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DENYING THE STIGMA. Tomatito sextet
Candela Olivo
Guitar:
José Fernández Torres, Tomatito.
Flamenco singing: Antonio Carmona, El Ingueta.
Guitar and mandola: Juan José Suárez, El Paquete.
Violin: Bernardo Parrilla.
Bass: Javier Colina.
Percussion: Israel Suárez, El Piraña.
Dance and percussion: Joselito Fernández.
Seville,
May 28th, 2001. 9:00 p.m.
Lope de Vega Theater
The darkness of
the stage breaks. The figure of José Fernández Torres cuts the thick
air of the premature summer night, his guitar at the ready. With nothing but a
dense silence, Tomate delicately cradles the instrument. The wood brings the white,
aged echo of Macael's talent... Echoes of taranta to say good evening to a Seville
which has come to share a dream turned music.
The lament turns
sweet with alegrías. Tomate, the patriarch, marks a dry strum to call up
the compás. Some timid handclaps obediently respond, murmuring, about he
who wraps himself in falsetas, and around whom palpable freshness moves and darts.
There are hints of variations on that Ardila of Gypsy Guitar, interjections hopefully
improvised. By sheer force of freedom and virtuosity, he begins to question the
stigma. That one which insists on relegating Tomate to the status of soloist and,
due to some alleged incapacity, limiting him to a back seat. And Tomate smiles
with the appearance of blue moonlight at his back.
Following the twelve-beat
structure, he dabbles in bulerías. The palmas and cajón expand.
Some jazz riffs get loose. He makes room for silences with the dead stop, the
brusque cut, the
brisk effect. The barrier between the seats and the stage dissolves. And Tomate
knows it...so he throws out little jewels. The audience relishes them and, overcome
with their taste, explodes.
The festive ruckus
continues with tangos. Violin and bass back up the strings. Tomate draws back,
in a display of humility and versatility, to make way for the green but jondo
cante of El Ingueta. On a blood-colored backdrop by Las Grecas, the profile of
"María la portuguesa" is sketched, she whose beauty glorifies
the daring bow of Bernardo Parrilla. High density, musically and emotionally,
in some craggy violin passes which merit "oles", since it's impossible
to sound more flamenco.
A voice breaks
through the denseness of the air. Riqueni shouts from the darkness: "Tomate,
I love you!". And he who walks among the chestnut trees, responds with an
exercise in sobriety and internalization turned source. He stops, only to come
right back with bulerías. A self-potpourri, with the sole accompaniment
of palmas, swaggering through Dulce Manantial, passing through Mundi, picking
the bones of that oceanic crossbreed that was Spain... until finally letting loose
a tidal wave of discovered feelings.
It all channels
into South American ports. Interwoven chords tied together with percussion, to
summon up the Argentine tango of Luis Salinas, previously recorded with Michel
Camilo. Free rein for personalities in an elite delicatessen of taste. With no
one getting in anyone's way. And if Colina's twanging is galactic in character,
Parrilla's flamenco picados are fully competent. A wealth of contained, lavished
tension, from bass to violin, from violin to guitar. Parrilla is beside himself:
"You're the greatest, you're too much!".
  
A respite comes
in the form of soleá. Tomate sets the compás to show off Colina,
who gesticulates chasms over his extraordinary instrument. He claws, caresses,
floors the audience. Parrilla joins in, little by little, a gentle compás
as if not to disturb. The fine deep song comes in. Then the dance of Joselito
Fernández, so personal, so basic, so taciturn. And Tomate as a backdrop.
The finale comes
so modestly, so unobstrusively, that the theater sways its golden fixtures. The
Vacilona tames it all... without the coffin-shaped instrument of Michel Camilo,
without George Benson, but with the Tomatito Sextet, offering an aquatic version,
more rhythmic, flashier. From shaking and shimmying to silence. From the dialogue,
the monoloques (Piraña's turn) and complicity. Playing around is permitted.
But the audience still considers that the coitus should be interruptus... a second
curtain call with funky bulerías to whose compás everyone contributes
with red-hot riffs. One and then another's cute dance bits. Tomate smiles... back
down the lane.
Candela Olivo
Translation: Estela Zatania
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