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Paco
de Lucía: A new tradition for the flamenco guitar.
Excerpt
2: The first solo recordings, Paco and Jazz...
(Excerpt
from the book "Paco de Lucía:
A new tradition for the flamenco guitar ". Author: Paco Sevilla.)
Paco
wasn’t through. In 1967 he had his first significant exposure high quality jazz
when he was invited by Joachim Behren to attend the Berlin Jazz Festival. There
he met and played with such greats as Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk. Whether
that experience led to his interest in recording two albums with Spanish jazz
saxophonist Pedro
Iturralde, or those records were cut much earlier, is unclear.
The fact that Paco is listed on the Iturralde albums as Paco de Algeciras, and
that he plays very basic accompaniment to Pedro’s sax, might indicate that the
recording was done at a much earlier date and released only after Paco started
to become known. On Jazz Flamenco: Pedro Iturralde
(Hispavox HH S 11-28) Paco shared playing duties with another guitarist, Paco
de Antequera, and only accompanied two songs, "Café de Chinitas"
and "Soleares". He played very simply, as if accompanying
a singer. In fact, the mot impressive aspect of this record is the soulful and
fairly accurate rendition of the cante por soleá on saxophone. The
second record, also featuring Paco de Algeciras, was Hispavox HH 11-151.
The
landmark event of 1967 was the debut of Paco’s first solo album, La
Fabulosa Guitarra de Paco de Lucía (Philips 843 139 PY;
re-issued in 1977 as Philips 58 43 139). This was the first collaboration of Paco
and Philips’ director of production, José Torregrossa, with all compositions
credited to Francisco Sánchez (Paco) and José Torregrossa. José
gives hi assurance that he never involved himself in composing, only in production
and the writing out of the music for copyright purposes. This album by the nineteen-year-old
Paco would be the last he would record with a completely natural sound, that is,
without electronic effects such as echo, reverb, and other studio tricks that
create a larger-than-life quality. Here, the sound of the guitar is brash and
filled with extraneous string noises and fingering imperfections. It is a good
flamenco sound. The solos fall into three categories. Half of the numbers
are predominantly traditional. A soleá depends heavily upon Ricardo
and Sabicas, with touches here and there of originality and creative genius. The
malagueña is a throwaway piece of not much substance, in the style
of Sabicas or Escudero, right down to the accompanying castanets. The rondeña
remains basically in the Ramón Montoya mold, with a fandango copla
thrown in at the end. Finally, a bulerías relies heavily on Serranito
and Sabicas (Paco even taps on the guitar
in a manner reminiscent of Sabicas) and contains at least one falseta straight
from Paco del Gastor. The piece does feature a very original alzapúa
(a thumb technique that crates melody and strummed rhythm at the same time).
The
second type of music points toward the future, with originality and hints of what
would become Paco’s trademarks – dramatic musical ideas, lush harmonies and non-traditional
chords, counterpoint and countertime, and the use of suspended tones and delays
in the endings of falsetas. The overall effect is one of traditional sounding
flamenco that is innovative and filled with powerful ideas. The alegrías,
mostly in E-minor, contain and original alzapúa that even Paco struggles
to perform (in the Ricardo tradition). A tarantos has its roots in the
music of Niño Ricardo, but is a blueprint for the future. It features a
picado falseta (scale or melody played with alternating index and middle
fingers) that would become and remain a "traditional" melody for dance
accompaniment. Finally in fandangos and tientos Paco break completely
from tradition and sets the mold for all future renditions. The tientos employs
modern-sounding chords and requires the use of the tirando (free-stroke)
technique that Paco popularized. In traditional flamenco, chords were generally
strummed, which mean that all strings had to be included. Using the tirando
technique it is possible to select or omit string at will, as in commonly
done in jazz and classical playing. It is a strong plucking technique that produces
the sound of a strum, but has much more melodic potential. The tientos also
includes a speedy picado falseta that, when played twenty years later by
Enrique
de Melchor during his accompaniment of El Turronero in Madrid,
stirred the audience to break into such wild applause that the singer had to interrupt
his performance in order to permit Enrique to take a bow – almost unheard of in
traditional flamenco circles where the guitar is expected to remain in the background.
Paco
created or arranged all of the numbers on this album except for one: "Impetu"
is an almost classical composition in the rhythm of bulerías
composed by Mario Escudero. This very technical study in arpeggio and picado
is Escudero’s contribution to the future of the bulerías, although
Paco adds a few licks in a more traditional vein toward the end.
The
debut album started Paco on the road to becoming a true soloist. In 1968, he won
first prize for soloists in Córdoba’s "National Contest of Flamenco
Art". That same year, he triumphed in a performance in France with Antonio
Gades. However, Paco did not relinquish his role a accompanist and continued to
record with singers. He began a four-year collaboration with the highly acclaimed
singer Fosforito, who was awarded the prestigious "National Prize for Cante"
by the Cátedra de Flamencología de Jerez de la Frontera in 1968.
But the real explosion in Paco’s career was to occur the following year.
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