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Sabicas documentary premiere Thursday
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 RE: Sabicas documentary premiere Thu... (in reply to Red_Label)
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quote:
Btw... Sabicas has been my favorite flamenco player since I was a little boy in the 1970s, growing-up, listening to my parents' Sabicas albums. Thank goodness for YouTube, so I can see video of him in his prime.
I'm with you, Red_Label. I first discovered flamenco guitar via vinyl albums of Carlos Montoya, but then shortly thereafter discovered Sabicas. Sabicas has been my favorite flamenco guitarist since, and remains so today. I just love his style and sound.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jun. 6 2013 21:35:43
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Red_Label
Posts: 34
Joined: Apr. 23 2012
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RE: Sabicas documentary premiere Thu... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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Ditto. When I was a teenager, Sabicas was The Man, end of story.
When he came to England for the first time in 1968, the concert hall must have contained just about every flamenco guitarist in the country, amateur or professional.
Nice to see so much love for Sabicas here! When I browse the web reading threads related to flamenco guitar, it's usually PDL that everyone wants to talk about. And being that he seems to be the current "living legend", his branching-out to other genres, etc... I get it. He's great and if I had an ounce of his knowledge and ability I'd be thrilled beyond words.
But Sabicas will always be synonymous with the word "flamenco" to me and despite also enjoying the playing of MANY other flamenco artists (Serrano, Montoya, etc)... I picture Sabicas when I picture the pinnacle of the art.
Having said all of that, I honestly REALLY enjoy some of the work of the newer so-called "fakemenco" players like Strunz & Farah, Oscar Lopez, Lawson Rollins, and even Pavlo, etc. I know the difference between real/traditional flamenco and non-flamenco music with a flamenco or spanish flavor. And I LIKE IT ALL. Based on what I've seen lurking on these boards, my tolerance won't garner any respect from many hardliners. But I've never been a hardliner myself when it comes to art forms. I like what I like without regard to the opinions or ideas of others. Hell... even though I don't dig their whole cheesy schticks... I even enjoy some of the playing of Charo and Esteban [GASP!] 
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Date Jun. 7 2013 14:58:54
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Red_Label
Posts: 34
Joined: Apr. 23 2012
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RE: Sabicas documentary premiere Thu... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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I think what sticks in the craws of most of the critics is not so much the music itself as the fact that so many of its practitioners pretend that it's flamenco. For instance:
http://www.amazon.com/Gypsy-Fusion-NovaMenco/product-reviews/B000001CBZ/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0
That’s certainly my view. Let anyone have it who wants it; just call it something different.
I completely agree with you. Although I will say that many of the practitioners of "Nuevo/New Flamenco" would be the last guys to claim to be traditional flamenco puros.
For lack of a better term, I started calling what I do "flamenco-jazz" when I started doing it. I should have called it "spanish-jazz" or "latin-jazz" in reality. But those thoughts didn't occur to me until I'd already recorded and been gigging it for some time. I fall-all-over myself to tell people at gigs that I'm not playing traditional flamenco, and I explain to them some of the history of traditional flamenco and what makes it what it is. In fact, after Saturday's benefit concert (where I backed-up a gal doing traditional flamenco dance), the event organizers came-up to us and were patting us on the back. I made it clear to them that while what we'd just done in Montana would be accepted as "flamenco" here in Montana, full of people who don't know the difference -- in Spain that would not have been the case. That was after I'd already told the crowd at least once on the mic that most of what we were doing was NOT "flamenco". I think that a lot of these guys out there playing in these various latin flavors very well know what they're doing is not flamenco and aren't claiming that it is. But the average record label, promoter and listener often feels the NEED to put a label on something and unfortunately, those labels are often either wrong, or inadequate for properly describing exactly what it is that the artist does. Unless an artist is beating their chest, claiming to be something they're clearly not... I don't hold these labels against them at all.
Even long before this whole "war" between purists and non-purists got hot, whenever I would hear someone playing latin-flavored NON-flamenco, I would think to myself "that's not traditional flamenco, but I like it just the same". And I think that a LOT of people (who know the difference) do that very same thing. Just because it's not traditional doesn't make it any less valid and enjoyable to many listeners. It certainly doesn't to me! There many days when I would rather listen to some easy-listening "smooth-jazz" type New Flamenco artist than a hardcore traditional flamenco artist/troupe. It depends on my mood and how involved I want to be in the listening experience. In fact, I often joke with people that what I play is "airport music". My wife always gives me the "why are you knocking yourself" look. But I can't help it. I like to keep it light-hearted and am just as happy to be background music for someone's nice conversation than I am to the center of attention. I think that comes from almost three decades of playing in obnoxious rock and country bands where I would play these fancy weddings and other events and think to myself "WHY did they hire an obnoxious, LOUD, expensive band for this event???" Which is one of the reasons I finally decided to move forward with my relatively tame "spanish/latin-flavored pop/jazz" gig. LOL! 
Btw... I have that NovaMenco CD that you linked. LOL! It was on-sale in some bargain bin and I just grabbed it not knowing what it was. It's okay. Pretty repetitive and boring though. I listen to it as often as I listen to my Ottmar Leibert CDs (almost never). I happen to like a lot of these new latin artists... but I wanna hear some SPEED and PASSION in their playing. I don't hear that with NovaMenco or Ottmar. But to each his or her own and the fact that people like them doesn't bother me in the least.
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Date Jun. 7 2013 16:36:55
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Red_Label
Posts: 34
Joined: Apr. 23 2012
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RE: Sabicas documentary premiere Thu... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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quote:
Passion certainly; but I’ve been caring less and less about speed, particularly in these days when everyone seems to be competing over it.
When I was young and stupid I used to try and play Lucía pieces that were too difficult for me. Paco Peña asked me why I did it. I said “I suppose, because of the challenge".
He replied “No! the challenge is to come down”.
And I realised he was right: trying to make something simple sound good is in many ways a more worthwhile objective — and quite difficult enough!
Listen to Sabas playing the Castellana on The Art of the Guitar. Isn’t it beautiful? And it’s quite simple.
Good post!
And I must admit, that even after 29 years of guitar play, I still get excited by speed! And yes... I LOVE the challenge. That challenge of speed has excited me whether I was playing rock guitar (my rock guitar "god" has always been Yngwie Malmsteen), country (Brad Paisley), mandolin (Chris Thile), etc. I've always been drawn to technical virtuosity.
But I WILL say, that not at the expense of emotion and the artist actually saying something with his or her playing. I guess that's why I always loved the playing of Sabicas. Very passionate AND technically challenging. When I think about classical guitar, I MUCH preferred the beautiful playing of a player like Julian Bream to the technical wizardry of Elliot Fisk. So though I love virtuosity... I do recognize that part of that involves tone, phrasing, and most of all... FEEL. Sabicas definitely had it all!
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Date Jun. 7 2013 17:17:53
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Red_Label
Posts: 34
Joined: Apr. 23 2012
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RE: Sabicas documentary premiere Thu... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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I couldn’t agree more. Eliot (sp.) seems to be a very nice person (this is what I hear, I’ve never met him), but his recitals always seemed to me like runaway locomotives — I kept waiting for the trainwreck, which isn’t really the optimum response.
Conversely, the passion (and rhythm!) and Bream’s playing is what‘s always made him my favourite lutenist, despite all the bellyaching by purists about "playing the lute with guitar technique”.
I've never seen a Fisk performance live. But when I first heard he'd done Paganini's Caprices, I just HAD to have that album and hear a classical guitarist actually DO such complicated/speedy works. I found that though I was VERY impressed with his chops (he did not let me down), his tone was very thin. And the music didn't really move me. Admittedly, that's not Fisk's fault, moreso Paganini's for those compositions. In that sense, I MUCH prefer Bach who was able to brilliantly combine beautiful melody AND technical difficulty in his compositions. But it's great to hear that Fisk is such a nice character.
Speaking of "nice character", I'm a member of another forum where one of the members is a nephew of Bream's. He said that "uncle" is doing well, but fairly reclusive any more and relaxing in his sunset years -- or something to that effect. This was a couple of months ago. Growing-up where I did (and continue to live here), seeing all of these giants of music history is something I'll never get to do. I envy you for being somewhere you could witness such beauty, and having been around long enough to have done so. I'll have to make-do with YouTube. 
Btw... interesting that you mentioned the issue of purists and Bream's lute technique. I've found that in my varied musical meanderings... the hard-line purists of ANY genre I've been interested-in have turned me off the most. From Bill Monroe and his minions in bluegrass, to Segovia and his minions in classical. I MUCH prefer the willingness to absorb and infuse that guys like PDL have shown. It may not keep traditions pure when such influential artists do that, but being a bit of a sponge myself, that resonates with me. I can't fathom how someone could spend a lifetime doing just ONE thing, trying to do it the SAME way every time, and remain interested over time. I'm WAY too ADD to ever do that!
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Date Jun. 7 2013 19:16:59
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