ANTONIO MALENA. FERNANDO TERREMOTO DE JEREZ PEÑA

Down to the bone

Silvia Calado. Jerez, November 6th, 2004
Photos: Daniel Muñoz

In Jerez autumn is not only the grape harvest season, but the perfect time to get a taste of flamenco in the appealing setting of the peñas. Most of them usher in the ripeness of the grapes with interesting flamenco series in which, from time to time, genuinely first-rate cantaores appear in this intimate format that draws the familiar native audience and no few enthusiasts from the outside. And if, for example, El Torta closed the ‘Flamenco Autumn’ series at the Tío José de Paula Peña on October 29th; Antonio Malena opened the ‘Rhythm Nights’ series at the Fernando Terremoto Peña on November 6th, dedicated this season to La Paquera de Jerez, the sponsor of this culture center. And Flamenco-world.com was there.

	Antonio Malena

There wasn't a seat left in the house. The crowd was waiting, settling for the two giant enlargements of Fernando Terremoto that flanked the whitewashed ‘cave’ sheltering the stage. First, the openers. The peña has founded a workshop to encourage Jerez's living breeding ground, boys and girls who are already turning professional in the flamenco world. Cantaores, guitarists and bailaores who hardly reach the microphones, whose feet don't touch the floor when they sit on chairs. Manuel, Sandra, Tere, Junquerita... came up on stage through soleá, tangos, bulerías. Some struggling with the shyness of a beginner, others leaning on the experience from their maestros. Some great potential artist or other could be sensed among them. A long life for flamenco.

A little break at the buffet... and back to the room. Antonio Malena came in dedicating the performance to Manuel Moneo, at that moment, ill in the hospital. Accompanied by his son Antonio on guitar, he offered the audience a show balanced both in the selection of the repertoire and in the way of performing it. The cantaor – who is currently appearing on stages all over the world together with bailaora María del Mar Moreno - started off through malagueñas, remembering Antonio Chacón. “Del convento las campanas, si preguntan por quién doblan, diles que doblando están, a mis muertas esperanzas” (“If they ask for whom the convent bells toll, tell them they are tolling for my dead hopes”). He sang from within, without exaggeration, savoring the music, measuring himself, seeking remnants of beauty.

The seguiriya, his territory, delved even deeper into the jondura. Sweet gruffness in his throat. Feeling. He sang the soleá through bulerías stressing the lyrics, pampering the musicality of each part. But it still wasn't time for the bulería... He stuck in a martinete standing up, unaccompanied, with all the harshness and the oldness of the cantes he has mastered since he was a child (as can be seen in Volume 22 of the DVD series ‘Ritual and Geography of Cante’). It sounded down to the bone. And now yes... the bulería. All the rhythm, all the extroverted essence of Jerez, but still from within: “No sé por qué será, me duelen más que las mías, las penas de los demás” (“I don't know why it is, others' grief hurts me more than my own”). A deep cantaor. So much truth.

And the best thing is that experiences like this one are at the disposal of enthusiasts every week at one peña or other in the city. In November and December, among other artists, the Rubichi family will appear at the El Pescaero Peña, Juan Zarzuela at La Buena Gente Peña, Felipa la del Moreno at El Garbanzo Peña... The program is extensive. You just have to keep an eye on the posters put up on the walls of many of the corners in Jerez before the year draws to an end, when another flamenco season comes to Jerez: that of the zambomba.

Kids from Peña Fernando Terremoto

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