Estrella Morente closes out
her triumphant year with "Calle del aire"
Emilio el Moro
The year 2001 will go down in flamenco
history as being the year of Estrella Morente's astonishing debut. In the last
months the 21-year-old singer from Granada has sold 80,000 copies of her first
record "Mi Cante y un Poema" (which came out in March), has given more
than 70 recitals, has won an Ondas prize for best flamenco creation of the year,
has been a candidate to a Grammy and two Premios Amigo, has recorded 'El Manisero'
with the Cuban pianist Pepesito Reyes, and has adorned 'Los Cuatro Muleros' in
Carlos Saura's last film, "Buñuel y la Mesa del Rey Salomón".
Estrella Morente and Montoyita (Photo: Anahí
Carmody)
And as if all that weren't enough, just seven
months after making her debut, and fifteen days before entering the ranks of flamenco
singers married to bullfighters (on December 14th she is marrying Javier Conde
in Granada's cathedral), her second recording, Calle del Aire (Chewaka) is already
on the market.
Calle del Aire isn't a flamenco record strictly
speaking. But don't be alarmed: it was produced, just like the first one which
is going to be distributed throughout the world by Peter Gabriel's company Real
World, by Estrella's father Enrique Morente.
The twelve songs that make up the 39 minutes
of the recording are an unusual mix of different kinds of music and styles. A
pastiche in which every detail is carefully and conscientiously looked after.
The sweet 'nana' which Estrella recorded for Christmas in 2000 (Chewaka made it
into a beautiful presentation to give to friends and collaborators) opens the
record with the sole accompaniment of the pianist from Cádiz, Chano Domínguez.
And the record closes with a celebrated taranta which many have heard of, but
very few have actually heard until now: it's the one she recorded at the age of
seven with the maestro Agustín Sabicas on the guitar. It was recorded,
tape-recorder in hand, by the journalist José Manuel Gamboa, and it's hard
to say which is more moving, whether it's the little girl's extraordinary expressive
capacity, or Sabicas' gypsy-accented comments between the lines: "Beethoven,
Beethoven...she's going to go out of tune".
Estrella Morente and Montoyita (Photo: Anahí
Carmody)
Between both of those little jewels there's
a little of everything. "Que Quieres que te Traiga, que Voy a Burgos"
is a song from Castilla-La Mancha which was 'loaned' to the Morente family by
the Soler family. There are sounds of laúd and drums. Then there is an
updated flamenco version of the old chestnut Silent Night [Noche de Paz]. Enrique
Morente has modernized and streamlined the verses, and Juan Manuel Cañizares
adds his guitar-playing which Estrella says sounds like a machine-gun.
The very beautiful and already well-known
song, 'Canción de los Pastores', which rounded out that minirecording made
in 2000, and which was discovered by the Morentes via Laura García Lorca,
the poet's niece (Lorca used to sing it to her), also reappears on this record.
In addition, there are traditional festive songs of Albaicín with the same
title as the record, 'Calle del Aire', and which according to Estrella "were
sung by her grandmother Encarna as she was making marzapan and fried sweets for
Christmas".
A Sephardic song with a singable danceable
rhythm, the 'Tangos del Chavico' (there's an Italian version by Guccini), is the
first single from the record: you can be sure months will go by and we'll still
be hearing it. On this band the choruses by Aurora, mother of Estrella and her
sister Aurora (what a shame she doesn't want to become a professional singer).
The completely unconventional version of 'Los
Cuatro Muleros', and two convincing Jerez-style forays into the granadina (a bulería
to the compás of El Bo and Chicharo, and a bulería por solea, both
with the guitar of Alfredo Lagos), fill out a different sort of work, hybridized
and eclectic, which gets better with each careful listening.
The recording will not be free of criticism.
In the beginning it was conceived as another Christmas promotion. Then, Chewaka
thought of a mini CD. Finally it came out as a full-length CD with a release date
very close to Christmas (which already sounds like a department-store jingle).
But Estrella denies that it's a mere product of marketing strategy. She believes
that the secret of her impressive success has been "word of mouth".
As well as having come onto the scene with "innocence and a love of flamenco".
She says: "you aren't more sexy just because you show your cleavage".
"Sometimes, the less you try sell yourself, the better. People start wondering
and maybe asking 'How come you don't see this one on TV?'. Then they go and buy
the record." Reverse marketing? "Reverse no....it's the absence of marketing.
It's going for the Grammys with the same honesty as you would go to a flamenco
peña in Utrera".
revista@flamenco-world.com
