SPECIAL FEATURES: QAWWALI JONDO

Plunge into the abyss

Alex D'Averc. Barcelona, September 2003
Fotos: Taller de Músics

In the last edition of Barcelona's 2003 Grec Festival, flamenco went on one of its most daring adventures: its unusual alliance with qawwali music. The mistrust fans might have felt before such an experiment must have vanished upon observing the exquisite caution with which it was carried out. If traditional music lovers always fear, quite reasonably, that jumbles with other types of music may distort its expression, sessions such as that of 'Qawwali Jondo' - in which Duquende, Miguel Poveda and Chicuelo take part - are worthwhile to show that they can also do just the opposite. Measuring up against traditions as rich as Sufi and conversing with them so successfully can only develop the appreciation for one's own and praise the search for the best it has; that is, to strengthen its roots. We shall aim to discuss the value and sense of that proposal and its execution in this article.

It is one of the last heartbeats of peoples and also one of the most refined treasures they have bequeathed us with. Root musics are not only precious for their scarcity, but also because they hold irreplaceable information about our ancestors, the habits of their relationships and knowledge, their splendors, horrors and mysteries. The ways to pass on that legacy is also drifting away from us: initiation, orality, ritualism, absolute implication with what is created.

If throughout history the elaboration of popular culture has fallen on the same people who afterwards had to receive, interpret and pass it on, the 20th century saw the rise of cultural industries in which it was often anonymous, rootless agents who imposed patterns alien to the recipients; aseptic, interchangeable and in the long run, unfortunately predominating. For that reason, the root musics which have survived into the 21st century are for us like a fossil wonderfully extracted from the world's mutations, with their original sense compromised by the change in habits and ways of thinking, but with their significant murmur, their ring of truth, their capacity to transform experience, drag the spirit, bewitch and shake, nearly intact. Their sound structures are hard to fit into radio formulas, esthetic and moral phrasings little compatible with the Anglo Saxon star model, lyrics which frequently shy away from the affectations in fashion and do not avoid the gloomier twists and turns, of our "twenty-five cells in the jail of Utrera" to the "tuberculosis which shall bring our deaths" of the Rembetes of Salonika.

Faiz Ali

Thus, despite the differences of function and contents, of instruments and stages, the so-called with quite little eloquence "musics of the world" share a similar nature which calls them to mutual sympathy and combined resistance. And it has been in recent years, when traditional musics have become known outside their primitive redoubts, their performers have traveled and have approached other rhythms and creators, the time when that logical complicity has begun to be felt.

But the guardians of such delicate tradition have also felt the weight of their responsibility in this. If they have begun to cross messages with musicians of other spheres, to venture connection points, to re-read the very legacy in other keys, it has been neither with the blessing nor the consent of all enthusiasts. The long controversy about whether cante should go on being an art of initiates, almost secretly passed on and sung according to invariable codes or whether it should open up to the world so as not to run out, even at the risk of its fundamental essences vanishing, is not exclusive to us, although it is sometimes in fact a model of spite.

But in spite of everything, many flamencos have already traveled that path. Jazz, as a reference of root music spreading beyond that state to become universal, has been a recurring gold mine. Also blues, or Cuban musics, with which there was a long history of exchanges that the last decade has rekindled and established. Other approaches remain to be tested, such as groping with Bosnian sevdah or Greek rembetika, despite the parallelisms which could be found between both and flamenco. On the other hand, Arab music, in some of its numerous forms, has in fact received the visit of cante emissaries, albeit in a somewhat sporadic way. Nevertheless, one of those associations has been the revelation of a magnificent intuition, that of having the presentiment that flamenco could meet up with qawwali and discover 'Qawwali jondo'.

Tossing coins. Ripping off shirts

First the differences had to be considered apart. For example, qawwali is a type of music closely linked to its old religious function. The teachings of the Sufis, a heterodox branch of Islam, see it as a way to remember Allah and approach him with no other mediations. At the same time, used for its performance are the harmonium, the rabab and the sirangi (strings) or the tabla and the dholak (percussions), instruments of Persian and Hindostani tradition which we are not used to. But the coincidences are persistent. The classical and fundamental accompaniment of qawwali is clapping. Like flamenco, qawwali is a type of sung music giving complete preeminence to the vocalist. Upon beginning to sing, to achieve the right disposition, the qawwal (qawwali singer) makes use of Alap, a musical form which, among other things, may consist of rising and falling vocal modulations. Throughout the songs, long monosyllabic declamations, which are greatly similar to quejíos flamencos, rip the melody. The well-intertwined song sessions grow in intensity, until the performer goes into a powerful trance which can lead him to reach a state of spiritual illumination known not as duende, but rather as "fana". And, of course, the audience can also let itself be taken away by a similar rapture, which it will express by tossing coins to the musicians, at a time when here those most touched would rip off their shirts.

It is no wonder that so many vicinities have suggested to the organizers that they should speak of "twin spirits". And besides with formal remembrances or with historical vicissitudes evocative in their comparison with what is flamenco, the enthusiast may take delight in a fantastic leap of the imagination, which will lead him to bridge the distance between the north of India and Pakistan and Lower Andalusia, covered so many centuries ago by the gypsy people.

Faiz Ali

We owe the daring of this leap to Taller de Músics, which back in 1989 gathered qawwalis and flamencos on the same stage. But it has been its latest relapse which has strengthened the foundations of an experiment that would be a shame not to continue. 'Qawwali Jondo' signed up Duquende, Miguel Poveda, Faiz Ali Faiz and the Qawwali Ensemble for a risky encounter, volatile but unquestionably beautiful. In the gathering at the Grec Theater in Barcelona, Poveda showed he has an instinct beyond the ordinary to find the best shortcuts and reach outside fields without suffering any mishaps or discredit to his own identity. Flexible and subtle, he knows how to transfer flamenco's logic to worlds run by other rules without the essential disintegrating along the way. Duquende was at his side, and this itself was an event. First they sang five songs together, before Faiz Ali Faiz and his gang had half an hour to trap the crowd with their hypnotic emanations. Then came the tricky moment to share the stage.

New fluid

The lack of references makes it complicated to judge what occurred, the only guidelines being the emotion sensed. The musicians' respect was felt, a touch of their distress in delving into such uncertain paths was even felt, but there was also a sense of happy danger, of difficult adventure which is about to be worked out; at instants it felt as if the temperature was being reached at which alchemical metals transmute and are reborn as a new, magical fluid.

To Poveda's delicate sketch of cante, Duquende offered his intensity. That was how they understood each other and how they were able to provide a very sound counterpoint to the qawwali of a masterful Faiz Ali Faiz and his gang. One man, however, was the most inspired and pulled all the right strings: Chicuelo. His guitar moved ever so lightly, surrounding all the attempts by the other artists. With his aid, there was the final impression that the musics melted into each other, albeit it to withdraw bashfully shortly thereafter. And above all, there was the conviction that what was emerging made sense, working as a whole, completing and enriching. There was, strictly speaking, a 'Qawwali jondo', or at least its correct sketch, and the most exciting thing is that the spectators were witnesses to its creation.

The future of qawwali jondo? The ripples that were seen in Barcelona are full of charm and hold suggestive promises. But two so marked traditions would need to alternate a lot and with great dedication to discover all their powers and thereafter create a coherent, perfectly set style. Commercial habits and rhythms, the musicians' needs, the company's economic risks, the distance: many things conspire against an extensive study of just how far the fusion of qawwali and flamenco could go.

magazine@flamenco-world.com