PRESENTATION OF ‘MARTIRIO
25 AÑOS’. CIRCO PRICE, MADRID
Copla, jondo and swing
Silvia Calado. Madrid, May 10th, 2009
‘Martirio 25 años’.
Martirio: vocals. Raúl Rodríguez:
guitar. Jesús Lavilla: piano. Circo Price. Madrid,
May 10th, 2009. 8 p.m.
It is told that 25 years ago Martirio
and Kiko
Veneno, seated at a round table, conceived a renewal
of the Spanish copla according to the esthetic and musical
restlessness of those times of the movida. The Warhol-like
tonadilla singer helped to knock things up a notch, making
a contribution which materialized in anthems such as ‘El
productor’, ‘Madurito interesante’ and
‘Estoy mala’ to dust off a genre engulfed by
Franco’s dictatorship and, hence, rejected by the
then bubbling progressives. A quarter of a century and many
back combs later, she can come out on stage before over
a thousand people - a great many of whom are youths - to
say straight out that in view of the copla’s current
generalized boom, “the two musical Spains end”.
What hasn’t changed over the years
is the artist’s untransferable charisma, nor the peculiarity
of her musical and visual discourse. What is perhaps a novelty
is the minimalism of her performance. And the thing is that,
having passed the jazz ‘Acoplados’
with Chano Domínguez, she now has herself accompanied
by just “the wonderful bareness of this philharmonic”,
consisting of Sevillian guitarist Raúl Rodríguez
and Cádiz-born pianist Jesús Lavilla. And
you wouldn’t believe how just the three of them shook
things up at the Circo Price in that live concert presenting
the album ‘Martirio. 25 años’ released
on the 25th anniversary by her first record company, Nuevos
Medios. Which she was entirely faithful to. Coplas from
yesterday and today, from here and there, uttered with a
really personal, extraordinary interpretation, highlighting
each verse … from the one which makes fun of the world,
to the one which grieves from the heart.
Jondo flavor and swing imbue the instrumental
face-off between piano and guitar which so elegantly exalts
the singer’s repertoire. The guitar of Raúl
Rodríguez (the album’s producer), due to sophisticated
simplicity, provides everything he plays with depth. He
adds to it spins por bulerías loaded with soniquete
in songs like ‘Volver’ and ‘Ojos verdes’,
intense weight of soleá por bulería ‘En
esta tarde gris’, dry strumming por sevillanas and
that discreet but delicious mixing, here and there, of the
cadence of the guajira, the vibration of the tanguillos
and the darkness of the saeta march. But his stuff is much
more than flamenco. And he finds a perfect accomplice in
Jesús Lavilla, who sails comfortably amidst the amalgam
of genres. It might be in the final fandangos, from Huelva
and Toronjo, where they take their dialogue a little bit
further. And hey, the best thing about this concert is that
you can take it home on a lovely CD.
