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María la Tero
A little over a decade after
the publication of ‘Antonio Mairena en el
mundo de la siguiriya y la soleá’
(‘Antonio Mairena in the World of the Siguiriya
and the Soleá’), researchers Luis
Soler Guevara and Ramón Soler Díaz
extend their analysis of the cantaor's work. ‘Los
cantes de Antonio Mairena’ is a reference
book which turns out to refresh the meaning of
the artist's discography on the twentieth anniversary
of his death, attempting to explain “what
he learns”, “what he creates”
and what his legacy is. The thirty-plus chapters
in which the book is structured focus on a record-by-record
and cante-by-cante analysis. And he recorded over
two hundred beginning with the first slate record
in 1941 until his last record in 1983.
Click
the image to enlarge
Starting with the first chapter,
a biographical approach which traces Antonio Mairena's
life and professional career along general lines,
the journey through the artist's work begins.
Each of them not only includes the credits, lyrics
and ‘flamencological’ analyses of
each broken-down record, but it also places it
within the cantaor's personal and artistic context.
And not just with texts, but also with dozens
of pictures.
More than on the authors' conclusions,
the texts feed on statements by the press, the
very cantaor's own memories, stories by other
professional colleagues... which are nearly impossible
to obtain at present outside of this new book.
One example is the story of the performance in
1930 in which he coincided with Manuel Torre on
the bill of a charity show with proceeds going
to the Hermandad de Penitencia (Penitence Brotherhood)
in Mairena del Alcor. It is so written in the
book as he thus narrated in the autobiography
‘Las confesiones de Antonio Mairena’
(‘The Confessions of Antonio Mairena’)
in 1976:
“When Manuel sat down
to sing and set down his glass of eau-de-vie beside
him, I went into the audience to listen to him,
and I said to myself: This is going to be a memorable
night. How great Manuel's going to sing! And so
it was. No sooner had he warmed up, which he did
through medias granaínas, to get into cante,
the people who filled the place up to the brim
rose to their feet as if by magic; and they listened
to Manuel thus the entire time he was singing.
The medias granaínas were followed by cantes
through soleá by Enrique el Mellizo and
by La Serneta. We were all electrified listening
to that genius. To finish things off, he sang
through seguiriyas: A clavito y canela, Joaquín
la Cherna's cante, that of Diego el Marrurro,
Santiago and Santa Ana de Curro Dulce and Silverio's
cabales. The crowd threw chairs and ripped their
shirts. And I don't know what happened to me:
something indescribable. I'd never heard anything
like it in my entire life, nor have I ever heard
it again to date”.
Click
the image to enlarge
The written word is complemented
with plenty of photos, posters and other graphic
documentation of the times, reprinted in black
and white, and commented one by one in the footnotes.
This very extensive graphic archive includes curiosities
such as a photo of Antonio Mairena before the
pyramids of Egypt in the fifties, another in the
thirties with Esteban Sanlúcar on a beach
in Cádiz or the one with Fernanda de Utrera
singing at Seville's April Fair, among many others.
Following the chapter devoted
to his last album
‘El calor de mis recuerdos’ in
1983 (re-released on CD in 2003), Luis and Ramón
Soler's book contains interesting extra contents
that go hand in hand. Besides the conclusions
of the authors, whose intention it is to demonstrate
that Antonio Mairena was not only a “restorer”
but also a creator, an index is included of the
lyrics in alphabetical order according to the
first line of verse and an index of other sound
recordings by the cantaor both in audiovisuals
(such as ‘Rito
y geografía del cante’), such
as at parties, meetings and festivals. Moreover,
it has the complete lyrics of his live repertoire
that he didn't record, a summary of nearly five
hundred references of press articles about the
artist published over half a century, his discography
and videography arranged in chronological order
and the bibliography used.
The book, which has the added
value of having been published in a deluxe hardcover
edition, turns out to be the most complete biographical
sketch of Antonio Mairena that has ever been done
and nearly of any other flamenco artist, with
the exception of books such as ‘Camarón
de la Isla. Vida y obra’ (‘The Life
and Work of Camarón de la Isla’)
by José Manuel Gamboa and Faustino Núñez,
and ‘En la casa de los Pavón’
(‘At the Pavóns'’) by Manuel
Bohórquez about La Niña de los Peines.
Avoiding the controversies raised by the cantaor's
theories included in ‘Mundo y formas del
cante flamenco’ (‘World and Forms
of Cante Flamenco’), the authors - without
concealing their affection for the cantaor - have
put together over eight hundred pages of meticulous
documentation which has led them to conclude that
the evolution of flamenco “leads through
the knowledge and reinterpretation of this cante
maestro's work”.
More information:
Antonio
Mairena. Biography and discography
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