21 Jornadas Flamencas de Fuenlabrada (Madrid). Serranito, Diego El Cigala, Chano Lobato

A FINAL NIGHT WITH LIGHT AND SHADOW

1st Part. In concert: Víctor Monge “Serranito”;
Keyboard: Moisés P. Sánchez; Percussion: Víctor
Monje “Junior”; Guitar-bass: Julián Vaquero;
Guitar: Rafael Morales; Flute: Fernando Bravo.
2nd Part.

Cante: Chano Lobato; Guitar: Niño Manuela.
Cante: Diego el Cigala; Guitar: Manuel Parrilla

Text: Manuel Moraga
Photos: Rafael Manjavacas

Three different visions of flamenco came together
for the last night of the Jornadas Flamencas of Fuenlabrada.
There was art alright, but the deficient amplification for
this venue, and the length of the program detracted from the
overall effect, although the global result for these Jornadas
is memorable.

It was surprising to hear Serranito playing less than clean.
Halfway through his performance he admitted he is recuperating
from a problem with his fingers. In another, less experienced
guitarist it might have sounded like an excuse. In Serranito,
whose main virtue is his technique, it rang true and the audience
reacted with a resounding applause. Despite that drawback,
which we hope will prove to be transitory, we were able to
enjoy the original ideas Victor Monje put forth with his guitar
and, in this case, his fantastic keyboardist with whom he
maintained a high level of musical dialogue.

The image of water is always very present in Serranito's
work and was also felt at the Tomás y Valiente auditorium
in Fuenlabrada. The theme began in Cazorla at the birth of
the Guadalquivir, took us to the branching of the Genil and
ended in Triana. Along the way, regards to Federico García
Lorca and more for “Dani”, the son of a friend
of the guitarist's “who left us all too soon”
said the maestro. Victor Monje's sensitivity shone through
again, as well as his way of using words, searching for nearly
impossible tones which never appeared forced, but rather logical
and harmonious with the emotion and development of his message.

Chano is worthy of a doctoral thesis. At his age, and in
his frail condition, with his diabetes and all that goes along
with it, one wonders: “how does he manage to sing like
that?” He did his standard repertoire: tanguillos, soleá,
malagueña, alegrías, bulerías… His
schtick, and you have to give him credit for all that flavor.
And the laidback humor which is on display from the word 'go':
the curtain goes up and there he is, with his guitarist (who
was superb by the way), seated, waiting. It's perfect. The
man from Cádiz puts the audience in his pocket with
his simplicity, his honesty, his spicy humor and above all,
his art. Without a doubt it's a special kind of knowledge:
it's knowing how to act, how to sing, how to listen, how to
speak. Someone from the audience shouted out something like
he ought to do less talking and more singing… That person
probably thinks he's something special, but he'll go through
life without having understood anything about flamenco. The
maestro says that señorita Carmen, his doctor, has
forbidden him to drink, for his own good. For Chano's good
and ours, let's hope the doc never forbids him to sing.

Following an act like Chano Lobato is what show-biz pros
in Spain call a “marrón”. I remember a
few months ago at the Madrid club Clamores a famous humorist
came on after the maestro, one of those guys you always see
on TV. He got no place with the audience. The man had come
to make us laugh and all he accomplished was giving us ants
in our pants. Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but the
fact is half the audience got up and left after ten minutes.
It's not that the same thing happened with Cigala, but in
fact, something was missing. That's how it was, the truth
be told. And that's considering that the Madrid singer didn't
do a bad job at all.

He opened with tonás-carcelera and ended with bulerías,
adding fandangos for the curtain call. Diego gives a very
personal touch to the cantes, relying heavily on his rich
voice (very flamenco, well-tuned and with a wide register),
his great sense of rhythm and a gypsy delivery. He reworked
several cantes but, in my opinion, he sometimes comes off
as a shouter, and it becomes monotonous. If we add to this
that he was the third performer of the night (with nearly
two hours of flamenco preceding), and the over-amplification,
it's no surprise that many of us went home feeling a bit saturated.

Now
we come to the sound. For Serranito it had an acceptable level.
With Chano it went wild and with El Cigala yours truly had
to put his hands over his ears. And it wasn't that different
in earlier days. An auditorium is designed in such a way that
the acoustics are favorable, so that an actor can effortlessly
project his voice to the very last row, or with a minimum
of technical aid. A modern auditorium (it's just opened as
a matter of fact) doesn't need the amount of wattage our ears
were subjected to in Fuenlabrada. Cigala kept saying he couldn't
hear his monitors (the loudspeakers that face the performer
to give a reference), and it's no surprise because the sound
going out to the audience was so pumped-up, it surely inundated
the stage itself drowing out the monitors and giving the artists
a hard time.

And so an auditorium which, theoretically, must be designed
to get the sound to the audience in the most natural way possible,
was used during these days to pump out the watts like there
was no tomorrow, brutally attacking out eardrums. You just
didn't need that much baggage for this trip.

Everyone suffered from the sound, but most of all, Cigala.
He was the last one on (and after Chano at that), the night
began to feel long, he wasn't at ease with the sound (not
him or anyone else, but he was doing a job), and as if all
that weren't enough, he was shouting. Between one thing and
another, a few of us were wishing the night would come to
an end as soon as possible.