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Los Amador. Flamenco in preterite future. Special Feature
Los Amador. Flamenco
in preterite future
Silvia Calado. Mont de Marsan, July 2006
You’d have to invent a new verb tense. Placing
the Amador family in flamenco would be to join past, present
and future in a single moment. Ramón, Raimundo,
Juan José, Diego... Amador. Flavor, know-how, creativity,
restlessness, respect, roots and modernity. All of the ingredients
that shape up this gypsy stew from Seville appear when the
family gets together. And they do so at home every now and
then and even less often on stage. So now and then, that thirty
years might go by. Lucky were those who attended the Los Amador
reunion at the 2006 Mont de Marsan Festival, since as the
versatile Diego Amador puts it, “the greatest thing
is to make music together”.
inutes after this exceptional concert finished, backstage
at the Singing Café of Place Saint Roch, Juan
José Amador admitted: “I put all my heart
into it and seeing us back together, I was singing and sobbing”.
Amidst the din of the backstage, the congratulations, the
photos, the autographs and another fiesta por bulerías,
they managed to talk about “pride” and “pleasure”
when asked what they had felt on getting together once again
on stage. And the thing is that it was a concert with soul,
a concert of blood relations.
As Juan José explained, the common gene lies in the
roots: “Though they do fusion and more modern music,
the roots and the training is one hundred percent flamenco.
And that really unites us”. You can see the respect
all of them feel for the most veteran one present, Uncle Ramón
Amador, who had never taken a plane before. In fact, this
interview is so concise due to the fact that when Ramón
broke out singing and playing por bulerías in the backstage
minutes after the performance, Raimundo, Juan José
and Diego left the recorder behind and darted out to join
the party. “Let’s go listen to Uncle Ramón!”.
Ramón Amador (Seville, 1955) is a solid accompanist
for baile and cante. Though he has his headquarters at the
Sevillian tablao Los Gallos, he has accompanied bailaores
such as Angelita Vargas and El Biencasao, and cantaores like
Curro Fernández and Remedios Amaya. And not only does
he play the guitar, but also sings in a low voice with plenty
of feeling. But the voice specialist is Juan José Amador,
instigator of the encounter. “The promoter, the promoter!”,
Raimundo shouted at him amidst laughter. The responsibility
and little technical problems – inevitable when bringing
together so many guitars, so many voices and even a grand
piano – made him “suffer a little bit more during
the performance, but it was so gratifying”. Meanwhile,
he had the chance to sing por seguiriyas, por soleá,
por taranta to piano, por tangos... And the thing is that
few people are more complete and more versatile than he is.
There must be a reason why the list of bailaores he has accompanied
and accompanies is endless. From Manuela Carrasco to Isabel
Bayón, from Antonio to Javier Barón, from Farruco
to Matilde Coral. And in passing, he presented his son to
society, with the same name and nearly the same crystal echo.
Raimundo Amador (Photo: Daniel
Muñoz)
During the brief conversation, Juan José couldn’t
help but take a look back at least thirty years, when he was
taking his first steps as an artist at the tablaos in Seville
with his cousin Raimundo. “Sergeant Platillo!”,
he reminded him, laughing. And for anyone who had seen it,
footage came to mind from the Pata Negra concert recorded
in 1984 by the documentary
series ‘El Ángel’ (recently re-released
on DVD). Juan José singing por bulerías,
Raimundo and Rafael playing electric guitars, Bobote and Eléctrico
dancing. Pure fiesta. Pure jondo rock. Something like that
is what the Pata Negra brothers invented back then in the
eighties. Ricardo Pachón, who together with Carlos
Lencero was in charge of the series, explained that “in
1984, the year that documentary was shot, the Amador brothers
were already expert guitarists in blues and rock and had introduced
the pick technique into flamenco guitar. We can also attribute
to this family the introduction of the drums, bass and electric
guitar in the performance of flamenco’s basic rhythms”.
And to see Raimundo Amador alternating fingernails and pick
on flamenco guitar nowadays is a show within the show. The
naturalness of the fusion he upheld with his brother Rafael
on the albums by Veneno, first, and then Pata
Negra, is unquestionable. They’d grown up amidst
families coming from the old Triana, but in a neighborhood
of high-rise apartment buildings in the outskirts of the city.
‘Et voilà!’ Roots and modernity. Flamenco
and rock.
Lole y Manuel, the Montoya family, Kiko Veneno, Camarón,
B.B. King, Max Roach, Björk... Now joining the long list
of artists Raimundo Amador has collaborated with are Ramón,
Juan José, Diego, Juan José Jr., Carmen, Raimundo
Jr. and Luis, all of them Amadors. We already reported on
it at the scene of the event: “Pata Negra couldn’t
miss the party. Nor could Camarón. ‘Ay, José’.
Raimundo turns flamenco rock, alternating fingers and pick.
The room feels a sort of shaking. And Raimundo keeps on with
flamenco rock, but looking towards Morón, towards Diego
del Gastor. Por bulerías, forceful and rhythmic, embracing
his ‘gerundina’. El Churri takes up his seat at
the piano once more. He comes back to share a taranta with
Juan José Amador. Accompanying piano... for his cousin
the cantaor and for himself, also a cantaor. Next por bulerías,
piano and guitar, that of Raimundo, are toyed around with
by four hands. Olé” (read
full review).
And another look at that documentary from 1984. Raimundo
Amador, just like that night at Mont de Marsan, changes gears
by leaps and bounds. He plays por bulerías –
even strumming with a pig’s hoof! – in a family
reunion amidst olive trees. But in the next episode he wields,
like his brother, electric guitar to fend for himself with
no trouble between rock, blues, pop and the most traditional
flamenco. And the thing is that this chameleon-like artist
likes “to take a look back; it’s important not
to forget what you’ve been through, what you’ve
enjoyed, everything that’s happened”. But at the
same time, “the fusion comes out by itself”. He
admits that he sometimes has to make an effort when he wants
to go back to good old flamenco guitar, “to the fan,
as I say”.
Diego Amador (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
Diego
Amador is what he grew up on at home. “I learned
by listening to Raimundo, Rafael, Juan José, my father,
my cousins, my uncles. You learn a lot that way; everything
comes from there”. All you have to do is press the ‘play’
button again and watch in the documentary ‘El Ángel’
that nice scene in which at the age of eleven, before a crowd
of children, he plays the song ‘Maniac’ from ‘Flashdance’
on the drums. He says in an interview that an instrument isn’t
flamenco ‘per se, but rather flamenco is “he who
plays it... whether he plays the piano, a can or whatever”.
And he turns into flamenco whatever falls into his hands:
from the guitar to the piano, with the bass and mandola in
between. And that’s without mentioning his voice, with
genuine flamenco zest.
Inevitably, there’s also fusion or encounter or mix
in him. On the outward journey he traveled towards jazz, and
on the return journey towards flamenco, which he has come
back to in order to rewrite it on the piano. And the struggle
ends up in a draw: “I understand piano like guitar,
flamenco-wise. Jazz-wise, I understand it like the classic
jazz players: Bill Evans, Monk, Hancock, that rhythm, that
style. Each thing has to be given its place”. Though
when it’s jondo time, he recognizes that “I understand
piano like guitar, but like modern flamenco guitar; that of
Paco
de Lucía or Tomatito”. And that’s how
he understood it when he had to accompany Juan José
Amador when he sang a taranta at the French festival, or when,
like cross-border instrumentalists, he conversed with Raimundo
Amador’s guitar por bulerías. And the artist-side
of the family keeps on growing with the ‘juniors’.
On cante, Juan José. On box drum, Raimundo. On choruses,
Carmen. ‘Amador, Amador’. The music that was,
that will be, that is.
* The show ‘Amador, Amador’ can be seen again
on September 16th at Seville’s Hotel Triana, within
the Bienal de Sevilla 2006 (further
information)
magazine@flamenco-world.com
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