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My friend in San Francisco Ken Parker was friends with Pedro Bacan, who tragically died way young. Ken is known as a guitarist as Keni el Lebrijano, because someone a long while back thought he looked like the singer El Lebrijano, which he does resemble. Anyway, Keni has good stories and he’s a solid accompanist in solea and Buleria, he likes to drink a bit of Machaco.
What’s your poison and why does it make you a good tocaor or a good listener?
Posts: 3462
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to Morante)
I checked in at a hotel in Bedford, England after the dining room had closed. The desk clerk said I could get a sandwich in the bar.
I ordered a ham sandwich and a pint of Guinness. When I took a sip I noticed the beer waa cold. I commented to the bartender that I thought beer was served at room temperature in England, but mine was cold.
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to estebanana)
A shot of decent tequila is probably best for me. Doesn't spike my blood sugar like beer, or fill me up with carbonation that has to be expelled. I tend to drink it neat. I've never tried absinthe or this Cynar from Brazil-sounds interesting though.
When I took a sip I noticed the beer waa cold. I commented to the bartender that I thought beer was served at room temperature in England, but mine was cold.
This is a common misconception, particularly with Americans I have found, that our beer is warm and our food is sh*t. Mind you, a lot of British people think most Americans are morbidly obese and only drink ice cold Bud.
Almost all beer should be served chilled to some degree. It's very rare to find room temperature beer in the UK, but there are people who like their beer a room temperature, I myself do not. Also the quality of your pint of Guinness, and other draught beer, would depend on how it's kept by the establishment.
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The early bird catches the worm. But the second mouse gets the cheese.
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to estebanana)
Largely due to the fact that I was moderately into my cups last night, I forgot to mention that I was told by my friend El Keni that Pedro Bacan drank Zynar. When I heard this I made a rush on the artichoke section of my local supermarket.
Posts: 1967
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to estebanana)
Kenny is a very interesting guy. I’ve always enjoyed conversing with him. I don’t know him well but at a rehearsal for a show he showed up in his bedroom slippers. I had Instant respect for some reason. No, the fact is I used to see him playing well in shows when I first got into flamenco close to forty years ago. He launched into some really old sevillanas, and being a student of Mariano Cordoba, who was a pro in the 1950’s, I knew how to accompany the melodies, which surprised him.
I went to London in 1976, and the pubs I went to served beer at room temperature, which I became used to in a few weeks. I had no choice. My recollection is that even Guinness was room temperature, but I could be wrong. Last week I ordered a Guinness in Portugal and it was chilled. Also I tried some fino in Cordoba, which I think would light the fuse in any guitarist. Myself, I don’t drink unless on vacation or with friends.
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Posts: 15413
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to estebanana)
Jurassic Parker can drink what he wants. I feel old myself these days, and drink only Gin and tonic or Gin and soda. It is the one drink 8 out of 10 bartenders won't mess up.
however, when in flamenco mood it has to be super ice cold frosting glass of Manzanilla de Sanlúcar. That is how it is served in house. Too many think to keep that stuff at cool room temp like Chardonnay etc.
Posts: 3462
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to silddx)
quote:
ORIGINAL: silddx
quote:
When I took a sip I noticed the beer waa cold. I commented to the bartender that I thought beer was served at room temperature in England, but mine was cold.
This is a common misconception, particularly with Americans I have found, that our beer is warm and our food is sh*t. Mind you, a lot of British people think most Americans are morbidly obese and only drink ice cold Bud.
Almost all beer should be served chilled to some degree. It's very rare to find room temperature beer in the UK, but there are people who like their beer a room temperature, I myself do not. Also the quality of your pint of Guinness, and other draught beer, would depend on how it's kept by the establishment.
After i wrote the post i realized I should have said "cellar temperature." I have experienced more bad food in cheap restaurants in Paris than I have in England. Even in London many pubs have a good selection of food.
I stayed in the summer of 2015 at Fritton House on the Suffolk estate of Hugh Crossley, the present Lord Somerleyton. On the morning I departed for London I asked one of the young attendants where to eat near the train station in Great Yarmouth. He replied, "I wouldn't eat in Great Yarmouth." I had excellent fish and chips in the local pub instead.
I did experience English people once complaining about the beer being cold.
My friend John Parker (RIP) lived with his brother in Round Oak Cottage in Tadley, near Basingstoke, Hampshire. John and I met at the beginning of several years when I worked as a contractor for the nearby Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston, commuting periodically from the USA. John was several years older than I. He went to Willam of Wykeham's School at Winchester. He placed second on the Math Tripos at Cambridge, earned a Blue for rowing, and a PhD..
Round Oak Cottage, a spacious two story half-timbered building, was constructed in the early 15th century. It won the prize for best thatched roof in Hampshire more than once while I knew John. John's family and mine were almost neighbors at the Norfolk/Suffolk border for more than 350 years, beginning in 1248. Both families held heritable leases on church land in the Honour of Eye, as well as land owned as feudal domain.
Across the Road from Round Oak Cottage was Round Oak Tavern, with the Round Oak itself out in front.
The first time John took me to his local, he gave me a tour. The part nearest the road was relatively modern, no earlier than the beginning of the 19th century. As we went in further, the architecture changed. When we entered the last room at the back John murmured, "Mind the joists."
The ceiling was open. You could see the rafters between the open roof joists. The joists were at about chin height for me (I'm 6'4"). When the room was built most people were shorter than they are now. I asked John when it was built. He said that he didn't think anyone really know.
We went to the Round Oak for a good hot lunch on a cold winter day near Christmas. Barrels of beer had been delivered and left outdoors for some time. While we were eating the barrels were brought into the cellar and hooked up to the pumps. When the cold beer was served a subdued grumbling was heard, though I heard no one raise the issue explicitly.
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
Jurassic Parker can drink what he wants. I feel old myself these days, and drink only Gin and tonic or Gin and soda. It is the one drink 8 out of 10 bartenders won't mess up.
however, when in flamenco mood it has to be super ice cold frosting glass of Manzanilla de Sanlúcar. That is how it is served in house. Too many think to keep that stuff at cool room temp like Chardonnay etc.
I should here explain why Ricardo called Keni ‘Jurassic Parker’ about 2002 approx. Gerardo Nunez was on tour in the U.S. when he came to San Francisco he stopped in at a bar called the Albatross in Berkeley where Keni played on Thursday nights. This attracted Spanish artists on tour in the U.S. because it’s known that Keni can play for singers pretty well and has a knack for getting them to sing to drum up public interest in their tour. It’s a good fit for artists to drop by, Keni gets to play for real good singers and the singers get to plug their shows on the upcoming weekend nights.
Gerardo Nunez was on tour and dropped by. After listening to Keni play, he says to a local regular flamenco person, who is that guy with the antique toque? Oh, that’s Keni Parker, the guy says. Nunez apparently replied, more like Jurassic Parker.
Posts: 15413
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
Gerardo Nunez was on tour and dropped by. After listening to Keni play, he says to a local regular flamenco person, who is that guy with the antique toque? Oh, that’s Keni Parker, the guy says. Nunez apparently replied, more like Jurassic Parker.
It was a flamenco dad joke
Gerardo is big into Antigua techniques. I learned most from him, or rather how to distinguish them. He points this out in his DVD by Encuentro which I found amusing because everyone thinks of him, or did back then, as super modern. He even states "we modern players are flojo", meaning weak, wimpy and lazy and rely on the cajon to do lots of rhythmic things the old guitarists would have to do themselves. Most likely he was very impressed with Parker and why he pointed out his observation. "Jurassic Parker" play on words being a humorous compliment.
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to Ricardo)
I’m sure Gerardo didn’t mean it as a put down, it was a flamenco dad joke. The Albatross was no joke either, some really great artists came through and sang. David told me the same thing about antiguo toque, he said a lot of older falsetas and rasgeuado is really hard to play well. There’s a falseta he taught to everyone it’s a long descending legato, that goes on and on for two compases. He taught it a hot shot kid in Madrid when he was at the end of the days he was still teaching and the ( I can’t remember the name) the young guy said, tio this is really difficult. One of those wiz kids says that it’s difficult.
Do you see rasgueado as before Marote and after Marote?
Posts: 15413
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
Can you explicate why this shocked you?
well, there are long involved discussions. Steelhead had asserted that the type of compás expression there, (which is also seen in the "seguidilla Sevillana" example of the same collection), did not develop until the 1920s via Niño Ricardo and friends, though he was going off some source that claimed that. Confirmation bias reaffirms this based on the shyte early recordings where fandango (like this) is hardly ever recorded, compared to abandolao style malagueña rhythms in 3, that are different phrasing wise. I showed this example and he admitted he stands corrected. Why? and Why for me it is shocking? Well, this score is exactly like a modern day transcription with, for me, almost Faucher level details there, yet unlike Faucher, no video or tape recording in 1856-1867 (time frame it was "observed"). Kitarist clarified that Ocón was a child prodigy musician since teenager, hence it seems he wrote this down from memory, not understanding necessarily the tradition, but just capturing the notes in a literal manner.
This is orders of magnitude a different type of evidence compared to the other "academic" music Castro Buendia painstakingly wades through from this epoch in his 3000 page dissertation. The conclusion seems to be that this evidence is "nothing special" and only shows that flamenco was in a state of "proto-flamenco" vague formation. Meaning, what I am seeing here is not even "real" flamenco. He even went so far to assert the Soledad example first line of verse was similar to a fandango second line, either underhandedly since it hinders his main theme, or carelessly, as said fandango is in the wrong mode to boot (he forgot the key signature maybe?).
Where as Ocón evidence has impacted me in a very different way. That verbal descriptions and the score, is basically revealing a practice exactly like what I was doing last week on the gig. It is actually "creepy" to me when I saw this stuff. I mean that up beat accent mark and the freaking double bar line is genius, took me years to get that phrasing clarity and intuition. He got it in ONE SITTING! And no, none of the other academic music scores have this at this time period. And he had purposefully gathered the flamenco stuff in a special section of his collection. Meaning, flamenco is orders of magnitude MUCH OLDER than people, generally, think it is. It is not evolving or something, it is just sitting there fully formed. Unless Ocón was observing a creative event literally that day he saw this stuff (highly improbable this was the vanguard even though he says there "moderna" to distinguish from puntado, or abandolao malagueña stuff, or the old Scarlatti fandango junk).
Romerito thinks I am viewing this via the bias of my modern perspective lens, and I am certain 90% of flamencologist would agree with that. Sorry, but that would not creep me out so much. It is more that I am getting a view through Ocons eyes what was REALLY going on vs, Arcas, Glinka, and big etc, it is that his vision was so damn CLEAR, that creeped me out. Tied in with the Planeta account from 20 years even earlier, the whole situation just gave me chills, like we are frozen in time. Like I just ran across a photo of T-REX.
Anyway that was like 3 years ago I saw this. It is an issue of subjective interpretation. Since you asked about Marote, I am admitting that I am more into the thing that was going on already in 1850, and I can't even give you the "before and after" thing, cuz I don't yet know. Gaspar Sanz maybe?
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
Can you explicate why this shocked you?
Romerito thinks I am viewing this via the bias of my modern perspective lens, and I am certain 90% of flamencologist would agree with that. Sorry, but that would not creep me out so much. It is more that I am getting a view through Ocons eyes what was REALLY going on vs, Arcas, Glinka, and big etc, it is that his vision was so damn CLEAR, that creeped me out. Tied in with the Planeta account from 20 years even earlier, the whole situation just gave me chills, like we are frozen in time. Like I just ran across a photo of T-REX.
Anyway that was like 3 years ago I saw this. It is an issue of subjective interpretation. Since you asked about Marote, I am admitting that I am more into the thing that was going on already in 1850, and I can't even give you the "before and after" thing, cuz I don't yet know. Gaspar Sanz maybe?
You being shocked doesn’t shock me. I think the way flamenco is organized into formal presentation formats could be a more modern thing, it fits into the private juerga in the rich guys home or venta. It fits into a cafe with Zarzuela and other music and it fits into tents at Féria. All this seems like modern organization formats that go with the focus on city life in the 19th century when there is a shift from people working in the country to a city migration of workers in metro centers working stores and light factory jobs. All this facilitates new middle class leasure life that needs neatly formatted acts to go on stage.
But flamenco must be much older. I think in the same way Hungarian folk music existed during Haydn’s time and much earlier, these forms were brought into paid court / formal music patronized by dukes etc but the folk musicians were not historically documented, until Bartok and Kodaly went into the country with wax cylinders. What they documented was extremely difficult to transcribe and without recordings, even crude cylinders, they wouldn’t have been able to do it.
Scarlatti fandango is just gentrified BS that takes a stab at making street music cleaned up enough to play at court.
Going back even farther I think Gaspar Sanz is building on earlier rasgueado going back centuries, baroque guitar is made to strum.
Point is, Marote was distributed to an audience at a time when good guitars and records were easy enough for the average person to get, his signature rasgueado got famous fast, but the guy in 1622 who was good, his rasgueado was transmitted more slowly through decades because it had to be studied up close without mechanical reproduction.
We essentially see an older path
I didn’t read a lot of flamencogists but I did study early music a fair bit, I could go into that. I also think flamenco is much more Jewish origin based or Hebraic than is talked about enough, and that Arab connection is over exaggerated. I know a guy who played oud who told me “flamenco is just Arabic (music) bluegrass.” I think this notion is absurd. For one flamenco is very modally centered on the western side of the modal understanding of how church modes developed into key centers. Flamenco never sounded Arabic to me.
Posts: 3462
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana Flamenco never sounded Arabic to me.
Some time in the late 1970s I was driving west along the Mediterranean coast headed for Cadiz. When I got to Tarifa I had a clear view across the strait of Gibraltar to Tangier.
"I've never been to North Africa," I said to myself. So I parked my rented Seat, boarded a small hydrofoil and crossed over.
Long story later, a crew of prosperous Morrocans and I boarded three Mercedes limos, bound for a hotel nightclub out in the country. We segregated by gender. The morality police left people pretty well alone in the city, but there could be trouble out in the boondocks.
The big nightclub was in the basement of the hotel. The ceiling was very dark blue, liberally pierced by twinkling artificial stars. A long table bordering the dance floor was reserved for us. Blue clouds of hashish smoke billowed out of the men's room door.
I don't remember the full roster of the band. The leader played both oud and electric guitar. There was a fiddler, who rested the butt of the instrument on his thigh. The drummer was a huge black man with a menacing aspect, equipped with an extensive kit. The singer was a very beautiful young woman. When she was helped down from the stage at intermission, I first realized she was blind.
After two or three numbers the band struck up a piece our group seemed to know. The women, dressed in couture from Paris and Madrid, stood up and kicked off their bespoke shoes. Each was accompanied by a ladies' maid who remained seated. The maids delved in their roomy satchels and came up with silk scarves from Hermes. The women wrapped their hips tightly in the scarves and knotted them in front. They stepped out onto the floor in their stocking feet, and danced in rolling hip swaying sidesteps I might have called belly dance. The ladies' maids accompanied with highly complex palmas and periodic ullulations.
The leader played, just about verbatim, a zambra, which I later heard recorded by Paco Peña, attributed to Niño Ricardo.
Flamencos were known to travel to La MorrerÏa (e.g. Antonio Mairena) but I don't know whether Niño Ricardo was among them. I've always wondered which came first, the Morrocan dance or Niño Ricardo?
things like "miserlou", aka, popular tourist desert cobra camel Arabian nights music, I read somewhere, is traced back to like some popular greek bouzouki guy.
When I recently tried to trace a particular melody's age that is part of Sephardic tradition, via lyrics which I found going back a long ways, an actual sephardic musician friend of my admitted they can't trace any jewish melody back further than like 100 years, and sure enough he found the source for the melody distinction for me going back less than that even. So my question was which melody was older, the one I had on hand from sources was centuries older than anything in the Jewish oral tradition rep.
another example was some claim I read that Peteneras was Sephardic ie, old tradition. It turned out to be based on a Turkish guy that recorded it in 1910s, obviously having been familiar with the Spanish versions already.
Basically, Niño Ricardo's flamenco repertoire (not counting what he composed that was novel at the time technique wise, I mean. the palo structures) is likely orders of magnitude OLDER than this Zambra thing, which sounds like tourist trap music to me, perhaps from the same Bouzouki guy that did Miserlou.
Posts: 3462
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo Basically, Niño Ricardo's flamenco repertoire (not counting what he composed that was novel at the time technique wise, I mean. the palo structures) is likely orders of magnitude OLDER than this Zambra thing, which sounds like tourist trap music to me, perhaps from the same Bouzouki guy that did Miserlou.
I'm pretty sure I was the only tourist at that night club that night.
The young man assigned to assist and translate for me assured me, in heavily Arabic-accented Spanish, that the piece in question was an old dance from the King's harem that had become popular, as evidenced by the steps the women executed.
Even though I was the only tourist there that night, I was constantly aware that I knew little or nothing about anything at all that went on the whole time I was in Morocco.
When I returned, first to Spain then to England, I told friends that the whole time I was in Morocco I felt like everybody was lying to me about something important.
Posts: 3472
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
I didn’t read a lot of flamencogists but I did study early music a fair bit, I could go into that. I also think flamenco is much more Jewish origin based or Hebraic than is talked about enough, and that Arab connection is over exaggerated. I know a guy who played oud who told me “flamenco is just Arabic (music) bluegrass.” I think this notion is absurd. For one flamenco is very modally centered on the western side of the modal understanding of how church modes developed into key centers. Flamenco never sounded Arabic to me.
I think it would be difficult to categorically determine how much Sephardic Jewish music on the one hand and Arabic/North African music on the other influenced flamenco. Jews had been in Spain since the first century AD, first along the Mediterranean coast and then moving inland. The Arabs invaded Spain in 711 and ruled Al Andalus for centuries. No doubt Arabic music influenced Sephardic Jewish music to a certain extent, and the reverse may have been the case as well. So what we know as Sephardic Jewish music in Spain may have had a lot of Arabic in it. Where does one draw the line between Sephardic and Arabic influence when both may well have been hybrids of each other by the time flamenco was developed?
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."
RE: Real Tocaores drink Zynar (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
things like "miserlou", aka, popular tourist desert cobra camel Arabian nights music, I read somewhere, is traced back to like some popular greek bouzouki guy.
When I recently tried to trace a particular melody's age that is part of Sephardic tradition, via lyrics which I found going back a long ways, an actual sephardic musician friend of my admitted they can't trace any jewish melody back further than like 100 years, and sure enough he found the source for the melody distinction for me going back less than that even. So my question was which melody was older, the one I had on hand from sources was centuries older than anything in the Jewish oral tradition rep.
another example was some claim I read that Peteneras was Sephardic ie, old tradition. It turned out to be based on a Turkish guy that recorded it in 1910s, obviously having been familiar with the Spanish versions already.
Basically, Niño Ricardo's flamenco repertoire (not counting what he composed that was novel at the time technique wise, I mean. the palo structures) is likely orders of magnitude OLDER than this Zambra thing, which sounds like tourist trap music to me, perhaps from the same Bouzouki guy that did Miserlou.
Dick Dale was Lebanese and he played all this folky Arabic music as a kid at the community center and then hammered it out on a strat or something into surf music
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I tend to drink it neat. I've never tried absinthe or this Cynar from Brazil-sounds interesting though. 
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