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Text: Estela Zatania
Day six and counting at the forty-fifth Festival
del Cante de las Minas de La Unión. At the Museo Minero,
an interesting interview by journalist Miguel Mora with Carlos
Saura was followed by the official tribute to the film-maker
and the presentation of commemorative objects.
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Tribute
to Carlos Saura (Photo: Estela Zatania)
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The day everyone was waiting for had arrived. The costly
tickets were sold out long ago, rumors were flying about what
kind of car he’d bring, the possibility of attending
the sound-check, what hotel he was at, whom he came with….
When I got to the concert area, a sort of large industrial
lot made into an open-air theater for the night, the two thousand
people who were streaming in reminded me of the little ants
that were nervously congregating around the bit of cupcake
that got left on my night-table the day before. I wondered
how many of these people knew what they were about to see.
Celestial music played by a god? Curative, mood-enhancing
or hallucinogenic sounds perhaps? What image and concept did
each one have of Paco de Lucía, and how did they quantify
the value of his contribution to flamenco guitar?
The weather was unstable. In the wee hours a sudden sheet
of rain banged down on the dusty little town of La Unión,
unheard-of this time of year, and clouds continued to threaten.
I recalled in 1965 when a young boy played two pieces for
8 or 10 people in Mario Escudero’s studio in New York
– an free-form piece, can’t remember what, and
bulerías. From that moment on it seemed nothing was
ever the same in flamenco. Four decades later an entirely
new generation considers Paco de Lucía “the old
school”, but it’s hard to imagine how flamenco
guitar would sound today were it not for the genius, the artistic
sensibility, the musicality and raw intelligence of Paco.
And even so, there are those would “blame” him
for everything that’s wrong with flamenco today –
the more unfortunate experiments, the degeneration of cante
and the unbridled commercialism – but the boy just did
what he knew how to do best and can be blamed, if at all,
for having done it superlatively, extraordinarily well. Nowadays
when everyone’s a “maestro”, the man from
Algeciras is one of the very few who truly deserves that title.
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Paco de Lucía (Photo: Rafael
Manjavacas)
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Paco de Lucía (Photo: Rafael
Manjavacas)
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It’s hard to imagine how
flamenco guitar would sound today were it not for the genius,
the artistic sensibility, the musicality and raw intelligence
of Paco
Now he comes to La Unión with truckloads of palm trees
and the world is at the feet of the person who was recently
awarded the prestigious Príncipe de Asturias prize,
most of them not even music-lovers, much less flamenco fans.
(A few drops fall, nothing serious…). He appears on stage
– white shirt, black vest and trousers, guitar in hand,
smile on face – you’d think he was a normal person.
The rondeña is beautiful, the technique almost comparable
to earlier levels, but technique is the least of what we look
for in Paco – nowadays his level has been surpassed
– it’s the fine taste, the musicality, the capacity
for making everything sound flamenco.
La Tana, Duquende, Montse Cortés (Photo: Estela
Zatania)
He receives the first applause shouting simply “gracias!”,
and on come Duquende, La Tana and Montse Cortés for
a dream-team chorus, with Alain Perez on bass, Antonio Serrano
on keyboard and Piraña doing percussion. Voices strongly
reminiscent of Camarón sing bulerías and when
it’s Duquende’s turn a voice shouts out “wow,
what memories!”
Unlike other contemporary flamenco guitarists, with Paco
the compás is always floating on the surface, and for
that alone he deserves another medal. He incorporates threads
of melodies that have become part of the universal flamenco
guitar repertoire, sequences of notes that have been cooking
in this man’s intelligence, being transformed for decades,
always recognizable, never quite the same. He modulates easily
to minor key where he frolics and gives free reign to his
inspiration.
All those who came afterwards
have followed the path marked by Paco de Lucía, and
his is the aesthetic that conforms the panorama of contemporary
flamenco guitar.
On his own again for a sort of fandango fantasy, pulling
notes out like little Swiss bells, and then the group returns
with Niño Josele for alegrías. Paco keeps delivering
his unmistakable and very flamenco phrasing. After a brief
intermission, once again it’s the whole group for a
long potpourri that includes snippets from Las Grecas and
tangos extremeños, followed by bulerías and
the singers taking turns.
Rumba…there’s a certain overload of binary rhythm
and you long for a guitar solo, but we’re happy to have
Paco sitting there in front of us and the good news is he’s
enjoying himself, or so it seems. Duquende’s voice,
sounding so like Camarón’s, continues to fascinate
the audience. Paco addresses his admirers: “It’s
a tremendous pleasure to be here tonight with so many flamenco
fans” and the rhythm of bulerías is the backdrop
for that jazzzman’s invention, solo spots for each member
of the group while the maestro marks rhythm.
Piraña, Alaín Pérez, Antonio Serrano,
Paco de Lucía with her dauther, Niño Josele,
La Tana, Duquende, Montse Cortés (Photo: Estela Zatania)
More rumba and Montse Cortés sticks in the classic
siguiriya “Reniego”. No sooner am I wondering
whether the world needed that, than Duquende is also singing
siguiriya por rumba. The recital comes to an end and the audience
goes wild demanding a curtain call. The group returns to the
stage with notes and chords that meander aimlessly until finally
“Entre dos Aguas” breaks loose to great cheering
and thunderous applause. The piece is thirty years old, and
it’s by no means the best item in Paco de Lucía’s
extensive repertoire, but it continues to sound current. And
it doesn’t sound current because it’s marvellous
music, but because all those who came afterwards have followed
the path marked by Paco de Lucía, and his is the aesthetic
that conforms the panorama of contemporary flamenco guitar.
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Eva Durán
with José Luis Montón (Photo: Estela Zatania)
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And the rains came, finally, but they had the exquisite
good taste not to mess with the maestro. An afterhours cante
recital by Eva Durán with the guitar of José
Luis Montón gave us the opportunity to digest everything
we had seen.
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