Thinking out loud. Chocolate continues to create...and transmit

If dogs could sing seguiriyas

Silvia Calado Olivo. Seville, September 3rd, 2002

One day prior to participating in Jondura, the second 'festival' at the Reales Alcázares, Antonio Núñez, Chocolate was thinking out loud. Sport jacket, tie, gold-framed glasses, cocoa complexion, the ever-present smile, the quick tongue...despite his disclaimer: "I know how to sing, I don't know how to talk. Ask whatever you want". Chocolate, Agujetas, Terremoto and Güito. "I think it's fantastic to be a part of that lineup, you won't see that again too soon". What about the title? In his opinion "it's okay, what we're going to sing is going to be jondo, we're going to plumb the depths".

Singing in Seville is also significant. Chocolate, full of stories, explains that "the oldtimers used to say that in order to get class, you had to come to Seville. The cantaores from the small towns used to say that". And in fact they say that "the places run by the Pavón family were classy...and the singers who went there were able to draw from Manuel Torre, and La Niña de los Peines, from the Pavones". It was precisely in that famous Bar Pinto in the Campana that Chocolate learned about the cante that he now considers a challenge: "There's still a seguiriya I have to do which is Enrique el Mellizo's, which I heard Arturo Pavón sing". According to the singer, who incidentally wouldn't dream of going to Los Angeles to pick up a Latin Grammy for any amount of money, Arturo Pavón learned this cante directly from Enrique's brother, El Morcilla, because "nobody knew Franconetti nor El Mellizo". Antonio Núñez recalls that Arturo "sang different from Tomás Pavón, he didn't know that much cante, more like Enrique. Nevertheless, Tomás was more of a musician than his brother".

Click the images to enlarge:

From the old days, Chocolate misses the communication between flamenco artists, learning from each other by listening. "That's lost now, and I think I know why. I once gave my card to a businessman and he exclaimed: "For heaven's sake! you have a telephone". And since there are telephones, there are no more places to hang out and talk about the ins and outs of cante". Antonio Núñez believes that was how people created...although he assures us that he has not given up that habit: "I still create odd verses for serranas, soleá, seguiriya...I'm lengthening and broadening styles like Manuel Torre's taranto, which was a little drier. I've looked for effect so that they at least give me enough for a cup of coffee and a little applause".

And that's what the Mellizo seguiriya project is all about. Without yet knowing whether he will have the nerve to sing a cante that he is unable to explain in words, and which he doesn't even know if anyone will notice - "someone ought to stand there alongside me to announce it" - Chocolate is preparing his second appearance at the twelfth edition of Seville's Bienal de Flamenco, singing seguiriyas for the dancer from Seville Manuela Carrasco in the show Esencias. "She already asked me twice, so I'll have to do it. She says she can't die without me singing seguiriyas for her". And he adds "she's amazing, she represents purity nowadays".

About communication, about purity...and also about audiences, Chocolate takes pause to reflect out loud. The singer knows that in the small space of a peña "there's more intimacy, whatever you do, you'll always be understood more than by a large audience"...where they don't see your facial expressions nor capture your desires: "In the theater there's a greater sense of responsibility". The language is almost the least of it. "Abroad, just like here, it's the audience that gets you going". Even though it's true that "foreign audiences applaud, but they don't cheer". Just as it's also true that "flamenco is much more respected abroad, it's something they're not accustomed to seeing, unlike here, where it's right in front of us and we don't pay much attention".

And then with a string of anecdotes the singer demonstrates that wit overcomes frontiers...and even species. "Once I had to go to Mairena, where there was a gathering of all the great flamenco people, and a Spanish guy brought along an American. When it was over, he asked the guy who he had enjoyed the most, and the American answered: "Sho-co-laa-tte". And do you think he understood anything I sang? I got through to him, because there are times when even though they don't know what you sang, you stood their hairs on end".

And when the story about the American wasn't enough, he ended up with the one about the dog... "And I'm going to tell you an anecdote that took place in Brenes. I have a little vacation house there, and one summer I was walking down the street dying from the heat, trying to keep to the shade of the walls, humming a seguiriyas. In the distance I could see a huge dog. It was the seguiriyas of Marrurro. And without seeing me, suddenly the dog goes 'woof woof...woof woof woof'. I got through to that mutt. What was it with the dog? Well he was American....".

revista@flamenco-world.com