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Gypsy Passion: New Flamenco (Narada Collection Series)
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JazzDigger Home > N - Jazz Artists > Narada Collection (Series) > Item 1
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Gypsy Passion: New Flamenco (Narada Collection Series)
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by Various Artists - International - Latin - Flamenco
Sales Rank: 10418
Price:$13.99
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Listener Reviews & Comments
Ever since Otmar Liebert, every music producer doing something in the same genre seems compelled to (mis)appropriate the title "Flamenco." Please understand one thing: This album, nor Otmar Liebert, nor anything like it, is "Flamenco", either "new," "old," or anything in between - and it is ESPECIALLY not like Flamenco as interpreted by Spanish Gypsies, so it is doubly disrespectful of the "real thing." The proper word for this type of music was coined in Spain long ago: "aflamencada," meaning "flamenco like" or "flamenco inspired," but NOT flamenco. This is to true Flamenco what a timid gelding is to a proud and fierce stallion. Think of standing in an elevator suffering an interpretation of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" played by "The Hundred and One Strings" and you'll get the idea. And that's what this album is: elevator and dentist chair music. I feel compelled to write this addendum to my above 11/28/1999 review since the consistent criticism that I and other critics of this form of music receive (see, e.g., J. H. Minde's review) is that we are "purists" or "traditionalists" who are either unfamiliar with "new" flamenco or just refuse to acknowledge that there is such a thing as "new" flamenco. Such criticisms only serve to reflect the writer's profound ignorance of the subject, the size of which may be glimpsed by the fact that many hundreds of volumes on flamenco exist in the Spanish language; there are major centers for flamenco studies in Spain; and the discography is in the thousands. I am neither a "traditionalist" nor a "purist". A "traditionalist" is like a museum curator - someone who has found something he or she loves so much that they want to preserve it intact for future generations. A "purist" goes a step further and declares that the thing under the glass is the ONLY "authentic" one of its type and that all others, however similar, are, at best, only imitations of less quality. There is indeed a "new flamenco" of which I and all other serious aficionados are extremely well aware. Flamenco is a living art and as such continues to grow and change, and like any other passionate art has its fair share of "cutting edge" artists, radicals, and revolutionaries who are alternately praised and pilloried. Some of these call themselves "flamencos", others reject the term even though their music grew out of a thorough immersion in the art and culture of flamenco. Together with the more traditional evolutionaries they form the group of "nuevos flamencos" - which is EXACTLY what they are called in Spain. The label "new flamenco" is not new. It began to emerge in Spain in the late seventies in the immediate post-Franco period. The envelope began to be seriously pushed by Paco de Lucia in "Almoraima" (1976) and Camaron de la Isla in "Leyenda del Tiempo" (1979). You want radical "new"? Try Kiko Veneno, Pata Negra, Ojos de Bari as but a few examples. "New flamenco" which has a traditional underlayment but experiments in numerous (and some quite tasty) directions? Listen to any album by Ketama. THAT is "new flamenco" and NOT the endless albums of rumba rumba rumba produced in this country by guitarists with little to no training or experience in the flamenco culture in Spain. It is indicative of the ignorance of and lack of respect for the art of flamenco that Otmar Liebert recorded "Nouveau Flamenco," the album which started this whole craze, after only a few months of flamenco lessons. (It takes years of full immersion to even begin to scratch the surface.) In sum, I have no criticism of any kind that many people enjoy the (mostly) American, Otmar Liebert style of soft rumba, or even of Otmar Liebert and his many imitators per se. If it has musical value it does not need to masquerade as something it is not, but should instead stand on its own under some other more appropriate label. (Strunz & Farah, for example, have always had the class and good taste to not label their music "flamenco." It is no coincidence that they are also the two most accomplished guitarists in this whole group.) So please, please, have a little respect, show a little humility in the face of a highly developed and centuries old art form and its many dedicated artists by not calling this form of music "flamenco" - old, new, nouveau, neue, nuevo, whatever. It just simply is not "flamenco."
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Gypsy Passion: New Flamenco (Narada Collection Series)
by Various Artists - International - Latin - Flamenco
Price:$13.99
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