About the flamenco

Date: Tue, 03 Jan 1995 18:37:00 EST

From: Eileen Bauer <ecb@world.std.com>

Reproduced for Dancers' Archive with permission of the author.

(Scanned in from the magazine: JALEO - VOLUME VIII, NO. 2)

FLAMENCO: PART II

THE MODERN ERA

[from: Guitar and Lute, March 1983]

In part one of this article, "Flamenco: The Early Years", we saw how the

cafe cantante period (roughly, 1850-1910) produced the foundation of

what we know as flamenco. At this time the private and emotional cante

gitano was first performed in public. It then mixed with the popular

and festive folk music of Andalucfa to produce many new song forms and

styles. Also, the guitar joined the cante and baile to become an

essential component of flamenco. The cafe cantante, a type of nightclub

that presented flamenco entertainment, became extremely popular, many of

them springing up in the major cities of Andaluc;a, in Madrid and

Barcelona, and in oher parts of Spain.

In spite of the impressive growth of the flamenco art, all was not roses

during the "Golden Age." The cante gitano had come out of hiding and

many of the important cantaores were gypsies, but in order to appeal to

a wider audience, most cafes cantantes mixed popular music with

flamenco. One that did not was the Cafe Silverio, the first of the cafes

cantantes. Because Silverio Franconetti refused to oln tne

commercialization, his business eventually suffered; he died poor and

forgotten.

Toward the end of the century, the adulteration of flamenco increased.

The fandangs (a large group of non-gypsy flamenco cantes) became ever

more popular, especially a style from Malaga called malagueilas. A singer

named Juan Breva, a specialist in the malagueilas, transformed the cante

from dance music into a profound song for listening. Hls style created

flamaneco's first fad, for by the end of the 1800's, at least twenty

different styles of malagueilas were being sung. After Breva, Antonio

Chaco~n carried the malagueiia to even greater heights and, as we shall

see, brought about a whole new era in the history of flamenco. Slowly,

the gypsy antaores (Chacon was not a gypsy) began to disappear fron the

stages; in their place came singers of Andalucian canteS who had

smoother voices, sang pretty poetry, used songs to show off virtuosity

and appealed more to the general public.

We have already seen the extremes the guitarists went to in order to

get attention. Apparently it was no different in the dance. In the Villa

Rosa, a cafe cantante in garcelona Concha "la Chicharra" danced a gypsy

dance called "El Crispin" in which, at the end of each set of steps, she

removed an article of clothing until she wore only a petticoat. More

and more dancers of popular non-flamenco dances such as "La Cachucha,"

"La Malaguena" (not the same as the flamenco cante), and "El Jaleo" were

sharing the bill with the flamenco artists. Around the turn of the

century, the "Can-Can" was imported from France, and it spread through

Spain with immense popularity; "La Pulga" (the flea) was sung with

daring lyrics and danced in a suggestive manner by per- formers Wearing

as little as a slip. Dancers began to bandon flamenco in order to

perform Lhrse more provocative and iucrative dances.

Beginning in the late 1800s, intellectual aficionados began to criticize

the cafes cantantes for their loss of purity, for the incursion by

popular Andalucian music, and for the commercialism. To the purists,

flamenco was in a state of decay But the cante gitano had had its time

in the limelight and came away enriched by the addition of the guitar,

the appearance of greater numbers of profesgional artists, and an

expanded repertoire of cantes. The cante andaluz (Andalucian folk music)

had definitely been enriched bv its contact with the gypsies. Without

this natural "adulteration," we would lack half of the flamenco cantes

we have today.

The phenomenon known as "Antiflamenquismo del '98" continued and

expanded the criticism of the cafe cantante. Spanish intellectuals who

were part of the "generation of '98" saw flamenco as a caricature of the

tourist's idea of Spain, and as a music associated with drunks, sleazy

bars, and immorality. Writers like Pfo Baroja, Eugenio Noel, and Unamuno

attacked flamenco with biting satire, parody, and exaggeration. Their

work would have a damaging effect on flamenco for decades to come.

The year 1910 is generally given for the end of the "Golden Age of

Flamenco" and the cafe cantante, although some cafes survived for a

while longer, and at least one, the "Cafe de Chinitas" in Malaga, did

not close until 1941. The non-gypsy singer, Antonio Chaco~n, considered

by some to be the greatest flamenco singer of all time, played a large

role in the transition to the period of the "theater" or "opera"

flamenco, which was to last until the 1950s. Chaco~n, knowl- edgeable in

all areas of flamenco, had a voice unsuited to the cante gitano and,

therefore, specialized in the cante andaluz, improving it and creating

new styles of granainas, tarantas, malaguenas, and caracoles. He was

extremely popu- lar, and his trademark -- a flowery, highly ornamented

style of singing and a falsetto voice - were widely imitated and

exaggerated. In Buenos Aires, Chaco~n became the first to take flamenco

into the theater, starting a new era in which flamenco became a theater

art form Don Antonio Chaco~n - the "Don" being equivalent to "Sir" and

given to him out of respect for his art and his gentlemanly manners -

became flamenco's highest paid artist.

While Chaco~n did not himself corrupt flamenco with his innovations, he

opened the door for a rash of imitators who were less concerned with

tradition than he. The most signi- ficant of these was Pepe Marchena, a

virtuoso who used his abilities to mix flamenco with popular music and

to intro- duce commercial theatrics into his performance. He started the

revolution known as "Marchenismo" or "Opera Flamenca," in which flamenco

was softened, and elaborated with trills to make it prettier. Pepe

Marchena was the first to break with tradition and stand while singing,

and he was the first to sing with an orchestra.

Antonio Chaco~n lived to see what he had started and to suffer from it.

He had substituted the cartagenera and the malaguejia (two forms of

fangangos) for the gypsy siguiriya, and now he saw these songs replaced

by operatic fandangos and Latin American derived milongas and

columbianas. Chaco~n couldn't compete and died in poverty in 1929.

With the cafes closing or changing to other kinds of entertainment

flamenco artists began to work in theaters and with touring companies,

or outside of Spain. (Paris became an important center of flamenco

activity.) By 1920, this trend was in full swing. Flamenco appeared in

zarzuelas (musical comedies), where it was mixed with operatic arias and

often accompanied by piano or orchestra, as well as guitar. Traveling

Spanish ballet companies brought flamenco- styled treatments of Spanish

classical dances and music to theaters in Spain and around the world.

One of the earliest of these companies was that of La Argentina,

although Pastora Imperio had danced in a theater in Buenos Aires as

early as 1915; later, there would be Carmen Amaya, Vicente Escudero, La

Argentinita and, finally, Jose Greco. These CompanieS had a profound

effect on Spanish dance. In the search for new material, cantes that had

never been danced before were chosen for dance interpretation: La

Argentinita first danced la caiTa in the 1930s, Vicente Escudero the

siguiriyas in 1940, to which mode Pilar Lopez was the first to play

castanets; the culmination of that trend was the dancing of the

chant-like martlnetes (blacksmith's song, sung without musical

accompaniment).

Flamenco had been receiving international exposure ever since it had

first been presented at the Paris Exposition in 1889. This exposure

increased dramatically in the early twentieth century. In 1914, a

version of Manuel de Falla's El Amor Brujo" called "Embrujo de Sevilla"

was presented in London and featured important Spanish artists. Later,

De Falla would be commissioned by Sergie Diaghilev to create "The Three

Cornered Hat" for the Russian Ballet (Picasso would do the sets and

costumes). In 1921 a cuadro flamenco performed in Paris in conjunction

with the Russian Ballet season. This type of exposure resulted in the

incorporation of Spanish and flamenco themes in the music of renowned

composers from many different countries. There was, of course, Manuel de

Fall from Spain, along with Albeniz, Turina, and Breto~n, and from

France, Bizet, Ravel, and Debussy, while Russia produced Spanish themes

from such composers as Glinka, 90rodin, and Rimsky-Rorsakov.

Spanish dancers took this "classical" music with Spanish themes and set

flamenco-styled choreography to them; such choreography became the main

repertoire of the touring Spani5h dance companies, along with the

original SpaniSh ballet dances from what is called the escuela bolera

(bolero school of dance). Not only did these "classical" and "theatre"

dances increase the repertoire, but they gave a new dimension and

virtuosity to the dance. Castanets, adopted from the escuela bolera and

the region-l folk dances, were developed into concert instruments and

used more and more in the classical interpretations and even in the

gypsy dances - something that many artists object to even today. The

disci- plined, academy-trained dancers refined the techniques of

armwork, body carriage and turns, but it was a flamenco dancer named

Antonio de Bilbao who dazzled the dance world with the virtuosity of his

footwork; Spanish dance was never the same. The gypsy whirlwind, Carmen

Amaya, did the same for the feminine dance, and soon women were dressing

in pants and pounding their feet furiously. In summation, the Spanish

ballet companies refined, stylized, and civilized the flamenco dance.

In 1922, Manuel de Falla and the poet, Federico Garcfa Lorca, were

instrumental in organizing a contest of cante jondo (deep song; the most

profound of the cantes) in Granada. With the support of many

intellectuals and impor- tant artists, the contest attempted to revive

the disappear- ing gypsy cante by seeking to find in the small towns

noR- professional (and, therefore, supposedly, uncorrupted) performers

who still knew the old traditional songs. The contest did not succeed in

this goal, for the cante gitano is not a music "of the people"; only

professionals who dedicate their lives to it are capable of doing

justice to this diffi- cult art. However, the event was well publicized

and came off with a great deal of ceremony - including guitar recitals

by Andres Segovia, who played soleares on one occasion and served as one

of the judges in the contest. There were some positive results from the

contest: A number of old cantes were recorded and saved for posterity,

and a couple of artists, one in his seventies and the other twelve years

old, were given a great deal of publicity. For the first time,

intellectuals had supported flamenco; no longer could its value as a

musical art form be denied, and the damage done by the "generation of

'98" could undergo the long process of repair.

On the other hand, the contest of Granada may have contri- buted to the

very thing it had sought to counteract, for immediately afterward began

the great touring variety shows that presented the new flamenco and

exploited the winners of the contest, particularly the young gypsy,

Manolo Caracol, who went on to become one of the most successful of the

commercial singers

Flamencologists generally paint a picture of the flamenco opera period

as a time when all that was heard were the falsetto voices of operatic

psuedo-flamenco warblers who elaborately embellished the different forms

of fandangos to the accompaniment of orchestra. One important writer

(Felix Grande, Memorias del Flamenco, 1979) states: "Everything pro-

duced in this period cannot be called nauseating, but a good part of it

can." Manuel de Falla, in a pamphlet written in conjunction with the

Granada contest, summed up the view of many aficionados: "The majestic

canto gravo [cante jondo; profound cantel of yesteryear has degenerated

into the ridi- culous ' flamenquismo' of today. The sober vocal

modulation-- the natural inflexions of the song that result from the

divisions and subdivisions of sound-- has become an artifi- cial,

ornamented trend that is more like the decadence of the worst Italian

epoch than like the primitive cantes of the Orient, with which our songs

can be compared only when they are pure." Creativity during this period

is considered to have been limited, in the cante, to the operatic

fandango, the Latin guajira, columbianas, and milongas, and the

orchestral form of the zambra.

But good flamenco was not completely extinct. Many great artists in this

"era of the NiaOS, as a great cantaor put it (so called for the many

artists who put NiaO before their names - NiaO Marchena, NiaO de Huelva,

NiaO Sabicas, NiaO Ricardo, La Niaa de la Puebla, etc.), were able to

adapt to the new situation and bridge the gap between the old and the

new; some of them became great stars, recorded extensively, and made a

great deal of money. Manolo Caracol ( the contest winner) was one of

them. Another was the great Pastora Pav7n, "la Niaa de los Peines"

("Girl of the Combs," named for a verse she made famous), who is

considered to be fla- menco's greatest female singer - in spite of the

fact that she was extremely popular and commercially successful

throughout the opera period. Pastora gave the public what it wanted,

with fandangos and cuples (pop songs) in the rhythm of bulerfas, but she

almost always included some traditional flamenco on her records -

different styles of soleares, siguiriyas, alegrfas, bulerfas, or tango9.

She made a very large number of records between 1910 and 1940 and was

accompanied by most of the great guitarists, from Luis Molina at the

beginning of her career, through Ramon Montoya and, toward the end of

her career Melchor de Marchena.

Another example is Antonio Mairena, recently deceased in his seventies

and considered by many to be the greatest cantaor of recent times.

Mairena, or NiaO Rafael as he was called in his early years, knew a

great deal of the tradi- tional cante, but was forced to sing pop music

to earn a living. In his book, Las Confesiones de Antonio Mairena, (

1976), he describes a typcial sLtuation: Mairena had been offered the

chance to make four records in Barcelona and had had prepared a program

of flamenco - seguiyira, soleares, alegrfas and tangos. He writes: "But

when I arrived in Barcelona and presented my program, the recording

company told me not to even mention pure cantes, that I had to record

four sides of fandangos and four of cuples por buler;as. That was an

ordeal for me because I was not a fandango singer. Besides that, I had

to learn the words and melodies of the cuples and, in order to avoid

lapses of memory, I had to record with a music stand in front of me,

like some musician or I don't know what!"

The guitar blossomed during this time. At the forefront was Ramon

Montoya (c. 1880-1949), a gypsy who lived most of his life in Madrid and

greatly influenced all guitarists who came after him; both Sabicas and

Mario Escudero played a great deal of Montoya's music on their early

records. He developed his style while playing for singers in the cafes

cantantes, and later, influenced by the playing of the classical

guitarists Francisco Tarrega and Miguel Llobet, he began to incorporate

classical techniques into his playing Montoya is credited with creating

the four-fingered tremolo now used in flamenco and with introducing more

complex arpeggios and picados (single note passages); he also developed

the left hand for playing his many difficult creations. Montoya composed

many melodies that are now con- sidered standard or "traditional" and

was the creator of a flamenco form, the rondeaa for guitar, that is now

part of the standard repertoire. Montoya alternated between accompanying

the great singers in private parties, recording with most of the top

artists, and giving solo recitals around the 3 world. He also recorded

some guitar duets with Amalio Cuenca, a soloist who had been one of the

judges in the Granada contest.

Other guitarists included NiaO Ricardo, one of the greatest influences

on flamenco guitar between Ramo~n Montoya and the moderns. Ricardo made a

living playing with orches- tras and operatic singers, but on the side

he created profound flamenco music. There was also Manolo Badajoz, who

preferred private parties to theatrical performances, Miguel Borrull,

Luis Yance, Luis Marvilla, Esteban Sanlucar, whose flamenco compositions

are still played by concert artists, and even Melchor de Marchena, who

was quite a virtuoSo in his youth, but then became the exemplary subdued

and emotional accompanist in his later years - from the 1950's into th

1970's.

The great guitarist, Agustfn Castellon "Sabicas" brought the music of

Ramon Montoya to the Americas and, probably as a result of his long

association with the gypsy dancer Carmen Amaya, developed a strongly

rhythmic style, in contrast to I Ramo~n Montoya's more free and Iyrical

approach. In the 19409 j and 1950s Sabicas added many new forms to the

solo guitar repertoire that had previously only been sung or danced,

including verdiales, zambra, garrotin, sevillanas, columbianas,

milongas and guajiras.

Under the influence of these guitarists, solo flamenco guitar music

gradually became more elaborate, Ivrical and technical. The trend would

reach its peak in the earlv 1960s, largely outside of Spain, with feeble

attempts to pla j flamenco on classical guitars and to fuse the music

with ja22 3 or rock and roll. But in Spain another force had been

brewing: Manuel Serrapi ("Nino Ricardo") had a stvle of playing that was

very diffrent from that of Ramo~n ontoVa; the technique was equallv

developed, but the sund ac hard and dissonant. Niiio Ricardo's music

would influence a generation of guitarists and eventually mold the early

playing of a guitarist who was to revolutionize flamenCo: Paco de

Lucia.

Not all of the great artists were able to make the tranSI tion to the

new commercial flamenco. As we saw. An!nl Chaco~n fell victim to the very

phenomenon that he helped create. The great, although eccentric, gypsy

singer Manue orre could not sing unless he was "a gusto" (in the mood)

nd thus could not sing in scheduled performances; Torre etired to

Sevilla with the greyhounds, pocket watches, and ighting cocks he loved

so much, earning a meager living from ccasional private fiestas. Another

who could not perform nless conditions were to his liking was Tomas

Pavo~n, the rother of La Nina de los Peines. Many dance stars of an

arlier periodalso fell on hardtimes, including La Macarrona, a Malena,

and La Gamba; these artists were so poor that they ad o rent a dress if

they managed to find a job dancing for private fiesta.

Two guitarists who fell into the category of non-theatrical performers

were Manolo de Huelva and Javier Molina. Manolo de Huelva was called

amazing by those who heard him, but was mystery to most of the flamenco

world because he would not record or teach his music, and he was

reluctant to play in ront of other guitarists. For most of his career,

Manolo layed only for private fiestas and in the latter part of his ife

became even more secretive. Javier Molina was born in 868 and therefore

played at the peak of the cafe cantante eriod. He was instrumental in

the development of modern lamenco, having taught Nirlo Ricardo, Periico

el del Lunar, nd he influenced Ramo~n Montoya, who admired him greatly.

ltough Molina continued to perform until 1940 and taught uitar until his

death in 1956, he never really participated n the theater flamenco and

lived primarily from private iestas.

The most important means of survival for the gypsy artists nd other

flamencos who were not temperamentally suited to ublic performance was

the private fiesta or juerga. Juergas ad existed since the early days of

the cafe cantante. Most afs, a Yell as many bars and inns, had backrooms

called eservaos that could be used for private parties. A table nd a few

chairs or benches created the environment for atherings of four to

seldom more than fifteen people -a gui- arist or two, a couple of

cantaores, and a few aficionados, ncluding those who would pay for the

artists and supply the rinks; seldom were dancers involved - the dance,

if it ccurred, would be sponaneous. The juerga would typically egin at

two or three o'clock in the morning, after the ormal nightclub

perform-nces were over, (most flamenco show n Spain today still begin

after 11:00 p.m.) and would ontinue until the following morning or the

next afternoon, r go on for several days. Many flamencos were known for

heir ability to go for days without sleep and to drink lmost

continuously. The artisti, often through drink or xhaustion, would

sometimes exceed their normal capacity and each heights of creativity

that drove the onlookers to tear nd states of ecstacy. These supreme

moment9 of flamenco, hen the duende (spirit or "soul") is present and

the music uts straight to the heart, are what aficionados and artists

onstantly seek and strive for. The juergas were an impor- ant source of

income for flamenco artists, but also involved xhausting and degrading

work, as well as making the artists ependent upon the wealthy seoritos

for their existence. In odern times, the juerga has lost its popularity

as a way of ife.

There were some attempts to revive traditional flamenco in he public

eye. Several contests were held prior to the panish Civil War that began

in 1936. In one contest, the Llave del Oro" (Gold Rey) was awarded to

the popular singer anuel Vallejo, and in another the jury included

singers Pepe I de la Matrona and Fernando el de Triana, the author of

the irst collection of flamenco biographies. (Flamenco artists ake their

names in many ways; in these two cases, Pepe took he name of his mother,

Manolita "La Matrona," and Fernando ook the name of his home town,

Triana.) Prizes went to the raditional cantaor, Perico~n de Cadiz, and to

other singers or fandangos. Whatever their intentions, these contests

warded prizes primarily to commercially successful fandango ngers.

nother typical attempt to present the "pure" flamenco was touring

company that included La Nia de los Peines, the uitarists Ramo~n Montoya,

Luis Yance, and Nino Ricardo, and he dancers La Macarrona and El Cojo de

Malaga (The Lame one rom Malaga). However, the show, which was presented

in ullrings, was of the "opera" variety.

After the Civil War, the singer Conchita Piquer revived a how called

"Las Calles deCadiz" (The Streets of Cadiz) that ad first been conceived

and performed by La Argentinita in 1933. The show featured old-time

performers, some of whom had to come out of retirement, in a re-creation

of the street9 of the flamenco barrio of Santa Marfa in Cadiz at the

turn of the century. The revived version included many fine artists: La

Nia de los Peine9, her husband Pepe Pinto, Perico~n de Cadiz, dancers La

Malena and La Macarrona (then in their sixties and seventies), and the

guitarists Melchor de Marchena and Nino Ricardo. For five years the show

toured throughout Spain - demonstrating that this type of flamenco still

had an audience. But even shows of this type were in- fluenced by the

modern style (Pepe Pinto, for example, wa a fandango singer), and it was

only away from the public lime- light that the traditional gypsy cante

was preserved - in the bars and taverns and in the family gatherings,

baptisms and weddings.

The final force in the internationalization of flamenco was the Civil

War, which forced many artists to leave Spain: Carmen Amaya and her

family went to South America, where they were a big success; the great

guitarist Sabica- joined the Amaya company and did not return to Spain

until the 19609, making his home in Mexico and the United States; Carlos

Montoya came to America with a dance company and remained in New York;

Vicente Escudero was in Pari and then America; Ramon Montoya gave guitar

recitals in Pari8, London, Switzer- land, Brusselg, and Buenos Aires.

Many dance companie- appeared in the year that followed the war,

including thoe of La Argentinita, Pilar Lopez, and Ro8ario and Antonio.

Eventually foreign dancers created their own dance comp-nie and achieved

international renown: From Mexico came Luiillo, Roberto Iglesias, and

Ximenez-Vargas, and from the United States, Jose Greco. The

international popularity of Spanih dance indirectly helped to bring this

"theater" epoch to an end.

The decadent "theater-opera" period of flamenco began to lose steam in

the late 1940 and gradually caoe to an end in the 1950s. This decline

was due to everal factors. The foreign public had responded to the

emotional impact of the flamenco dances presented by the Spanih ballet

companie, and consequently, the companie began to feature oore flamenco.

Tourist began to flock to Spain, expecting to %-e the exciting "Gypsy"

dance. In 1950 the fir8t tabl-o de flamenco, El Cortijo del Guajiro,

opened in Sevilla. The tablao was 5imilar to the old cafe cantante in

that it pre- sented shows of flamenco dance, song, %nd guitar. One

difference was that the dance was the center of attention; the cante and

guitar served primarily to support the baile. In 1954, La Zambra opened

in Madrid. The Zambra was a tablao that attempted to preient the purest

pos8ible foro of flamenco. In that sense, one is reminded of the caf6

cantante of Silverio - one of the first to pre8ent pure flamenco, but

then eventually to close, unable to compete with the more commercial

establishments; the Zambra closed in the mid-1970s.

The Zambra and many other tablaos that opened soon after were only one

element in a sudden surge of interest in "pure" or "traditional"

flamenco. Two contests in Cordoba, one in 1956 and another in 1959,

revealed some new and some old cantaores who could majestically perform

the traditional cante; young Fosforito, who would be an important figure

for decades to come, showed himself to have an encyclopedic know- ledge

of the cante, while the gypsies, Juan Talegas and Fernanda de Utrera,

revealed the pure cante gitano that had been hidden from public view for

so long. These contests showed the way to many others, and eventually to

the pheno- menon of the festival.

In 1955, a French recording company asked the guitarist at the Zambra,

Perico el del Lunar, to help them record an anthology of pure cante

flamenco. The resulting collection of nearly forgotten cantes, sung by

some of the most knowl- edgeable cantaores of the day, won the prize for

best record in France and sold successfully around the world. The next

decade saw the recording of many anthologies (studious collections of

cantes on two to seven records, often with one or two whole sides

devoted to different styles of a single cante).

An American, Donn Pohren, wrote two books, The Art of Flamenco (1962)

and Lives and Legends of Flamenco (1964), that presented a strong case

for the traditional or "old- style" flamenco, and when they sold widely

outside of Spain, these books helped to fee the fire of "purity".

Enthusiasts began to come to Spain looking for "authentic" flamenco.

Travelling dance companies, particularly that of Jose Creco, began to

bring high qualilty noncommercial flamenco artists to the audiences of

the world. Thus, a kind of renaissance of flamenco occurred in the 1950s

and 1960s. Flamenco was popular around the world, records of

traditional cnte were available in American supermarkets, and no "coffee

house" was complete without a resident flamenco guitarist.

In Spain, at the same time, recordings were preserving manv of the old

cantes for posterity, and intellectual aficionados were writing books

that dealt seriously with flamenco, tracing its origins and analyzing

its forms. Antonio Mairena, considered by many to be the most important

cantaor of our time, and writer Ricardo Molina wrote in their definitive

ercyclopedic study of flamenco, undo y Formas del Flamenco, 1964): "The

regression of the fandango and the cuple and the growing rise in the

traditional flamenco cante is an undeniable fact. Each day, the

atmosphere of aficion is better."

When tablaos opened up all over Spain, tourists flocked to them to see

the "real" flamenco. In the early 1960s, Donn Pohren opened a ranch near

Sevilla where foreigners could go to experience and learn flamenco and

to listen to the guitar playing of Diego del Gastor, an eccentric genius

with his own style of playing. Diego had been virtually unknown outside

of the local area, but soon became probably the most widely recorded

flamenco guitarist who has ever lived - although only on the protable

tape recorders of the foreigners who went to Moro~n de la Frontera to

hear him, for he would not make records.

During this twenty year renaissance period, the emphasis was on the

rediscovery and preservation of the old flamenco that had been in danger

of being lost. Flamenco clubs called penas flamencas began to spring up

all over Spain; in the penas, the aficionados gathered to listen to

cante - live or recorded - and to discuss the relative merits,

interpretation or history of each style, or each letra (verse). The 1958

founding of the Catedra de Flamencologia in Jeres de la Frontera

established a center for the study, preservation, and promotion of

flamenco in its purest form; in addition to maintaining the center and a

flamenco museum, the Catedra has each year since sponsored flamenco

courses in guitar and dance, presented flamenco recitals and concerts,

and awarded national prizes to the top artists and flamenco media

(books, records, radio shows).

In spite of this great emphasis on history and tradition, a number of

elements were coalescing that would bring about a revolution in

flamenco. The tablaos had a profound effect on the art. Many, if not

most, of today's top artists started their careers in the tablaos.

Because of the emphasis given to the dance, the cante and guitar

developed in a manner that was suitable for dance. For the cante, that

meant becoming more markedly rhythmical and cuadrao, that is, having one

line of song to one compas or rhythmic cycle, instead of stretched out

over two or more compases as it had been in the old cante; that meant

the cante was less free and less subtle than in the past. This way of

singing has been highly criti- cized by the older cantaores, but has

become the most common and acceptable manner of singing today. There has

also been a clarification of cante styles in reCent years. (The cante

has always been the basis for classifying flamenco forms; the guitar and

dance forms are based on the cante.) ames have been standardized, and

distinctions between cantes have been made more definite. An example

would be the tangos and tientos, which were practically

indistinguishable twenty years ago and were called tangos flamencos,

tangos gitanos, tangos canasteros, tientos canasteros, tientos antiguos,

and tientos por zambra. This clarification was encouraged not only by

the tablaos, but also by the tremendous amount of recording that had

been done, and by the study and writings of intellectual aficionados.

The guitar also felt the impact of the dance. In order to accompany song

and dance in noisy tablaos without amplifica- tion, the guitarist

developed new, more powerful strummin techniques which emphasized

rhythm. A leader in this area was a guitarist out of the caves of

Granada, Juan Maya "Marote," who did a great deal to popularize a

strongly rhythmical approach to dance accompaniment. However, the

guitarist of the 1980s seldom takes the liberties with rhvthm that were

the trademarks of great song accompanists of the past like Ramon Montoya

or Melchor de Marchena; the result has been a certain loss of

expressiveness. This loss was made up in other areas. As dancers

searched for ever more complicated steps, guitarists learned from them

and vice versa. The result was a mutual exchange in' an era of great

counter-time complexlty.

A number of important guitrists emerged on the Spanish scene in the

1960s. Sabicas, who had been away from Spain for thirty years, was

exposed to Spaniards by American guitarists, through his records, and

finally with his triumphant return to his native land in the late 1960s.

Victor Monje "Serranito," a musically complex flamenco gui- tarist,

created an awesome, innovative technique (among other things,

three-finger picados and plucking with back or up strokes of the thumb)

and very complex contrapuntal music. (Flamenco is traditionally linear

or melodic rather than harmonic.) Even Diego del Gastor made himself

felt, in part through his nephew, Paco del Gastor, who took the highl

improvisational, flowing style of playing that was character

istic of Diego to Madrid, where it was admired by the younger generation

of guitarists. Paco de Lucia hd been acquiring a reputation from the

time he was twelve years old, and the appearance of his first solo album

in the late 1960s marked the real start of the flamenco guitar

revolution. We can never be certain where Paco's ideas came from, but

this record showed the flamenco world a technique unmatched in the

history of the art and a new music that would eventually incorporate new

ideas in counterpoint and countertime, lush harmonies and suspended

tones, and finally, jazz and Latin melodies, scales, and chord

structures. Paco redefined che rhythms of bulerfas, tangos, and rumbas

in a flurrv of records that followed. He brought flamenco to national

attention in Spain with a hit recording of a rumba, "Encre Dos Aguas,"

and then co the whole world through his colla- borations with the rock

group "Santana," and with Larry Coryell, Al DiMeola, John McLaughlin and

Chick Corea. Equally important was Paco de Lucia's collaboration with a

young genius of the cante, Camaro~n de la Isla, who became che most

influenial singer of the 1970s. Camaro~n sang like nobody before him,

wich a great knowledge and incredible sense of rhythm, with charisma and

a style that had strong Arabic overtones, a wailing lament, dissonant

and sorrowful. Paco and Camaro~n made a dozen or so records that licera

rewrote the book on flamenco. They became bigger than life "stars,"

worshipped and imitated by the younger generation

So much happened at once: Gypsy youth who had been exposed ; to the hard

rock music of Che 1960s began to play eleccric j inscruments and

rock-influenced music; this made possibl flamenco with electric bass,

flutes, drums, and synthesi

Marijuana and cocaine replaced alcohol in many flamenco circles. Gypsies

began to speak out about the Centuries- long persecution of their race;

Andalucians, long the underdogs in Spain, cried out for their rights;

all of Spain entered a new stage of political awareness with the demise

of Franco. All of this led to the appearance of political an social

issues as themes of flamenco songs. The epic Story of gypsy persecution

was told by cantaor, El LebrijanO. in his theatrical production and

record "Persecucion," and J!S Menese followed with the record

"Andalucia: 40 Ailos" (Anda- lucia: the last 40 years). The jaZz trained

gypsy baila!r'

Mario Maya, created the theatrical dance productions. "Camelamos

Naquerar" (gypsy language for, "We want to speak") and "Ay!" Other

avante-garde dance productiong followed, and in 1982, dancer Antonio

Gade9 used flamenco in 8 dance ver- sion of Garcfa Lorca's "Bodas de

Sangre" t"Blood Wedding"), which later became an internationally

acclaimed film. Also in 1982, the cantaor Enrique Morente sang flamenco

in a pro- duction of "Oedipus Rex" in the Roman ruins of Merida, Spain.

During the 1970s, the phenomenon of the festival emerged and exploded in

popularity. Such concerts, held outdoors in a bullring or stadium, or

indoors in a theater or sports arena, features generally eight to

fifteen cantaores (occa- sionally as many as twenty-five), who sing

three songs each, accompanied by one of three guitarists. Frequently a

dancer will be featured in one or two numbers at some point in the

evening, often at the end. Festivals normally begin around 11:00 p.m.

and often last until dawn. Held only during the summer, these festivals

became so popular that, by 1981, there was one almost every night

somewhere in Andalucfa, with attendance of two or three thousand people

t each one. Flamenco artists could finally make a decent living, and

ela- menco reached a broader audience than ever before. But it was a new

environment for flamenco: Intimacy and spontaneity were out,

professionalism and commercialism were in. An artist performed not when

he felt overwhelmed by the need, but when his turn came up. Since duende

doesn't appear on command, it stands little chance in the festivals.

Related to the commercialism of the festivales is the commercialism of

the recording industry. Beginning about 1970, a flood of flamenco

records began to pour forth, and the popular cantaores had to

frantically search for new material to record. Enter song writers. At

this point, instead of singing traditional melodies and verses, flamenco

artists were singing catchy melodies and trite love songs with a chorus

after each verse, gimmicky introductions and orchestrations. A song

became a hit one day and was passe the next. Today, it seems that each

cantaor follow8 the same pattern: His first record features primarily

good traditional flamenco and establishes his reputation; the second

recording contains traditional flamenco, but has an extra dose of

popular bulerfas and tangos; the third record is mostly cuples, composed

bulerfas and tangos; the fourth record is orchestrated, and the singer

may even croon a few pop songs. A singer or a guitarist can only have

so much traditional or high quality original flamenco in him, it seems,

and then he has to turn to gimmicks to sell more records.

The flamenco life style is gradually disappearing. Flamenco artists do

not often live from juergas as they did in the past. Young artists do

not particularly like the hard work of the juergas and prefer to look

for work in the festivales, in the tablaos, or in recording. Rural life

is being replaced by urban life. More gypsies are joining the mainstream

of Spanish life, marrying outside their race and gradually being

assimilated. Yet, surprisingly, the distinction between gypsy and

non-gypsy flamenco still exists. Gypsies still tend to prefer and excel

in their cantes - the bulerfas, tangos, siguiriya and soleares - while

the non-gypsies often prefer and perform better the many fandangos

styles.

Gypsies have their own way of dancing and playing guitar as weII. One

significant difference between the "opera" period and the present is

that it was the payo or non-gypsy who corrupted flamenco in the past,

but today it i the gypsies who are leading flamenco into new areas Paco

de Lucfa and Manolo SanlGcar, neither of whom is gypsy, started the

guitar revolution, but now it is gypsy guitarists like Raimundo Amador

and Diego Cortes who are using flamenco in their rock groups: Camaro~n,

Lebrijano, Lole and her family, Los Montoya, who are rvolutionizing the

cante; and Mario Maya who is the vanguard of change in the dance.

Not only have the gypgy-Andaluz distinctions survived, but there is

still - miraculougly in this age of mass media - some stylistic

differences between the flamenco from differ- ent parts of Andalucfa. It

is possible, for example to dis- tinguish guitar styles from Jerez and

Sevilla.

In the 1980s, we find a flamenco that i very theatrical and commercial

and that explores new channels of expresion in rock, jazz, theater,

film, and complex instrumentation. There have been incredible technical

advances in all apect of the art. Along with technique comes comcercial

exploita- tion. In the "opera" period, Manolo Caracol and La Nia de lo

Peine8 were capable of singing great fl-menco but choe to sing operatic

fandangos and cuple wih orche-trJl accomp-ni- ment; today, Chiquetete

and La Sui do the 8ame thing, but the reigning flamenco form are the

much abused bulerfa, tangos, and rumbag, with almot everybody singing

cuples in these rhythms. The critics say that trJditional flamenco i

being lost, ruined, and left behind.

Does some of this sound familiar? It hould, for the scenario is very

similar to that of the end of the 1800 and later, the opera period. The

same thing probably happened many times before, with the precursor8 of

flamenco. Flamenco was created by successive invasions of extern-l

influences, whether Arabs or rock group8. Critic8 have alwJys felt that

flamenco was at its best in an earlier period and is corrupted in the

pre8ent. Ironically, the "pure" flamenco of the pat is, in reality,

nothing but the corruption of an even earlier state of "purity." The

best flamenco we hJve tod-y i the product of many 8uch corruption-.

Flamenco eem to go in cycles of obsession with purity alternating with

periods of revolution/decadence. It may be that period of revolution/

decadence are essential in order to dirupt the stagnJtion of routine and

orthodoxy, to inject new life blood into the Jrt form, and to attract a

new audience a the old one get older.

In the cafe cantante period, the cante wa the mot 8igni- ficant element

in flamenco and made gredt advance. In the opera period, it was the

baile that made the greJtest tech- nicsl advances and wa8 the focus of

attention, especially internationally. Throughout the history of

flamenco, with minor exceptions, the guitar played a secondary role and

stayed in the background. In the modern era, however, the guitar is

receiving full attention, both in Spain and in other countries. Guitar

solo record albums and concert per- formances were tremendously popular

in the 1950-1960 period. Guitar techniques and musical sophistication

have advanced very significantly in the last twenty years. But the real

change, in the era of the guitar, is in the attitudes of per- formers

and aficionados. Two examples: In 1977, in a festival outside of

Malaga, the guitarist Paco Cepero received as many ovations for his

guitar playing as did Camaron de la Isla, the singer Cepero was

accompanying; many in the audience felt that was the reason Camaro~n cut

short his per- formance and stalked off stage. In 1982, while Enrique

Melchor, son of Melchor de Marchena, was playing for the singer,

Turronero, in the middle of a profound tientos,

Melchor played a very fast scale run that was originally recorded by

Paco de Lucfa, and the audience applauded wildly;

Turronero grabbed Melchor by the shoulder of his jacket, dragged him

from his chair, and forced him to take a bow. Such a thing would have

been unheard of ten years ago.

Today, the guitar and flamenco are obviously out of control. But

flamenco is amazingly resilient. It follows fads until they go too far,

and then snaps back and goes in a different direction. It bends, but

does not break. It survives.