas)
Posts: 1871
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: Paco's Performance in Albuquerqu... (in reply to Guest)
When I referred to the throwing of the bones, I wasn't talking about him playing falsetas from different solos in a bulerias. Personally, since I have listened to a lot of his music a lot of times, I can hear and appreciate that practice(not to the extent of recognizing every one and knowing what solo they were first recorded in), and I also realize that is the nature of flamenco, and I'm perfectly satisfied by that, and also would be regardless if he played any of the old falsetas.
But I think more casual listeners would be hard pressed to recognize a single falseta from this bulerias and that one and would likely walk away thinking he didn't play any of the old stuff. Are they bad aficanados? I guess.....
The first time I saw Vicente one of the things that blew me away was that he played all his most famous solos and sounded incredible doing so. I've seen a lot of guys playing his falsetas, and have worked a few out myself, but I sound bad playing most of them. So do most others in comparison to VA. They are hard to play, and really hard to play really well. That's why people went there-to see him perform the music they grew to love from his recordings.
Paco is on a different level because of all the history. And I agree, he is a genius. He certainly doesn't have to show he can play his old stuff. As to if he should....eh, not unless he wants to IMO.
But I don't think he should gripe about people not getting his newer material or even the fact that old timers or foreigners are stuck in the flamenco of the past. A lot has changed in the last fourty-fifty years.
It would be amusing to see what today's modern style players/aficiandos will think of the flamenco of 2030. My bet is that lots of them will say it's not flamenco.
quote:
ORIGINAL: romerito
He is the representative of how keys have been developed and in his solos he does "throw some bones" as Ricardo said.
As a music theorist, the bones are what you make broth out of. Great chefs make their consumme from bones. Paco is a great chef and his soup is amazingly creative. In his bulerias, for example, he played falsetas from Rio de la Miel, Soniquete and others.
Here is the cool thing. Rio de la Miel: Am Soniquete: C# Other bulerias A
A guitarist of an older generation would not have played bulerias in C#. They also would not have moved from Am to Aphrygian very effectively.
RE: Paco's Performance in Albuquerqu... (in reply to Mark2)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Mark2 It would be amusing to see what today's modern style players/aficiandos will think of the flamenco of 2030. My bet is that lots of them will say it's not flamenco.
I think Paco is the best proof that it is not the age that makes people old. Its their mindset that make them stuck in a period of time, not regarding tastes of course, but views on what is/not flamenco.
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Paco's Performance in Albuquerqu... (in reply to Guest)
Interesting to me is the implication of many of the posts here, that the guitar is flamenco, with no discussion of how the cante has evolved due to Camaron and successive generations, or indeed, due to Paco's influence, if any.
In the early 1960s when I first became interested in flamenco, I was instructed more than once by Spanish aficionados that the cante was flamenco, with the guitar and baile as definitely secondary arts. I haven't spent more than a couple of weeks at a time in Spain since the late 1980s, so I have no idea what the attitude is now.
Certainly, outside Spain, Paco is the face of flamenco, and the main focus of foreigners visiting Spain to study flamenco seems to be the guitar.
The main focus of foreign tourists in Spain nowadays seems to be the dance oriented tourist show. Hemingway claimed at least in the 1920s that his favorite flamenco artist was the cantaora Pastora Pavon, "La Niña de los Peines."
Hemingway was interested enough to set three whole books in Spain and Spanish culture, though his interest in the bulls is seen as passé by most of the Spanish younger generation, with notable exceptions among Gypsies.
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