SUMA FLAMENCA 2010 • ENRIQUE MORENTE, ‘PABLO
DE MÁLAGA’
Cantaor and freedom,
compatible words
Silvia Calado. Madrid, June 15th, 2010
‘Pablo de Málaga’.
Enrique Morente: cante, direction. Rafael
Riqueni: guest guitar. David Cerreduela: guitar. Bandolero:
percussion. Monty, Melón: second guitars. Ángel
Gabarre, Antonio Carbonell, Kiki Morente: chorus, clapping.
Nino de los Reyes, Isaac de los Reyes, Popo: clapping, dance.
Suma Flamenca 2010. Teatros del Canal. Madrid, June 15th,
2010. 8:30 horas
He started off by launching
a quejío for Africa and for Nelson Mandela, and finished
by criticizing the plundering which is being disguised for
us as a crisis at the little barber’s theater. Enrique
Morente is the kind of artist who gets involved, the
kind who doesn’t repeat himself, the unexpected kind.
Perhaps the only one in his genre. He also demonstrated
it in the concert which he offered at Suma Flamenca 2010
before a jam-packed Sala Roja at the Teatros del Canal.
And that is something, a priori, hard inasmuch as he is
nearly a staff artist at this festival. But no concert of
his is the same as the previous one. He opened once again
with the circle of men panting around an invisible bonfire
and then in the third toná, he began to utter words
not previously uttered. “Nelson Mandela”. “Africa”.
A quejío, by the way, very different to the World
Cup’s ‘Waka waka’ which, in our opinion,
has showed up “western music” as opposed to
the very rich African music... Oh well.
Nor was this caña
the same as the previous ones, overlapping it here with
the touches of honey which a recovered Rafael
Riqueni wished to offer him, sketching it vocally in
different ways. He performed the alegrías, with their
tongue-twisters and cosmoramas, egged on by the clapping,
Bandolero’s rhythms always covering the rearguard
and Cerreduela’s attentive guitar foundation. Impetuous
and playful, the cantaor gave energy to a more and more
enthusiastic crowd. He then withdrew with the malagueña
chaconiana, changing guitars from one set of lyrics to the
next, getting close to the crowd… thrilling them.
And then the percussionist started banging on the cymbals.
A change of gears. Morente turns what Picasso wrote into
complaint and cante. “A long procession of eyes walking
on their tiptoes”. And then a strange connection becomes
visible between artists and their courage. Even with those
anonymous ones with more existential sentences than cubist
ones. “Sitting on the staircase, awaiting the future…”.
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A flash of inspiration gave
us back a little sip of Riqueni’s essence, the kind
like the ones recorded for posterity on ‘Morente
Flamenco’. And it fed back to Morente, who greatly
exhaled those lyrics por seguiriya which Cañizares
accompanied him on in the film ‘Flamenco’. “I’m
selling my clothes, who wants to buy them”…
and the guitar diminishes to the minimum. Without letting
the crowd catch their breath, he then re-encountered Picasso’s
verses, with the modern rhythm bases, with the superimposed
echoes of men, with “the arrow which looks at itself
in the drop of water”. That the ritual circle should
close once again, now por bulerías, seemed to indicate
the end. However, there was still an encore left which was
another concert. With a more intimate group, he took the
songs ‘Adiós Málaga’ and ‘Autorretrato’
off ‘Pablo
de Málaga’. And it was a real delight,
a confirmation that being free and being a cantaor are compatible.
He still had another gift to reveal standing and accompanied
by Cerreduela’s suggestive guitar, his version of
the song which recently deceased Spanish singer Antonio
Vega dedicated to Van Gogh: ‘Ángel caído’.
Now that’s a tribute. And when it seemed as if he
really had finished, the final dramatic effect came. As
his biographer Balbino Gutiérrez told us, back in
1988 he’d experimented with comic theater in Santa
Fe “and he felt like going back to it”. So he
came in here to make up a senseless barber shop, grabbed
the broom to sweep, disguised his colleagues as painters
and barbers and, with a joking air, he reeled off some whopping
truths. Remember these lyrics: “Hey, crook, you live
like a bishop and you keep the tax money for yourself”.
And then read the sections on Politics and the Economy in
any newspaper.
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Enrique
Morente and The Barber Shop. Suma Flamenca 2010
(Photos Daniel
Muñoz) |
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