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Monday, August 14th.
XV Festival de Cante de Las Minas. La Union.
Manolo Sanlucar with Carmen Linares.
Locura de Brisa y Trino
(title of the album- A folly of Breeze and Trill).
The exquisite doubt
Manolo Sanlucar brought to La Union a full set of flamenco "palos" from
‘Locura de brisa y trino’, an album based on texts by Garcia Lorca given a voice
by Carmen Linares.
Manolo Sanlucar with Carmen Linares
"Music created for the anguish of the soul", that's what the author
proclaimed to begin with, also saying that he tries to "find himself again" and
that "the creation is a reflection of the anguish serving the art". And then they
began to play "por alegrias". Carmen sang: "Su voz deja cristales en la herida
/ y un grafico de hueso en la ventana" (His voice leaves bits of glass on
the wound / and a view of the bone on the window) .
Manolo Sanlucar
He plunges without safety net into that task of searching with his guitar,
with the support of his brother Isidro, while Tino di Geraldo caresses the percussion
with the support of Cepillito.
All five musicians that recorded the album were there, and they played the
entire album.
There is a discrete labor performed by Isidro, who sets the way for the great
protagonist, Manolo… and Carmen Linares; it is hard to imagine those difficult
"cantes" without her voice.
Carmen Linares
The song ‘Normas’ (Rules), in which the voice follows one line of style, the
guitars another and the percussion yet another, comes next. The whole performance
sounds coherent, something unusual considering that this man doesn't follow a
rigid meter. ‘El poeta pide a su amor que le escriba’ (The poet asks his love
to write to him) are high-class "bulerias", and in the letter from Lorca to her
sweet Rosita he produces some disguised "tarantas" with doses of intelligence
and exquisiteness, as he does with the "seguiriyas" in ‘Campo’ (Fields).
The second part of the show began –without interlude and without Carmen- with
the "fandangos" in ‘Banderillas’ and the "bulerias" in ‘Tercio de varas’(both
are bullfighting terms). But not only did he perform things from ‘Tauromagia’
and include songs from texts of Lorca; he also dedicated a composition for two
guitars called ‘Ruiseñor mio’ (My nightingale) to Miguel Hernandez, whose
texts would also be used in the "bulerias" that Carmen sang. Together, Carmen
and Manolo concluded with a "taranta", the "cante" (flamenco song) from Levante
that is most popular in its most "cantaor" town.
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Exhibitions and back-crashes
The full house seen at the show of Manolo Sanlucar might be surprising considering
that his music is not "easy", and among the problems produced by the 1.200 plastic
seats, most of them at the price of 3.200 pesetas, there was a loud backward crash
(broken chair and spectator on the floor). There were also sound crashes: there
hasn't been a single artist yet who hasn't complained of the sound from the loudspeakers
on stage.
Among the parallel activities, the first anthological volume of the festival
was presented, with recordings coming from the archives of RNE (Spanish National
Radio), whose record label has released an album with fifteen "cantes" ranging
from 1968 to 1996 and also two touches by Vicente Amigo from when he participated
in the contest in 1988. In this exemplary document, there are three "cantes" by
Luis de Cordoba, two by Mayte Martin, and the rest is a blend of the different
styles of the local area, except for the "soleares" by Cobitos and Curro de Utrera.
The book `40 años de historia del Cante de las Minas´ (40 years of history
of the Cante de las Minas), a catalogue of the exhibition of posters from the
festival posted around the outside of the stage, was also presented.
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Luis Clemente
Translation: Pekka Odriozola
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