TOMASITO. PRESENTATION OF THE ALBUM ‘Y DE LO MÍO,
¿QUÉ?’
Through the pores
Silvia Calado/ Flamenco-world.com, October 29th, 2009
Photo gallery. Tomasito: ‘Y de
lo mío, ¿qué?’, in concert
‘Y de lo mío, ¿qué?’.
Tomasito: vocals and baile. Tino di Geraldo
and Gaspar Fernández: drums. Ignacio Cintado: bass.
Jorge Gómez and Lalo del Val: electric guitars. Sala
Caracol. Madrid, October 29th, 2009. 10 p.m.
Tomasito might be about to cease being
that perpetual little secret of Spanish music. You can feel
it in the ambience, you start to suspect it. Or at least,
that’s what many of us want. Now then, the “boy
robot” backed by Lola Flores will sound familiar to
some. And like her, he’s one of those artists who
is one in his own right. The anecdote is really hackneyed
now, but the thing is that the American critic hit the nail
on the head: “She doesn’t sing or dance, but
don’t miss her”. Something similar was said
about Tomasito recently in the pages of the ‘New York
Times’ when he performed at the Lincoln Center with
Wynton Marsalis, but highlighting the unique humor of his
art. Those who saw his three-minute appearance the other
day on the television program ‘El hormiguero’
on Spanish channel Cuatro must have understood that and
how special this artist is. So imagine what it’s like
to see him live in an entire concert of his, and moreover,
officially presenting his new album.
“Tomasito! And what about my stuff?
(Y de lo mío, ¿qué?)”. Now even
the title of the album belongs to his fans. He gave that
and a great deal more to them and every neophyte who showed
up at the venue. And the thing is that we don’t get
tired of saying it over and over again: Tomasito live is
a unique experience. Recognizing that they’re not
precisely the same cases, but emphasizing the closeness,
he is something like our own particular Michael Jackson.
But, now then, mixed with Fred Astaire, Bojangles, Angus
Young, Luis el Zambo, Joaquín Grilo, Bambino, a crooner
or a rapper. Well then, a really “strange piece of
work”. In fact, he declares himself thus in ‘Rumba
del revés’, one of the many songs on the album
which he performed last night at the Sala Caracol in Madrid,
right next to Lavapiés which, by the way, is his
home away from home… his home, as you know, is the
very flamenco neighborhood of Santiago, in Jerez. And upon
joining up, the two territories might represent the “tangle”
(David Lagos said so) that it is.
Rock? Flamenco? Well, both things equally
and by nature. He has rock in his nerves, in his attitude,
in his stage savagery. He has flamenco in his feet, in the
positioning of his body, in the sparks of salt as well as
‘hondura’ and, of course, in the compás
sustained throughout his repertoire. And that is captured
very clearly in the dazzling version of ‘Back in black’
by AC/DC, in ‘Soleá punk’ off his previous
record and in any of those performances which he calls sketches
in which he might just as easily play electric guitar beaten
out por bulerías (that is to say, kneeling down on
the floor, striking the strings), as do solo footwork to
the beat of age-old rock’n’roll. And in between,
well he might just as easily become more of a singer to
perform ‘La resaca’ or ‘El universo en
mis manos’, as to become more of a cantaor to do ‘Fandangos
de Coppini’ or the taranto ‘Lola y Candela’.
No, you don’t have to complicate
matters, or seek pigeonholes to pigeonhole him. And that
is well known by his musicians who, headed up by Tino di
Geraldo (drummer in the concert and producer at the studio),
are used to take part in the star’s flows of energy,
musical pirouettes and complex dynamics… although
sometimes it is even hard for them to hold back their smile.
Ignacio Cintado, Jorge Gómez, Lalo del Val, Tino…
and by the way, also Gaspar Fernández, who is nineteen
years old, who is Tino’s son, who spent half the concert
playing the drums and who here took over the drums - and
drumsticks - from the hands of his father. The thing is
that Tomasito gets through the pores of those surrounding
him, up on stage, down in the seats, on the other side of
the television screen or inside the earphones of the iPod.
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