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I haven’t been here in a long while but this is worth posting. Jesus Montoya has been the premier singer here in Los Angeles for over 30 years and he’s in need of help. He’s in hospice, his time here has been tragically cut shorter than anyone’s time should be. He has kids and family that could use the support right now. He’s a great guy and an amazing artist. https://www.gofundme.com/f/7r2mh-help-jesus-montoya-and-his-family Here he is with our very own Ricardo https://youtu.be/5gbPx9KafwY
I haven’t been here in a long while but this is worth posting. Jesus Montoya has been the premier singer here in Los Angeles for over 30 years and he’s in need of help. He’s in hospice, his time here has been tragically cut shorter than anyone’s time should be. He has kids and family that could use the support right now. He’s a great guy and an amazing artist. https://www.gofundme.com/f/7r2mh-help-jesus-montoya-and-his-family Here he is with our very own Ricardo https://youtu.be/5gbPx9KafwY
I was doing zoom classes all this year with Jesus to keep his spirits up. The saddest thing is, as of November he was singing great still. He went down hill fast in December and cancelled classes permanently. Heartbreaking.
Ricardo, I remember a challenge when people were learning to accompany soleá and you put up Jesús singing soleá de Frigones so that people could try to accompany it. Que voz más bonita tenía.
Great videos Ricardo. Amazing feeling and it must be great to sing with you at the accompaniment.
I met Jesus in 2003 and even though I only got to work with him on dance show projects, I would spend as much free time as I could with him to learn about cante. Being stuck in USA it was a special thing to have a gitano cantaor so open to share the stuff. Over the years we became friends and I finally had the chance to do a concert with him without the dancers in the way in 2011 in Fresno. Since then we hadn’t had many opportunities to work together. Last time I saw him was that buleria above in 2018 when I went to visit him. I knew his health was bad so we did cante classes via zoom during the pandemic. I feel there was so much more to learn from him.
I've seen him perform a number of times, and once had the opportunity to play for him along with a couple other guitarists. I remember going home and telling my wife how exciting it was to have a guitar in my hands while he was singing.
Ricardo, you may remember about 12 years ago or so Nora Lopez in Arlington used to host Jesus in her home when he would give cante lessons. Paco de Malaga took me on a couple of occasions, not to learn cante but to get a feel for compas and the pace of cante for guitar. Jesus was very generous to me, a novice, even though I wasn't attending to learn cante as such.
Bill
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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."
Ricardo, you may remember about 12 years ago or so Nora Lopez in Arlington used to host Jesus in her home when he would give cante lessons. Paco de Malaga took me on a couple of occasions, not to learn cante but to get a feel for compas and the pace of cante for guitar. Jesus was very generous to me, a novice, even though I wasn't attending to learn cante as such.
Bill
Yes I remember. Some years before that we performed in McLean VA with Carmela Greco (Jose Greco’s daughter). Here is a newspaper clipping from the event and in the photo is my wife, Nora and Carmela up top, and at the Bistro showing me playing for Jesus (left) and Paco de Malaga (right) enjoying the Juerga. That is probably when Paco first met Jesus (sorry you see the back of their heads).
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I have posted this one several times in baile topics as an example of how to accompany with no rehearsal based on traditional structures and improvisation. Jesus’s main gig was singing for baile like this:
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