Artlcles »Tour dates in october and november 2001 »Review
of the concert at the Jerez Festival 2000, by Luis Clemente. Live
Videoclips »Colegio
de Médicos. Madrid
"I've got very fixed ideas, gazpacho is for eating, not singing" |
Today, one of the best young male voices, fresh and plaintive, at its moment of splendor, is that of Arcangel. The cantaor (flamenco singer) from Huelva, at the age of 22, is slowly leaving behind his role as a singer for bailaores (flamenco dancers) and is step by step demonstrating that he is one of the cantaores with greatest potential. During the end of January 99 we saw him sitting to the right of Vicente Amigo in the performance of "Poeta" together with the Orquesta Sinfonica of Malaga, but the place to see him most often is accompanying Eva la Yerbabuena; together with her husband, Paco Jarana, and the habitual presence of the guitar player Salvador Gutierrez.
Something Different
In the "Historia antológica del fandango de Huelva", the following can be read:
"In the line of searching for new ways to make the singing richer, to sound like
something new, we find the good ways of Francisco Jose Arcangel, who from a very
early age chose the difficult and complex road presented by this art to make of
it his way of life". Among the twelve volumes included in the box, which for so
many years was compiled by Antonio El Raya, there are five cuts dominated by the
clear and smooth voice of Arcangel; two "cantes" of Alosno, which he performed
when he was 14 years old, and a third performed when he was 20 and in which can
be noted the bravery of the singer. The difference in voice can be clearly heard
in the two "fandangos" from Huelva in the Rengel style: they are placed one after
the other in the box so that the listener can appreciate the incredible amount
of distinct nuances which his voice has acquired with the passage of time. "Those
cuts were recorded very hastily... but they are OK, I am not going to complain
about them. With a different type of production, it could have been made better".
At the age of nine, he won the children's award of "fandangos" of his town in the peña "La Orden de Huelva", and did it again for two more years in succession. "I began singing to accompany the dancing, for the "cuadro" (dance group) of the peña, for its teacher, who back then was Jose Joaquin, and thanks to Pepe Roca, the singer from Alameda, I participated in a show called "La Parrala" with Carmen Linares. By chance, I happened to meet Mario Maya and he incorporated me into his company". New shades (drawn over a background knowledge of the roots)
He did not want to remain solely in the area of the "fandangos" and decided to
amplify his flamenco repertoire, with a preference for the "solea" and for the
"tona". "I would like to have the wide scope of Caracol, Tomas Pavon or El Gallina,
and at the same time to be able to produce new nuances like El Pele or Morente.
Of course, I am crazy about the cantaores from before, but I have to live in my
time and place and I have to give my own personal touch to the "cantes". I have
to do it step by step, surely, but always basing the process on the roots, since
innovating without having a clear base is not the best way of doing things. And
Morente and El Pele have managed to set a path. Morente has been an innovator,
always creating new things but with a lot of sense and with a great background
knowledge of the roots. I mean, you only have to listen to his antologia de Antonio
Chacon to realize this. You can like it or not like it, but we are talking here
of a question of knowledge. And El Pele used to sing what was traditional before,
but from ten years back to now he has managed to leave his personal touch on what
he produces. All of this has come to be thanks to a wave that has been created
around Sanlucar and of which Isidro and Juan Carlos Romero, who are composing
in that same way, are mainly responsible. And Evora as well; I see them as "guilty"
of producing this change in history". And how about Vicente Amigo? "Yes, of course.
Vicente too". I
recall what he said when interviewed in the magazine El Olivo: "I find the young
to be distracted and somewhat confused". Try to justify this now: "I mean that
I see that everyone, especially the young ones, want to do things that haven't
been done before but without knowing what has been done before. You have to learn
how to sing "por seguiriya", "solea", "tona", and based on that to create a whole
new world. I think that Camaron has had too big an influence on people. Listening
to Camaron is a pleasure, but it was he, someone special. And Camaron did not
sing like that in the beginning; he got his base from what came before. In his
first albums he sang things by El Muela, by El Chaqueta, by Tomas, by Caracol...
he was a quite intelligent guy and, contrary to what many might think, a quite
studious guy too". Conscious
of all this, Arcangel studies his own peculiar tone of voice and searches for
his own path. "I would define my voice as unusual in the world of flamenco, because
it is placed neither too high nor too low, it is somewhere in the middle and it
is adaptable to other types of music. Undoubtedly, I will try to get the best
out of this quality, but without escaping from my flamenco roots, since I still
cry when I listen to Tomas "por solea" or to the "cabal" which El Sernita recorded.
That is what I really like most". Sparkling Even
though he hasn't yet tried other music styles, he wouldn't mind creating his own
"Omega" ("but I don't want to enter the world of mass culture") and he hopes to
record an album this year. "It's not as if I am in a great hurry. What I want
to do is to sing well and that with the passage of time my work can be acknowledged;
that a time comes when I listen to what I have done and say, "this is actually
quite good". But for the moment I think that I can do things better, I have set
myself on a straight path, without haste but without pause". Luis
Clemente |
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