| PROGRAM
- Special XVI
Festival de Nimes.
Diego Carrasco, Manuel Molina, Moraíto Chico,
Tomasito. Percussion: Juan Grande. Palmas: Maloko, Bo.
Text & photos: Estela Zatania
It’s now official, they own the town. At eight
P.M. on January 27th at the Nimes theater, Diego Carrasco,
Manuel Molina, Moraíto and Tomasito received the Medal
of the City of Nimes, and one hour later they showed their
gratitude with a show brimming with compás, good humor,
art and more compás just in case someone didn’t
catch it the first time around.
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Diego Carrasco, Moraíto,
Tomasito and Manuel Molina with their medals |
Juan Diego |
No malagueña del Mellizo or siguiriyas or soleá.
It was bulerías night, the permanent fiesta that reigns
in Jerez twenty-five hours a day, and the people in charge
of serving it up couldn’t have been more appropriate:
three from the neighborhood of Santiago and one from Triana.
Tomasito, the eternal adolescent, did his compás thing,
Moraíto played guitar solos, bulerías and tangos,
with an overhead spot, Diego Carrasco, intuitive and charismatic
with his “Adivinia adivinanza”, compás
in its most elemental state. Manuel Molina did Manuel Molina
with guitar as accessory and arms outstretched like a flamenco
preacher. He almost went beyond the fringe, in fact there
are moments when you think “that’s it, we’ve
lost him!” but then suddenly he springs back and just
misses falling into the great abyss of absurdity, but it’s
a close call. In fact that’s what Molina and Carrasco
are all about, two bearded philosophers with guitar who risk
everything with their respective schticks and always manage
to float back up to the surface because rhythm is the padded
cell that keeps them from hurting themselves or anyone else.
Manuel apologizes for not being in good voice and sings “Dime”,
one of his songs that was popularized by Lole when the two
were a couple.
A scientific investigation into
how far you can go on just compás and personality
Tomasito comes and goes and with each appearance, no matter
how brief, he gets the audience right into his pocket with
excellent dancing and a fun personality, you just want to
wrap him up and take him home. Moraíto returns to the
raw rhythm of Lebrija and everyone lends a hand to Diego Carrasco
for his popular Ealajea, one of his most imitated creations.
Four personalities on the same wave-length who are reinventing
themselves at every moment, like in Picasso’s series
based Velasquez’ Las Meninas, each time more abstracted,
a scientific investigation into how far you can go on just
compás and personality.
It’s just possible the answer to that question was
found last night in Nimes. You can go a long ways and achieve
some very flamenco as well as entertaining moments. So what
was missing? A bright neon sign switches on in my head: “cante”.
A good solid singer, as if there isn’t anyone in Jerez,
even if it were only to sing some bulerías, a proper
voice would have filled out that unbeatable atmosphere and
made everything click. The paella was done to perfection,
the ingredients were top quality and the table was set, but
someone forgot to call the guest of honor.
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Moraíto's dance |
Fiesta finale |
At twelve midnight in the comfortable theater of the Novotel
hotel young Juan Diego, the guitarist from Jerez, offered
a recital of just over an hour with original pieces from his
recordings, first on his own, and then with the backup of
his group with Dr. Kelly on percussion and the voice of Marcelino
Fernández. A good full program for the fifth day of
this ambitious festival which has also scheduled master classes
of dance and percussion with Israel Galván, Farruco
and Diego Carrasco respectively, as well as a conference with
cante with Utrera singer Tomás de Perrate.
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