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RIP Brook Zern 1941-2019
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nickgonzalezbrown
Posts: 2
Joined: Nov. 27 2020
From: London, UK
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 RIP Brook Zern 1941-2019
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Hi,
I was wondering if anyone wanted to discuss the American "flamencolugo" Brook Zern, who died last year. I'm sure some people on the Foro knew him, in person and/or through correspondence. I myself shared a brief, but memorable, correspondence with him back in 2016.
Brook maintained the website Flamencoexperience.com, which contained thousands and thousands of words' worth of interviews that he conducted and translated himself over the decades - including with Diego del Gastor, José Menese, and the widow of Manolo de Huelva.
It seems now that Flamencoexperience.com is GONE NOW!?!??! and it seems like the best place to read his surviving articles is on deflamenco.com.
So, my story: In 2016 I was starting to research Flamenco, and having trouble because of how few books are written on the subject. Brook's site was a wealth of material, so I reached out to him to thank him for his contributions.
I was living in New York City at the time and thought he did too, so I asked him about good venues in NYC, and whether he would be doing any lectures about Flamenco that I could attend.
Three days later, I got a really nice, long response from him that started with "Your writing style is lovely; impeccable and unobtrusively elegant. In my book, that counts for a lot".
He said he lived in Martha's Vineyard now (off the coast of Massachusetts), but next time he was in NYC he'd buy me a glass of vino tinto at Alegrías club on 14th Street.
On the subject of good books, Brook said he had some in digital form and could arrange to send me a thumb-drive - as well as tons of 'bootleg' recordings he himself made at juergas in Andalucía. He also offered to show me 'unknown' falsetas that Diego made up during lessons.
The message was also sprinkled with his characteristic self-deprecating humor:
"I was not invited to a recent conference about flamenco at NYU, probably because my resistance to fusion earns me the insider's clever epithet of "Taliban" while my special reverence for the Gypsy component of the art earns me the epithet of "racist" (it's a long story.)"
Brook and I exchanged another message, then I never heard back from him. Unfortunately, I never did get to meet him, receive the thumb-drive or hear the falsetas. (However, I did start going to Alegrías, and saw some amazing performances there).
I would check in with Flamenco Experience every so often, and was surprised to see reports of Brook's death the last time I Googled him this year. Sad news indeed.
_____________________________
"En la vida, amigos van y vienen, mujeres van y vienen, pero la guitarra siempre sigue."
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Date Nov. 28 2020 11:23:48
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Ricardo
Posts: 12352
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: RIP Brook Zern 1941-2019 (in reply to nickgonzalezbrown)
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I had read and enjoyed his articles over the years and found them very informative, if extremely opinionated. For a long time I had lumped him in with all the “moronies”, ie, people that had once come from America to hang out with Don Pohren at his Ranch after reading his books (the only ones readily available on the subject in USA for many decades) where a soda straw view of flamenco centered firmly on Diego del Gastor and his friends.
But my opinion changed when I attended an event by chance in Washington DC Art Museum where a viewing and lecture of Rito y Geografia was held. I was just in the right time frame to catch it on the way to a gig. I was there early and talked to Brook about Rito DVD cleaned up series that I considered Gold....he admitted he was pushing the project along himself but the people involved got a promotion that permanently ended the project before completion. He had brought his Ramirez and asked me if I would do some playing demonstration instead of himself which I gladly did. He showed Pericon episode first, and a few of the Juerga in jerez clips and Diego of course, fernanda etc...his favorite stuff. He was a fantastic communicator, and as mentioned he is not afraid to put “himself down” as mentioned. In this occasion, after he showed a clip of Pepe Marchena, he stated that he felt his singing was not “puro” flamenco like he thought of his favorites like Fernanda etc...I remember squirming in my chair “oh here we go...”...but then he said he admitted his opinions to Fernanda herself and she told him that he was an idiot! 
I find that attitude very rare in the flamenco aficionado world and my opinion of him went WAY up in that moment as the audience laughed with confusion. Anyway I talked to him more after the show and gave him my email and thanked him profusely for accomplishing what he was able with the DVD reissues. Not long after, when Esperanza Fernandez came to do Amor Brujo, the orchestra conductor who had been in attendance at the Rito lecture asked me, on Brook’s recommendation, if I would play for her a couple short recitals. So I have him to thank for that connection. Kitarist managed to dig up some articles of his somehow, but for sure he and his writings will be sorely missed.
Ricardo
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Nov. 28 2020 17:32:10
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kitarist
Posts: 1076
Joined: Dec. 4 2012
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RE: RIP Brook Zern 1941-2019 (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
Kitarist managed to dig up some articles of his somehow, but for sure he and his writings will be sorely missed.
Here is the link again, from archive.org:
https://web.archive.org/web/20171103072412/http://www.flamencoexperience.com/blog/
It is far from the whole website content because these snapshots appear to go only a level or two deep. However, because of the 100 or so captures through the years, there are still quite a number of articles.
To see that another way, go to https://web.archive.org/web/sitemap/http://www.flamencoexperience.com/blog/ and click on 2016 or 2017.
In the graphic (static image below), the outer disk has tiny slices representing all the archived webpages. As you hover over that outer disk, you will see all the webpages that are named like cat=xxx, and a few named p=xxx. Clicking on any brings up the content.
Each 'cat' page seems to have all/some of(?) the articles that were in that particular category. For example, cat=33 is 'women in flamenco' and it has 5 different articles in the 2017 version of that webpage. Or cat=257 is 'flamenco aesthetics' and has about ten longish articles on that subject. Other categories may have just one, like cat=7 'welcome', as do all the 'p=xxx' webpage.
Once you are on a particular cat or p webpage, you can see all the category names in a column on the right-hand side (easier to browse than by number).
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
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Konstantin
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Date Nov. 28 2020 17:51:08
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