MP3 Download –> “Menudo Jaleo”

. . .  con la colaboración especial de

Mel M’Rabet (ud)
DJ Doblegota (scratch)

The basic idea of my Fulbright research project was that we could investigate Granada’s musical history though an exploration of confluent immigration paths.  In Granada, it a physical nexus that brings together (human) musicians.  On Granada Doaba it was through the methodology of sample-based hip-hop.  I didn’t want to just record an audio essay of the various immigrant musicians in Granada, though that probably would have produced a more objective academic text.  We wanted to learn by actively engaging the material we were studying, experimenting with new sounds and rhythms while we were still learning their basic properties.

“Kool Herc:  A Biographical Essay” by Wayne Marshall

“How DJ Kool Herc Lost His Accent And Started Hip-Hop“

MP3 Download –> “El Manisero de Potemkin”

. . .  con la colaboración especial de

Richard Dudanski (drums)

My roommate José Martinez Yañez was born in Granada but speaks English like a native Brooklynite. We first met through hip-hop, but became close friends through daily pick-up basketball games at the University of Granada.  We were born within 2 weeks of each other in 1984.  We both lived with our grandparents when we were growing up, which was a major influence on our musical tastes.  My first memories include my grandfather’s wedding ring tapping a 2:3 clave rhythm on his coffee mug, while my grandmother shuffle-danced around the kitchen cookie white rice and black beans [which btw, Cubans call "cristianos y moros"].

In Granada,  José’s grandfather listened to popular romance ballads, flamenco and other music from Spain, but when I told José my family was from Cuba, he immediately asked me about Antonio Machín.  “My grandfather loved Machín. He still has all the records.”  I was surprised, since Machín isn’t even that famous amongst Cubans, but in Spain he’s nationally known — the physical embodiment of Cuban music in the Spanish imagination…  [canyon]

“El Manisero” is the most recorded song in Cuban history, with hundreds of different versions performed by damn-near every Cuban musician of all time. It was the world’s first platinum-selling Latin song  — not CDs or LPs, but 1 million copies sold of the sheet music. With notes & lyrics originally composed by Moises Simons (the Cuban son of a Spanish Basque musician), the song was made famous across the globe by a guajiro named Antonio Machín.

With 15 brothers and sisters, Antonio Machín was born in Sagua la Grande, twenty minutes up the road from my mom’s hometown of Calabazar de Sagua, Cuba.  Born to a (black) Cuban mother and (white) Cuban father in the rural heart of (racist) Cuba, Machín was forced to abandon his early aspirations to sing opera and instead worked from a young age as street singer.  He eventually moved to the big city, where he became the lead singer for Don Azpiazú’s house band at the ritzy Havana Casino.

In 1930, Antonio Machín went to New York City and recorded a version of “El Manisero” that Victor Records turned into an international pop sensation.  Even though another version of “El Manisero” by Rita Montaner had just been released two years prior, it was Machín’s version that caught fire and spread across  global radio waves, sparking a rumba craze in American popular culture.  (Nevermind the fact that “El Manisero” is not a rumba, but actually a son-pregón. Victor Records advertised the 78 rpm record as a “rhumba-fox trot” which is not only musically inaccurate, but misspelled to boot).

As Ned Sublette writes in his definitive & highly recommended book Cuba and its Music, Antonio Machín is one of those Cuban musicians (like Desi Arnaz or Buena Vista Social Club) who achieved international success that went far beyond their popularity at home. After he became a global pop-star, Machín left Cuba and moved to New York, then Paris, London and finally Madrid, where he remained until his death in 1977.

Machín loved Andalusia, and the feelings are mutual.  Spain embraced Machín as Cuban music incarnate.  His popularity continued to grow in Spain long after he was largely forgotten in his native country.

While we recorded Granada Doaba, I asked the musicians about their earliest musical memories, about what records their grandparents used to play at home.   My roommate Jose Yañez Martinez, born in Granada in 1984, was the first person to tell me about his grandfather’s passion for Machín, and over time I was constantly surprised by how often my Spanish friends would offer Antonio Machín as musical memory from their childhood.

While I was struggling with the new sounds of flamenco and Arab music, Antonio Machín became something of a comfort blanket for me while I was in Spain.  I was gifted a copy of his 2-disc Greatest Hits compilation, which was promptly sampled into the Akai MPC and turned into 10 beats.  In the end, Granada Doaba only includes two songs based on Machín samples, but best believe that Antonio Machín vs. Beny Moré mixtape is coming soon from Gnawledge.

Ned Sublete begins his 690-page history of Cuban music with: “Long story short:  Spanish father, African mother.”  Cuba was considered Spain’s most prized colonial possession for hundreds of years, first discovered by Columbus in 1492 [and described as "the most beautiful place human eyes have ever seen"].  During its most lucrative years of colonial plunder, Spain prioritized Havana as the only authrized port of depature for ships returning to Spain with New World booty.  Filled with pirates, conquistadors and transients of all types, Havana became quite the party town, the sort of place a Spanish explorer would spend a few weeks waiting for government authorization to return home.  Whore houses.  And lots of music.

The clave, the central percussive instrument of Cuban music, was invented/discovered by ship builders in Havana’s port.  The small wooden pegs were used to join together planks of wood to build the boats that shipped gold back to Spain.  Their dense wood, when clanked against each other, produced a sharp piercing sound that could cut through all the other sound coming form a big band, counting time with its trademark 2:3 pattern.

Music from around the world made stops in Havana’s port, which absorbed influence from every which way.  Cuba earned a reputation in Spain for its musicality, an impression that continues to represent the Cuban people probably more than any other in the global imagination.

While Simón Bolívar led successful revolutions that led to independence for most of South America in the mid 19th century, Spain refused to relinquish its prized Caribbean island, crushing Cuba’s rebels in the first War of Independence in the 1860s.  It wasn’t until 1898 that Cuban freedom fighters, led [at least philosophically] by poet José Marti, finally won enough battles to bring victory within their grasp.  Rather than allowing Cuba to strike the final blow and become an independent nation, the United States intervened, rebanding the War of Independence as the Spanish-American War.

With pomp & circumstance, the US rough riders led by Teddy Roselvelt stormed the already nearly-defeated Spanish army and struck the final blow, forcing Spain surrendered control of its “Pearl of the Antilles” in 1898.  But as the Spanish flag came down, it was the American flag — not the Cuban bander — that was raised in its place.  A four year “transitional” period of American control continued until 1902, when America finally granted Cuba its independence, predicated on their adoption of the Platt Amendment into the new Cuban consitution.  The Platt Amendment granted the US Government absolute freedom to intervene in Cuban political affairs at any point deemed necessary and gave the US military indefinite control of Cuba’s deepest harbor: Guantanamo Bay.  For the next 57 years, Cuba was run by an succession of corrupt presidents pre-approved from Washington DC that presented Cuba as a neo-colonial playground for American tourists and mafia.

In 1959, Fidel Castro’s revolutionary army overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencia Batista, who fled to Spain with suitcases of gold and retired peacefully until his death in 1977, the same year Antonio Machín (“El más cubano de los españoles y el más español de los cubanos”) also died.

My dad gave me some good advice before I moved to Europe: “Make friends with your neighborhood barman.”  Richard Dudanksi owned Potemkin, a tapas bar downstairs from my bedroom studio in Granada.  With impeccable music and beautiful artwork on the walls, Potemkin is infamous around town for its delicious tapas by master chef Hidetomo Nambu, a Japanase flamenco guitarist who prepares fresh sushi in a Russian-themed bar owned by a British ex-punk.

On Sundays, there were no tapas at Potemkin because it was Hidetomo’s day off.  The chef was busy practicing guitar scales at home or playing along with the other aficionados at the weekly flamenco jam session at El Upsetter, a reggae/flamenco bar with a deep cave.  With no chef, Richard Dudanksi had nothing to offer at the bar except free peanuts.

“El Manisero” means “Peanut Vendor.”  It’s a public pitch for mobile salesmen hawking salted nuts in the streets, a Cuban tradition that has somehow survived the island’s Communist revolution.  Selling cheap peanuts in a paper cone is one of the only examples of non-government controlled commerce in Castro’s Cuba, a low-level capitalism so ingrained in Cuban culture that la revolucion hasn’t dared to ban. If you’ve ever been to a baseball game, you get the gist of the song: “Peanuts… get your peanuts!”  But like everything in Cuba, selling snacks on the street is done with a danceable rhythm.

“Machín fue un eterno fugitivo. Con Don Azpiazu, triunfó en La Habana del Casino Nacional, fue el primer negrazo que cantó en aquel garito de terratenientes nacionales y gánsteres de importación, pero se fue a Nueva York. Triunfó en el Nueva York del Cuarteto Machín y sus 300 canciones grabadas tras el cucurucho de “El manisero”, pero se fue a Francia. Triunfó en Europa, pero buscó la tranquilidad y el amor en Sevilla”  Articulo

Compay Segundo le llamo “el embajador de la música cubana en España”

Mioses Simons, hijo de un músico vasco, al ver cruzar un emigrante asiático pregonando la venta de cucuruchos de maní tostado. Moisés escribió la letra en una servilleta. La melodía la fijó en su mente y luego la trasladó a su piano. El suceso tuvo lugar en 1928.

“El manisero se va… (tal como reitera el pregón) pero vuelve; vuelve, cada vez enriquecido por una nueva voz, por una nueva versión instrumental…“.

En diciembre de 1931 Alejo Carpentier, entonces corresponsal de la revista Social en París, envió a La Habana una crónica en la que informaba alegremente:

“¡Todo el mundo tiene un disco de nuestro “Manisero” nacional! Los pick-up de los boulevards lo repiten sin cesar; Mistinguette lo canta en el Casino de París; ha invadido Berlín, Bélgica, la Costa de Azur… Se escucha en Palestina, junto al Muro de las Lamentaciones; se ejecuta en Constantinopla, en los cabarés de princesas rusas, víctimas de la revolución; sus maracas suenan junto a los puestos de fritura que hacen toser a la gran esfinge de Egipto…”

la convirtió en la primera versión discográfica de cubanos que vendió un millón de copias lo que representó, a su vez, el primer boom de la música latinoamericana a nivel mundial.

Aunque en 1947 llegaría su gran éxito, en España. Se trata del inolvidable Angelitos negros. En principio fue una canción morisca, que con los arreglos musicales a finales de la década de los sesenta, convirtió en un gran bolero.

Antonio Machín - “El Manisero” (1930)

Hibari Misora - “El Manisero” (1952)

Skatalites - “El Manisero”

Quinteto Son de la Loma - “El Manisero”

Carlos y Jose - “El Manisero”

Maní, maní, maní…
Si te quieres por el pico divertir,
Cómprame un cucuruchito de maní…

Maní, el manisero se va,
Caballero, no se vayan a dormir,
Sin comprame un cucurucho de maní.

Richard Dudanski: “De crío me encantaba escuchar la música clásica de mi padre en el gramófono. Tenía 11 años cuando los Beatles y el pop Británico apareció en escena a principios de los ’60, así que con mis hermanos y hermanas terminábamos comprando un montón de esos singles, antes del cambio a mediados de los ’60 con the Who, Stones, Spencer Davis etc.

Me imagino que fue mi interés por las señoritas allá en la discoteca por lo que nació mi amor por la música soul negra americana- cualquier cosa de Tamla y Otis, hasta Stax y Northern Soul. Esto condujo al ritmo negro y ska, y desde ahí hasta al jazz y el blues que fueron mis favoritos para principios de los ‘70. Cuando empecé a tocar, eran los baterías del jazz los que estaban en mi colección de discos - especialmente los tíos de los ’50 como Blakey, Philly Joe Jones, Roy Haynes, Max Roach etc. Ellos son los grandes baterías para mí, junto con Al Jackson Jr, el batería de session Memphis que tocó en prácticamente todos los hits de Stax de los 60!”

“Fue Antón Farah el primer árabe que llegó a Cuba con el propósito de asentarse en estas tierras. Lo hizo en 1879 y abrió un camino que hasta 1936 siguieron unas 40 mil personas… El libanés Isaac Estéfano, vendió al Estado cubano, en los años 20, el brillante que en el Capitolio de La Habana marcaba el kilómetro cero de todas las distancias del país” ]]> http://gnawledge.com/granadadoaba/?feed=rss2&p=218 http://gnawledge.com/granadadoaba/?p=120 http://gnawledge.com/granadadoaba/?p=120#comments Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:40:06 +0000 admin http://gnawledge.com/granadadoaba/?p=120

Gnawledge - “Qanun Al-Tarab” [download free MP3]

. . .  con la colaboración especial de

Ensemble Al-Tarab:
Youssef Elmezghildi [qanun]
Uzman Almerabet [oud]
Mel M’Rabet [oud]
Mohammad Dominguez [darbuka]
Griselda Qamar [dance]

They say you gotta learn the rules before you can break ‘em.  We wanted to produce unruly hip-hop from deconstructed Andalusian rhythms, so first we tried to learn a thing or 2 about traditional Arab music theory and song structure.  We wanted to make hip-hop rooted in real history, so we got a library card and started at the beginning.

We also tried to balance theory with practice.  Mornings for research and afternoons for jam sessions.  My academic investigation was largely based at the CDMA libary in Granada, an ethnomusicological archive of information about the Spanish-Arab legacy of Al-Andalus.  In order to avoid drowning in printed words, we also studied with the Al-Tarab Ensemble, a group of Moroccan musicians who live in Granada and play traditional Arabic music.  The director of the ensemble Uzman Almerabet wrote my letter of recommendation for the Fulbright grant and served as one of my project advisors.

Uzman was the perfect teacher because he’s not only an experienced musician, but also a talented luthier who builds traditional Arab instruments like the oud, an ancient fretless lute that evolved into the Spanish guitar.  He understands both the historical musicology of Al-Andalus and the practical reality of shaping a new oud from a fallen tree.  Formed in Granada in the late 1980s, the Al-Tarab ensemble features oud by Uzman, qanun by Youssef Elmezghildi, and percussion by Mohammad Dominguez.

The qanun looks like a harp turned on its side.  It’s like the inside of a piano getting played with banjo fingerpicks. In the nimble hands of Youssef, the qanun’s 77 strings sing in beautiful harmony melody with Uzman’s 5-string oud. We recorded hundred of hours with the Al-Tarab Ensemble, both in the studio and at their weekly live performance at Sala Vimaambi in the Albaicín, the old Muslim neighborhood in central Granada.   Their songs, and Arab music in general, are structured somewhat similar to American jazz: organized in pre-established framework within which the musicians enjoy freedom for improvisation.  I’d recognize each song from the week before, but every week produced a new interpretation based on the whims of day.

On this particular day, there was a dancer named Griselda Qamar onstage with the Al-Tarab Ensemble. You can hear the beads from his dress click-clacking in our recording, but even more noticable is her effect on the musicians.  Rather then leaning back and strumming through the tune, there’s a thumping physical energy in their performance that I never heard from them before.  It reminded me of something I heard along the way: prehistoric man invented music to sustain the dancers, who began wiggling their hips in silence before anyone ever thought to compose a beat. Dancing came first; music exists to sustain our movement.

Born in Tetuoan, Morocco into a family of musicians, Uzman Almerabet studied the oud from a young age.  In the 1980s he came to Spain for a visit and fell in love with a Spanish woman.  Married with 5 daughters, Uzman now lives in Granada, where he runs the Dar Ziryab Cultural Center and the Al-Tarab Ensemble.

The acoustic ensemble features traditional Arab instruments such as the laud, qanan, darbuka and nay.   The group has collaborated with Arab musicisn from around the world, including Omar Faruk, as well as flamenco artists in Granada, including Emilio Maya. flamenco artistsA lo largo de su trayectoria han desarrollado tanto fusión arábigo-flamenca como medievo-andalusí, sufí y oriental-medieval; en definitiva Al Tarab es la esencia musical de las tres culturas, siempre con un espíritu abierto, sin olvidar sus orígenes.

Barely 200 years old, flamenco is still a young man [and hip-hop just a baby], but the historic partnership of the ‘ud and the qanun goes back at least 1,000 years into pre-medieval Spanish.  An immigrant musician from Baghdad named Ziryab crossed North Africa and established Spain’s first music conservatory in the 8th century.  Music from the Arabian Peninsula mixed with indigenous Iberian rhythms to produce a unique hybrid of Arab-Andalusian music, with the ‘ud and qanun as the most important instruments.

During the European Renaissance, the Christian reconquista expelled the Moors and the Spanish inquisition banned Arab music. Muslims who decided to leave Spain instead of converting (or hiding in the mountains with newly-arrived Gypsies) were forced south across the Straights of Gibraltar into North Africa).

Al-Tarab, interpreta diversos estilos de música: sufí, música de Oriente Medio, música de al Ándalus (nubas, moaxajas adaptadas a nuestro tiempo con instrumentos tradicionales de la época Taifas), fusión flamenco-árabe, ritmos afro-árabes, música turca, armenia,egipcia, música del norte de África, folk bereber, folk ginawa, música tradicional del Atlas…

Al-Tarab ha colaborado con músicos de gran relieve internacional: Omar Faruk Tekbilek; Haigh Manokian; Souren Baronian (grupo Transition); Said Chraïbi (famoso laudista marroquí); José Mercé; Tomatito; El Lebrijano, Emilio Maya. También ha compartido escenario con artistas de la talla de Paco de Lucía.

Instrumentos del Ensemble Al-Tarab:

• Laúd: El rey de los instrumentos de la música islámica. Se introdujo en Europa a través de la España musulmana. Tenía cuatro cuerdas dobles y Ziryab le añadió una quinta cuerda. Es un instrumento melódico de origen persa, siendo el eje de la orquestación de las formaciones musicales de oriente medio y el Magreb.
• Qanun (cítara persa): instrumento dotado de 78 cuerdas con un gran registro musical. Posee una caja de resonancia de madera, plana y trapezoidal.
  
  
• Darbuka: tambor árabe usado en la percusión de todo Oriente Medio y el Magreb. Tiene forma de cáliz. La membrana se golpea alternativamente con la mano en el centro y con los dedos en los bordes y centro, tocándose con ambas manos y una sofisticada técnica.

Griselda Qamar se diploma en Trabajo Social y licencia en Antropología Social y Cultural en Granada. Aprovechando la coyuntura sociocultural entra en contacto con diferentes minorías étnicas del Norte de África, Subsahariana, Egipto y Turquía, dejándose influir por diferentes escuelas de danza desde la puramente andalusí-medieval pasando por la danza del Magreb y Oriente. En el 98 comienza sus estudios entorno a la música y la danza, y en el 01 empieza su trayectoria profesional como bailarina de Ensemble Al-Tarab.

Bajo el reinado de Ader Rahman II (822-852) se produce un giro decisivo con la llegada a Córdoba de un alumno y rival de Ishak Al Mawsili de Bagdad: Abu el Hassan Ali Ibn Nafeh, conocido con el nombre de Ziryab (el pájaro negro), del cual Ibn Jaldún dijo que “ha dejado en herencia, a España, el conocimiento de la música.” Es cierto que él introdujo el uso de la púa en forma de pluma de águila para acompasar, mejor que los dedos, el acompañamiento del laúd. También añadió al laúd una quinta cuerda, pero no para extender su diapasón, sino para hacer más matizada y más humana la sonoridad del instrumento, colocando, además, esa quinta cuerda en medio de las cuatro primeras. Y, a imitación de lo que su padre hizo en Bagdad, creó en Córdoba el primer “conservatorio de música” en Occidente.

El canto gregoriano y la música musulmana clásica persiguen el mismo objetivo y tienen el mismo origen: una meditación sobre los textos sagrados, a base de una lectura rítmica. La riqueza de la ornamentación y de sus contrapuntos están, en ambos casos, subordinados a la expresión de la vida espiritual.

En Al-Andalus, el arte musical gozaba de una autonomía muy grande y se humaniza, distanciándose a la vez del canto gregoriano y de la música árabe. Menos atada a las exigencias didácticas y a las presiones del poder, la música sigue una trayectoria en donde la melodía va tomando la delantera al texto

El muwashahas, fenómeno literario y musical, es la primera tentativa hecha para unir la poesía árabe clásica al folklore romance de Al-Andalus. El zéjel representa un grado superior de integración y el nacimiento de un arte original después de los tanteos de yuxtaposición y de los ensayos de síntesis.

La caída de Granada en el año 1492 dará la hora de la dispersión de la nuba en África del norte, de Kairouan a Argel y a Fez. A pesar de todo, la influencia de este maravilloso florecimiento del Islam andaluz se manifiesta en toda Europa: Alfonso X el Sabio, rey de Castilla de 1252 a 1284, no desprecia el uso de las muwashahas ni del zéjel para la composición de las Cantigas de Santa María, en dialecto galaico.

En Francia, el primero de los trovadores, el duque de Aquitania, Guillermo IX (1071-1127), ha sido educado en la Corte de su padre en el clima artístico de Al-Andalus. Guillermo VIII había llevado a su tierra, tras las luchas en España, un gran número de prisioneros de lengua árabe, entre los cuales Guillermo IX pasó su juventud.

Uzman spells his name Otman every other week, both arbitrary approximations in his ears.  Him and his brother Mel spell their last names differently [Almerabet vs M'Rabet].

One of the great things about hip-hop is that there are very few established rules about song structure.  Sure, a lot of commercial hip-hop sticks to the a standard verse/chorus pattern of 16 bars, but

Schreiner 54

Download MP3 –> “No Te Rebeles (Seguiriya)”

Gnawledge con la colaboración especial de

Hidetomo Nambu (flamenco guitar)
Maya Oshiba (violin)
DJ Doblegota (scratch)

Flamenco was born acapella.  In the beginning, there was no flamenco guitar and no flamenco dance, just the human voice. Flamenco (and hip-hop) are verbal acts of self-declaration from a community marginalized by poverty and prejudice. For 1000 years, a cycle of suffering followed the Gypsy diaspora from India to Andalucía, where flamenco was born.

Gypsies first arrived in Spain in the 15th century, just a few year prior to modern Spain’s founding as a single unified country, after an 800-year Iberian civil war between Muslims and Christians. Unlike the Moors and Sephardic Jews, the Gitanos was never completely expelled from Spain, partly because they were (and remain) a devoutly Catholic community.

Flamenco was originally assembled by Spanish Gypsies, known as gitanos [hee-tanos].  I say “assembled” because it was not invented but forged from a patchwork of indigenous Iberian musical traditions.  Gitanos transformed preexisting Spanish music — with all its diverse Gregorian, Sephardic and Arab influences — into a uniquely Gitano artform.

Aficionados distinguish between traditional flamenco — known as cante jondo — and the modern flamenquito pop on the radio, just like heads draw lines between real hip-hop and commercial rap. [canyon]

Hidetomo Nambu was the first musician I met in Spain. While everyone else on the bus from Madrid to Granada was wearing tiny white iPod headphones, we were both wearing big 1970s audiomuffs that cover your whole ear.  I assumed he was a tourist, we introduced ourselves in English, and eventually traded headphones to share music with each other.

I was listening to the Orishas, a Cuban hip-hop group.  I was suprised to discover he was listening to flamenco guitarist Vicente Amigo.  Turns out Hidetomo is actually a flamenco guitarist who had been living in Granada for years. Quick friends, we ended up sharing an apartment above Juan Miguel Carmona’s flamenco guitar workshop.  The whole world knows Hidetomo, at least in Granada, where he’s equally famous for both his dedication to flamenco and the deliciousness of his sushi, which he offers as free tapas at Potemkin, a local bar owned by Granada Doaba drummer Richard Dudanski.

Hidetomo was first introducted to flamenco by Yutaro Nagao.  Yutaro left Japan at a young age in search of adventure.  He went to Thailand, where he trained as a muay-thai boxer, but quit after his first professional fight.  He then headed for Spain, intending to become either a bullfighter or a flamenco guitarist. He ended up a guitarist, and quite a good one.

Back in Japan, Hidetomo was a dishwasher-turned-cook working at Spanish restaurant in Tokyo.  Yutaro walks into the restaurant and they become friends.  Eventually, Yutaro convinced him to visit Granada, and then Hidetomo Nambu fell in love.  His passion and affection for flamenco deserves a better pen than mine, so I’ll beseech thee to just trasfer the emotional gist from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s El amor en los tiempos de cólera.

With 30 years old, Hidetomo moved to Granada and dedicated himself to the rather daunting task of becoming a flamenco guitarist.  He wasn’t even a regular guitarist at the time, so he had to start from the beginning. Fortunately, Hidetomo is enamored with the process of practice, and doesn’t cut corners.

After studying flamenco in Granada for a while, Hidetomo decided to look for a nice guitar.  “I had no doubt that I was going to continue playing for the rest of my life,” he explains, “so I wanted to buy a good one.”  He considered various options from different luthiers, but eventually fell in love at first thwack with a yellow rosewood flamenco guitar constructed by Juan Miguel Carmona. Years later, it was JuanMi who saved Granada Doaba by loaning us one of his beautiful guitars after our unfortunate Gibson guitar disaster.  All 3 flamenco guitars heard on Granada Doaba were hand-made by Juan Miguel Carmona in his Realejo workshop downstairs from our recording studio

“The iteration of slow chant sublime” TS Eliot

When I returned to America after recording Granada Doaba, I sent an unmastered CD-R to Dmitri Vietze from Rock Paper Scissors and DubMC, both spectacular websites dealing with global music.  He replied: “Hey CC - Thank you so much for sharing your music and the letter! I really like the concept of the project and most of the execution. There is one track with vocals which I find very dissonant. Actually, I’m just going to come out and say it: I think the vocals are not in key with the music. What’s the story with that track?”

I quik clicked reply, typed my answer and pressed send.  There’s something revealing about how unreflective email can be:

“WRT your queery, we recorded the song “No Te Rebeles” around a preexisting acapella (or “toná” = the oldest form of traditional flamenco song) by Enrique Morente from a classic 1977 album that any traditional flamenco fan would recognize.  As the only “mashup” on the album, the track (i hope) explores this concept of “dissonace”

We built the first 1/2’s beat around his voice, using a dissonant guitar loop to heighten the haunting lyrical topic matter (betrayal, death…).  His original vocals modulate between the Phyrigian and Ionian scales (both with tonic @Bflat –> http://books.google.com/books?id=EPC-yn0xcIAC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=enrique+morente+chacon+no+te+rebeles

Hiphop really dont give a fck bout modulation.  We detune our drums for boombaps sake and speed up our vocal samples to 45 rpm cuz it sounds cool.  The 2nd half of “No Te Rebeles” presents the other argument, which is that music should be in tune (which it definitely is… verify our violinist’s partiture @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/granadadoaba/3180517287/

Flamenco is structured around distinct song forms called “palos”.  There are more than 50 palos, each with a unique rhythmic structure (or compás), emotional attitude, melodic progressions and harmonic mode. There are more than 50 active palos, with hundred of local variations and extinct varities [see: Genealogical Tree of Flamenco Palos].   The oldest form of flamenco song is called toná, an acapella tradition invested by Tío Luis el de la Juliana, a singer from Jerez de la Frontera born in the 18th century. Surpisingly, it remains unknown whether or not he was gitano.

The first flamenco song form to incorporate the guitar was the seguirilla.  This palo is usually played in the phygian mode, an alternative way of dividing of the octave, distinct from the Western major or minor scales. Some palos are associated with a specific city or geographical area, such as the fandangoes de Huelva or tangos de Cádiz.  The granaína and media granaína are newer palos associated with Granada, invented by maestro flamenco singer Antonio Chacón.

Enrique Morente (b. Granada, 1942) is widely respected as one of the best flamenco singers of all time; many consider him the best cantaor since Camaron’s death in 1988.  As a young man, Morente was a devout student of traditional flamenco.  He sang orthodox cante jondo on his first recordings, which included collaborations with the great guitarist Manolo Sanlúcar.

In 1977, Enrique Morente collaborated with fellow Granada native Pepe Habichuela on an homage album dedicated to maestro flamenco singer Antonio Chacón.  Though he was undoubtedly a fundamental figure of in the development of flamenco at the beginning of the 20th century, Chacón had been relegated the the footnotes of flamencology because of the prevailing attitude that considered non-Gypsy flamenco as impure.  This was a somewhat personal battle for Morente, who is also “payo” or non-Gitano. Morente married a Gitana flamenco dancer, which is why his daughter Estella Morente, a well-known flamenco pop star, is sometimes presented as an example of evolving attitudes towards Gitanos in Spain.

Is flamenco Gypsy music?  Yes.  No.  Is hip-hop African-American music?  Yes. No. There’s a global range of influences in the gestation and evolution of flamenco and hip-hop.  But they were both born as the musical expression of (mostly) a single race.  From those roots, hip-hop made it to Spain and flamenco made it to Japan.

While I lived with Hidetomo, he practised guitar 8-hours a day, every day.  When I got sick of listening to Andalusian scales, I’d walk downstairs to see JuanMi in his workshop and learn about flamenco from the source.  JuanMi has been making flamenco guitars by hand for 25 years.  I watched him spend weeks shaping a single guitar, producing only 10 instruments during my year living with his family.  Deservedly so, his masterpieces sell for more than €5,000.

Because my teacher was biased, I ended up listening to lots of Granada flamenco.  One of the first albums JuanMi gave me was Enrique Morente’s Homenaje a Don Antonio Chacón, which features an tradition tonas from the Chacon repertoire called “No Te Rebeles.” Renacting the evolution of flamenco from an acapella tradition to a multi-instrumental song, we added layers of guitar and violin to his acapella, building a new beat around his words. The guitar stabs at the beginning of the beat of “No Te Rebeles” are sampled from “Siempre por los Rincones,” a seguiriya from the same Chacón homage album.

A few weeks after submitting my Fulbright application, I was sitting in a hotel conference hall with Wayne Marshall listening to a musicology presentation about key changes in Shania Twain songs.   The whole thing was as complicated as Mississippi, all of it way beyond my musical knowledge.  I’ve been actively involved with music my whole life, but I’ve never really been able to play an instrument.  Some violin lessons, a few piano ditties, the guitar chords, but I just don’t get it.  Never did, never will.

“Can you read music?” Wayne asked me, pointing to the hand-out, separating the wheat from chaff.  Rather asking why all of Shania Twain’s songs have the same beat (stomp-stomp-clap), I leaned over and asked Dr. Marshall if hip-hop songs ever modulated.  As a DJ [and a dancer], I’m fairly sensitive to even slight changes in tempo, but the tonic could reposition itself from E major to c# minor and I’d just keep dancing none-the-wiser.  Wayne said he couldn’t think of any key changes in hip-hop songs.  I ask why that didn’t happen.  He said because hip-hop was largely produced by people without any formal training in music, who were making up the rules as they went along.  That made me feel better.  I love hip-hop.

In 1995, Enrique Morente appeared in Carlos Saura’s film Flamenco singing a traditional siguiriya and also recorded his most controversial album: Omega, a fusion project with Spanish punk rock group Lagartija Nick featuring lyrics from Federico García Lorca’s book Poeta en Nueva York.

I was born in Hollywood and Enrique Morente is the first celebrity I have ever asked to be photographed with.

Jaime Heredia “El Parrón” y su hija Marina Heredia

Tú no te rebeles gitano
aunque te maten tu gente
ay, yo tengo echao juramento
de pagarte con la muerte.

Vinieron y me dijeron que tu
había hablao mal de mi
mira mi buen pensamiento
que no lo creía en ti.

Flamencologia : Anselmo Gonzales Climent (1955)
Geografia del Cante Jondo : Domingo Manfredi (1955)
El Cante Andaluz : J. M. Caballero Bonald et al (1956)
The Art of Flamenco : Donn El Pohren (1962)
Mundo y Formas del Cante Flamenco : Ricardo Molina y Antonio Mairena (1963)

“Tenemos la suerte de que la discografía flamenca es de las más importantes que existen en el mundo de cualquier género de música. El primer disco de flamenco se grabó veinte años antes que el primero de jazz, y el jazz se inventó en el país donde se inventó el fonógrafo. Hay una riqueza grabada que no existe en casi ningún otro género del mundo, pero se ha pasado por épocas más cercanas a nosotros en que las compañías han grabado flamenco porque no pagaban a los artistas y no les costaba nada, dándoles categoría.” José Manuel Gamboa

Martinetes y la música

Gnawledge - “Nunca Fui a Granada” [free mp3 download]

. . .  con la colaboración especial de Gnotes [guitara, cajón y palmas]

Gnotes and I have been making music together since 1954. Within three months of our first connection in Boston, we started Gnawledge Records, released his debut album, and traveled to Cuba to perform at the Habana Hip-Hop Festival.

I only applied for the Fulbright grant because I knew Gnotes would come with me to Granada. The basic idea of the project was to promote intercultural collboration through music, so we built a small studio in our apartment and invited everyone in town to come over anytime and record.  The songs from Granada Doaba are the result of 16 people coming together for improvised jam sessions and recording our collaborations.

Our song “Nunca Fui a Granada” is an exception to the collaborative process.  All I know is that I left Gnotes in the studio at about 10pm to go to DJ at club I was working at, and then when I got home at 7am, this song was finished. He made the beat on the Akai MPC, plays live guitar, cajón and palmas. He also raps on the remix.

Gnotes’ last album [Rhymes and Beats] won him the nomination for best rapper in Boston in 2008; since then, he produced both albums from Gnawledge bredren Elemental Zazen and Afro DZ ak — then he came to Spain to record Granada Doaba.

When Gnotes got to Granada, his beautiful guitar died in a tragic accident in the home of flamenco guitar maker Juan Miguel Carmona, the family luthier for the Habichuela clan. For my Fulbright project, JuanMi was my biased teacher and patient guide through the labrynth of flamenco.  He saved this albums life by loaning us one of his prized guitars for the recording.

Gnotes fell in love with JuanMi’s guitar, which he eventually bought and brought home with him to Seattle.  Ever the philanderer, Gnotes also became quite smitten with the cajón, a Peruvian box drum used in flamenco.  The cajón has the uncanny ability to reproduce the same boom-bap rhythms that Gnotes used to bang out with his bare hands on top of wooden school desks when he was kid. And more than anything, Gnotes went head over heals for palmas, the most democratic instrument of mankind.” [canyon]

While the newspapers twittered with updates about the war in Cuba between Spain and the US, Federico García Lorca was born in the Granada suburb of Fuente Vaqueros on June 5, 1898.  García Lorca — a poet, dramatist, ethnomusicologist and the pride of Granada — is considered the most important writer in 20th century Spanish literature and also played a major roll in the developement of cante jondo, or flamenco.

With 21 years old, Lorca met Spanish composer Manuel de Falla, who had moved to Granada from his home in Cádiz. Lorca was quite impressed by the famous composer, who first introduced Lorca to flamenco.  Together they organized the first Festival del Cante Jondo in 1922 in order to revitalize traditonal songs on the verge of extinction and revalorize “true” flamenco.

Partly inspired by a new wave in nationalism in Spanish music, Lorca passionately studied the roots of flamenco. Two of his most important works are dedicated to Gypsy music and culture: Poema del cante jondo y Romancero gitano.

Lorca was an important part of the Generación de ‘27, a constellation of liberal authors and intellectuals.  En 1929, Lorca left to New York, in part as a remedy for  broken heart after separating with his ex-lover Salvador Dalí.  After their break-up, Lorca took personal offence with a surreal film made by Dalí, Un Perro Andaluz, which the Granada poet considered a pejorative caricature and gnerally kinda mean.

In New York, Garcia Lorca hung out Uptown.  He frecuented spots in Harlem and felt an affinity with African-Americans, whose music and social situation shared many similarities with the gitanos in Granada. The book of poetry written during Lorca’s time in America, Poeta en Nueva York, is widely considered the pinnaacle of his career.  They way he tells it, “Yo creo que el ser de Granada me inclina a la comprensión simpática de los perseguidos. Del gitano, del negro, del judío, del morisco, que todos llevamos dentro.”

When he returned to Spain (after a brief dip down to Cuba), Lorca found a country in political turmoil.  In 1936, alied with the other liberal parties, the Republicans won the national electrons in Spain.  The governing coalition, called the Frente Popular, promised to raise work salaries and initiated immidiate agrarian reform.

A military uprising against the elected government won support from conservative sectors of Spanish society (businesses, land-owners and the Catholic Church) who were opposed to the Frente Popular’s liberal social and economic policies.  General Francisco Franco initiated his coupdetat in the Canary Islands, with the ensuing Spanish Civil War lasting 3 years. As a result of his leftist politics and open homosexuality, Lorca’s friends advised him to protect himself against Franco’s troops.  The ambassadors of Columbio and Mexico bother offereed him politcal exile, but Lorca decided instead to go back home to Granada for the summer.  On August 16, 1936, Federico García Lorca was detained at a friend’s house and killed by the military.

After 3 years of bloody warfare filled with civilian casualties, a triumphant Franco installed himself as the head of a Fascist dictatorship in 1939.  Franco’s regime initially prohibited all of Lorca’s poetry, until a heavily censored version of his complete works were published in 1952.

Descargar las Obras Completas de Federico García Lorca [en español]:
Formato PDF (2.7 MB)

It means “I never went to Granada”, a regretful lament from Spanish poet Rafael Alberti.  Also a memeber of the Generacion of 27, Alberti was forced into exile because of the Spanish Civil War and wasn’t able to return him until 38 years later.  In 1975, the same year  Franco died, Alberti wrote the poem Nunca fui a Granada, dedicated to his friend Federico García Lorca, who had always suggested Alberti visit Granada.  Because of the war and Lorca’s assisination, Alberti was never able to meet hist friend in his hometown.” [canyon]

“Nunca Fui A Granada” recitado por el propio autor Rafael Alberti

The voice and guitar sample at the beginning of our version comes from Rosa Leon’s interpretation of Alberti’s poem.

This version of “Nunca Fui A Granada” is perfomed by Paco Ibañez.

Granada flamenco singer Marina Heredia also interprets “Nunca Fui a Granada”on her album La Voz del Agua.

La Historia del Cajón

In the beginning, there were no drums.  Flamenco began with just the voice and only later evolved to include guitar, dancing and clapping.   The incorporation of a Peruvian box drum known as a cajon was on the radical elements of the nuevo flamenco in the late 1970s.  After Franco’s death in 1975, the politcal transformation and recorganztion of the Spanish society produced a cultural revoltion known as la movida.

In just 30 years, the cajón has established itself was as the most common instrument in flamenco percussion, which had traditionally been limited to clapping, snapping, the heels of a dancer, knuckles on a table or tap on the guitar itself.  Castanets, though globally associated with flamenco, have very little to do with traditional flamenco.

The cajón was invented by African slaves in Peru during the Spanish colonization of the Americas.  The Spanish government banned slaves from drumming, which the Chrurch consdiered pagan while the plantation owners worried that they drum rhtyhms were communicting plans for revolt with other plantations. As a result of the 17th century prohibition of drums, slaves used whatever they could get their hand on for make-shift instruments, using spoons, tables, chairs.  When colonial slavemasters forced slaves to pick tomatoes and load the fruit into wooden boxes [or "cajons"] for transportation, the cajons got tap-tap-tapped. And it sounded good.

Flamenco was first introduced to the cajón in the same year that Spain ratified its a new democratic constitution.  While on tour in Peru with pioneering flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia, the Brazian percusionist Rubem Dantas discovered the cajon and integrated it into the flamenco soundscape.  In Spain, the cajón has been outfitted with three or ford metal cords to add resoance, but the instrument is essentially the same of as the Peruvian original.  That flamenco has embraced the cajon as an instrument of Spanish origin has been a great bother to some Peruvians who lament, “First, Spain burned our drums and now they want to steal our cajón”.

Other than Dantas, many of the other imporatnt flamenco percussionists have a background outside of flamenco:

José Antonio Galicia

• “Empecé tocando otro tipo de música, rock más o menos duro. Luego vas conociendo músicos y vas descubriendo gente y fórmulas distintas de música. Me fui metiendo más en el mundo de la bossa nova y el jazz… Me acuerdo de que cuando empecé a tocar con la batería ritmos como la bulería, algunos flamencos desde abajo decían: “¿Dónde vas con esas latas?”. Te pegaban unas broncas… De todas formas, el flamenco acaba admitiéndolo todo”

• “La percusión también ha ayudado a liberar a los guitarristas. Aunque sea un instrumento rítmico que podría vivir solo, gracias a la percusión que le da base, la guitarra ha podido hacer cosas armónicas más abiertas, flotar… pues al volver, la percusión la está esperando.”

Tino di Geraldo

• “Empecé tocando escuchando Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, James Brown… Vamos, que era más bien blanco y muy payo.”

Piraña

One of the most impressive young dynasties of cajon players is composed of 3 grandsons of classic flamenco singer Porrinas de Badajoz, sons of Ramón el Portugués.  The eldest brother Ramón Porrina has recorded with Vicente Amigo, Paco de Lucia and Camarón, while his younger brother Piraña is now part of Paco de Lucía new band.

————–

Citas de Federico García Lorca

“Granada es una ciudad de ocio, una ciudad para la contemplación y la fantasía, una ciudad donde el enamorado escribe mejor que en ninguna otra parte el nombre de su amor en el suelo. Las horas son allí más largas y sabrosas que en ninguna otra ciudad de España. Tiene crepúsculos complicados de luces constantemente inéditas que parece no terminarán nunca. Sostenemos con los amigos largas conversaciones en medio de sus calles. Vive con la fantasía. Está llena de iniciativas, pero falta de acción.” Federico García Lorca

“Federico, ¿qué es la poesía?”
“La poesía es algo que anda por las calles. Que se mueve, que pasa a nuestro lado. Todas las cosas tienen su misterio, y la poesía es el misterio que tienen todas las cosas. Se pasa junto a un hombre, se mira a una mujer, se adivina la marcha oblicua de un perro, y en cada uno de estos objetos humanos está la poesía.” (1936)

“Escucho a la Naturaleza y al hombre con asombro, y copio lo que enseñan sin pedantería, sin dar a las cosas un sentido que no sé si tienen.

“Si es verdad que soy poeta por la gracia de Dios –o del demonio- tambièn lo es que lo soy por la gracia de la tècnica y del esfuerzo y de darme cuenta en absoluto de lo que es un poema”.

“Con las palabras se dicen cosas humanas; con la música se expresa eso que nadie conoce ni lo puede definir”.

Free Download –> “La Senda Del Abuelo” [mp3]

. . .  Gnawledge con la colaboración especial de

Mohammed Dominguez (darbuka)
Afro DZ Ak (trumpet)

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. Music already speaks for itself, all you have to do is listen.  So, before I swandove into the deep world of flamencología, I eased myself into the rather enjoyable trabajo of listening to the flamencœuvre of classic LPs.

But because my teacher was biased, all my educational listening material centered around the legendary families of Granada flamenco: the Habichuelas, the Morentes, the Heredias, the Mayas and the Carmonas. Not global music, local music.

You don’t really need to know that Granada was a Muslim city for 800 years, or that Gypsies and Muslims shared songs in the Andalusian mountains, where they lived together as fugitives from Ferdinand and Isabella’s new Spain.

Even if we didn’t have history books, you could still just hear the Arab influence in flamenco.  The Granada guitar evokes the tambre of the Arab laúd.  The way a flamenco singer wails and warbles his voice sounds a lot like the Islamic adhān, the melismatic call to prayer.

But you shouldn’t always trust your ears.  Or the books.  So we decided to dissect, study, and then remisconstruct a flamenco song indigenous to Granada, as performed by local hero Juan Habichuela.

To highlight the Arab roots of Granada flamenco, we remixed Habichuela’s guitar with Arab percussion played by Mohammed Dominguez, a Muslim drummer from Venezuelan who immigrated to Granada and plays darbuka with the Al-Tarab ensemble.

Juan Habichuela (b. 1930) is the patriarch of a family legacy of flamenco artists based in Sacromonte, the Gypsy neighborhood in the hills above Granada.

Considered the most talented living guitarist in the subtle art of accompanying flamenco singers, Juan Habichuela has recorded almost every important cantaor since 1960, including Manolo Caracol, Antonio Mairena, Camarón, Enrique Morente and Fosforito [video below].

According to Juan Habichuela, “An accompanying guitarist should never abuse his position for exhibitionism. That should be left for when you record a solo album,” which he never did until he was 40 years deep into his professional career. His 1999 debut solo album De la Zambra al Duende is beautiful, worth buying, and includes 2 great vocab words in the title.

With the colaboración especial of Granada flamenco singer Marina Herédia, the song “Coge la Senda” is one of the many jewels from Juan Habichuela’s third and (supposedly) final album Una Guitarra en Granada, which won the Spanish Grammy Award for Best Flamenco Album in 2008. Juan Habichuela explains that “Coge la Senda” is based on a “pure Granada tango that my Aunt Marina used to sing.”

According to the flamencologists, “there’s a wide range of the tangos interpreted by the Gypsies of Sacromonte which have their true origins in the zambras of the moriscas.” Our song “La Senda Del Abuelo” is an exploration of the zambra and other Arab influences on flamenco. The song is dedicated to legendary guitarist Juan Habichuela, to whom Granada owes considerable gratitude.

“La tradición del arabesco de la Alhambra, complicado y de pequeño ámbito, pesa en todos los grandes artistas de aquella tierra” Federico García Lorca

La Historia de las Zambras

In 1469, the marriage of Isabel de Castilla y Fernando de Aragón provided the politcal foundation for modern Spain. With the united military power of the two largest Christian kingdoms in Northern Spain, the reyes catolicos reinitiated the (Re)conquista of Al-Andalus.

For the last 200 years, the once-mighty Muslim Empire in Spain had been whittled down to nothing but the Nazarí Kingdom of Granada, the last refuge for Muslims in Spain, and as a result, one of the most populated cities in Europe.

Boabdil, the last Nazarí King, signed the surrender of Granada in 1492, bringing the an end to 800 years of Muslim rule in Spain.  Also in 1492, the Edict of Granada demanded the conversion or expulsion of all Sephardic Jews.  In the terms of surrender for Granada, Ferdinand and Isabella guaranteed religious freedom for all Muslims who decided to stay in Spain:

• “Que sus mezquitas y las fundaciones religiosas que tuvieran que ver con ellos, debían permanecer como estaban en tiempos del Islam.”

For the first few years after the fall of Granada, there was a relative peace between Christians and Muslims, while Hernando de Talavera, the new archbishop of Granada, tried to win converts through peaceful means. Nevertheless, the convivencia did’t last long before deteriorating into a violent struggle.

In 1499, Francisco Cisneros, the future Inquisitor General of Spain, initiated the public burning of thousands of Arab books in the Plaza Bib-Rambla, starting with the Korans and continuing with historical manuscripts from the Granada library.  the subsequent public uprising in the Muslim neighborhood of Albaicín then procoked the Pragmática of 1502, which ordered the conversion or expulsion of all Muslims, breaking the terms of the surrender of Granada signed nby Ferdinand and Isabella, which guaranteed the religious tolerance for Granada’s Muslim population.

To avoid expulsion, the majority of Muslims opted for conversion to Christianity.  If the new converts, known as  moriscos, only spoke Arabic and didn’t understand Spanish, the Church baptized them as Fernando if he was a man and Isabel for women.

Danza Morisca en Granada (1529) by Christoph Weiditz

During the reign of Carlos V (1516–1556),  the Spanish King adopted a relatively flexible position with regard to the moriscos, allowing them to conserve their customs which made no reference to Islam.  As a result, the moriscos continued to celebrate their zambras, secular celebrations with Arab music and dance.

In 1566, King Felipe II prohibited all ceremonies with Muslim origins, including the zambras: “Que en boda, velaciones y fiestas semejantes, siguieran las costumbres cristianas, abriendo ventanas  y puertas, sin hacer zambras, ni leilas, con instrumentos y cantares moriscos, aunque estos no fueran contrarios al cristianismo.” Felipe II’s decree also outlawed closing the front door of moriscos’ homes at night, required all moriscos to learn Spanish within three years, and banned all traditional Arab dress, in particular the woman’s veil. The Pragmática was met with a new uprining in the Albaicín on Christmas Eve 1568, a revolt which eventually led Felipe III in 1609 to expell all 275,000 moriscos in Granada.

“Fue un momento malísimo, aunque digan lo contrario en la escuela. Se perdieron una civilización admirable, una poesía, una astronomía, una arquitectura y una delicadeza única en el mundo, para dar paso a una ciudad pobre, acobardada; a una tierra «de chavico» donde se agita actualmente la peor burguesía de España” Federico García Lorca

Authors such as George Borrow and Blas Infante have written extensively about how many of the moriscos fled to the Alpujaras, the mountain range above Granada, where they joined tribes of Gypsies in order to hide from the Spanish Inquisition.

Originally from Punjab, a region between Pakistan and northern India, Gypsies arrived in Spain in the 15th century after crossing the Middle East, Europe and North Africa.

The first album from flamenco singer Juan Peña “El Lebrijano” Persecución (1976) is based on the dramatic work of Spanish poet  Félix Grande, which narrates the persecution of the Gypsies from their arrival to the Iberian Peninsula unti the  Real Decreto of Carlos III, which legally recognized Spanish Gypsies in 1783.

Amongst the numerous proposals for the etymology of the word “flamenco”, one the more popular proposes that it comes from the Arabic expression  “felag mengu”, which means  significa “fugitive peasants” in reference to the moriscos who fled from the Inquisition by hiding within Gypsy communties in Andalusia.

[the truth is there remains much disagreement about the etymology of "flamenco." Some trace its birth to Gypsies who arrived in Andalusia from Flanders (known as "Flamenco" in Spanish), while other propositions connect it to word "flame" in reference to the fiery energy of the music and dance.]

The generally agreed upon birthdate for flamenco is the mid 19th century.Various books from that period propose the idea that flamenco was influenced by Moorish  music, including Richard Ford’s “Las Cosas de España” (1831) and Serafín Estébanez Calderón’s Escenas Andaluzas (1847).

Today, the Gitanos still celebrate the traditional zambra, 400 years after Moriscos were expelled from Spain.  The modern Gypsy interpretation celebrated in the caves of Sacromonte is composed of three flamenco dances (la alboreá, la cachucha y la mosca) which symbolize three moments from a a Gitano wedding.

In the 1960s, flamenco singer Manolo  Caracol developed a  style of musical theater modelled after the Gypsy zambra, for which “an exotic, Moorish military atmosphere was created.”

Confusingly, even to flameco musicians, there is also a palo called the zambra, which has nothing to do with Gitano wedding parties.  Popularized by the guitarist Sabicas, the zambra palo is indiginous to Granada, a peculiar variation on the tango characterized by heavy cadences and slow rhythms. With the sixth string tuned down a half-step (aka “dropped d”), the flamenco guitar of the zambra can evoke the tambre of the Arab laud.

Blas Vega: “A Nuestra música no debe nada esencial a los árabes ni a los moros, quienes quizá no hicieran más que reformar algunos rasgos ornamentales comunes al sistema oriental y al persa, de donde proviene el suyo árabe. Los moros, por consiguiente, fueron los influidos.”

Largely as result of major changes in Catholic Church doctrine after Vatican II (1962-1965), the Spanish government passed its a law guaranteeing the right to religious freedom in 1967.  A year later, Madrid’s first synogue was inaugurated; it wasn’t until 2003 that Granada opened its first mosque in the last 500 years.

In the new Consitution of 1978, which installed democracy in Spain after 28 years of military dictatorship, complete religious freedom is gauranteed. Though Catholicism remains the overwhelming status quo, Islam has become the second largest religion in Spain.  Largely as a resuly of immigration from North Africa, there are now 1 million Muslims living in Spain.

A recent increase of illegal immigration into the Canary Islands and the involvement of Islamic terrorists in the March 11, 2004 Madrid bombings have increased cultural and religious tensions at a time when Spain’s young democracy is working to build a peaceful pluralist society. Following the M-11 attacks, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero delivered a major speech to the United Nations in which he advocated an “alliance of civilizations” to prevent escalating religious conflicts.

We’re still working on it.

Descargar MP3 –> “Bohemia Al-Andalus”

. . . con la colaboración especial de Joaquín Sánchez Gil (clarinete) Mel M’Rabet (laúd) Richard Dudanski (batería) Paul Brundtland (cajón)

In my application for the Fulbright Scholarship, I wrote “My hope is that this project will show how music can bring together different groups of people, promote mutual understanding and encourage intercultural collaboration.” Although I do believe that music can be used as a force for positive social change, I also realize that rhythms and melodies can also be used to divide and conquer.  This song admits and explores the historical connection between music and war.  [canyon]

The world’s first military band was developed by the Ottoman Empire in the 13th century. Known as Mehter, the Ottoman marching band featured large kettle drums and loud, shrill  horns  called zurnas. The purpose of the band was not only to keep the marching armies organized, but also to instill fear in their enemies, who could hear the infamous Mehter from a great distance annoucing the imminent arrival of the powerful Ottoman army.

The Ottoman Empire became the world’s  superpower in 1453 after conquering the former Byzantine capital Constantinople, which they  renamed Istanbul.  The Ottoman military expansion continued unimpeded until 1683, when a failed attack on Vienna marked the beginning of the end for the once-mighty Ottoman Empire.

As part of the celebratory festivities surrounding the signing of the peace accord which ended the Austro-Turkish War in 1699, the Mehter military band performed a series of concerts in Europe that had great influence over contemporary classical composers of the time, most notably Mozart’s sonata “Rondo alla Turca” and Beethoven’s Opus 113 “Marcha Turca.”

Only nine years prior (and not too far from Vienna), Johann Christian Denner  found himself frustrated with the limited range of the old French chalumeau, a primitive horn which could only produced 9 tones. As a result of his tinkering, the German musician invented the world’s first clarinet in 1690.  Despite its relatively late incorporation into the orchestra,  the clarinet quickly established itself as the instrument of choice for classical composers such as Mozart, Brahms and Weber.

By the 19th century, the Ottoman army had suffered a series of military defeats that left  the once-mighty empire in shambles. In 1826, the new sultan Mahmut II dissolved and radically reformed the Ottoman army, including the Mehter military band.  European armies had incoporated many of the elements that once gave the Ottoman military its advantage, including the  marching band, but built upon the Ottoman model and had since designed more effective armies with more efficient marching bands.

To modernize the Mehter, the new sultan hired the Italian composer Giuseppe Donizetti, brother of opera composer Gaetano, to establish and direct a new military band in the Western style. Donizetti replaced the traditional Mehter instruments such as the zurna [pictured below] with newer European instruments such as the clarinet.

Although there are various similar instruments in Arab music,  the clarinet is much more common  today in Turkish music. While keeping in mind that most Turks are not Arab, certain Arab instruments such as the ‘ud remain popular in Turkey.

After being introduced to the military band, the clarinet grew in popularity and soon became common in Turkish pop music, especially amongst the Gypsy population. There is evidence of Gypsies living in Turkey since before the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453, when they Byzantine city was renamed Istanbul.

Today, Turkey has the largest Gypsy population of in the entire world (2-5 million),  which includes the most popular clarinet players such as  Hüsnü Şenlendirici, Selim Sesler y Mustafa Kandirali.

This song was grew from a seed produced by a live concert performed in Granada by the Ensemble in 2008 in the Albaicín, el antiguo barrio musulmán de Granada. Al-Tarab is a group of Moroccan musicians directed by Uzman Almerabet who perform tradition music from across the Arab world.  As part of my research project, I recorded their live shows and studied with Uzman.  We produced the skeleton of our song “Bohemia Al-Andalus” with the Akai MPC 2000XL, looping a brief sample from Al-Tarab’s ‘ud played by Mel M’Rabet.  We later added live percussion played by  Richard Dudanski and Paul Brundtland, but it wasn’t until we met Joaquín Sánchez that this songs really found its soul.  After hearing it only once, Joaquin began to improvise over the beat, bending the notes of his clarinet with a Arab touch that left us boquiabiertos. [canyon]

Joaquín Sánchez Gil

Clarinete / “Bohemia Al-Andalus” / Granada Doaba

–> también miembro de los grupos

LALOLA (rumba gamberra) y CIRCO ACUSTICO (jazz global)

*** VIDEO : Joaquín Sánchez y Circo Acustico balconada en Placeta de San Gregorio (Granada, 26 octubre 2008)

*** VIDEO : Joaquín Sánchez - “Chorinho Brasileiro” en la audición de final de curso de la Escuela de Música de Armilla (Granada, 26 de junio 2008)

Download MP3 –> “Flamencología“

. . . con la colaboración especial de Juan Habichuela, nieto [guitar]

When rivers come together, the current runs strong. People from around the world come to visit Granada, and many of them never leave. Of the 16 musicians who collaborated on this project, 15 of them decided to move to Granada from their original hometowns in Cadiz, Pamplona, Morocco, England, Japan, etc. The songs we recorded explore their paths of immigration and document their point of confluence in Granada, Spain.

Juan Habichuela is the exception the rule, the only Granada native who participated in our recording experiment. Born in 1988, Juan is part of the 5th generation of flamenco guitarists in his illustrious family history. His great-great-grandfather was one of the first professional flamenco guitarists in Granada and his grandfather is still widely considered the world’s best guitarist for accompanying flamenco singers.

Juan Habichuela lives in El Sacromonte, the old Gitano neighborhood in the hills above Granada.  In addition practicing 8 hours every day [for real] and recording with some of the biggest names in flamenco (Pitingo, Enrique Morente  y más), Juan also plays guitar on the weekends at an old cave in Sacromonte that’s been converted into a flamenco venue called La Buleria, a bar owned by his father.  I was introduced to Juan by his uncle Juan Miguel Carmona, a flamenco luthier who rented me a room above his  guitar workshop where I lived for 9 months during my Fulbright project and recorded Granada Doaba.

We recorded two songs with Juan, one traditional and the other fusion.  For the album’s introduction, Juan composed a type of flamenco song [vocab word: palo] called a zapateado, which explores the history of Spanish guitar from Baroque classical music to the modern style of nuevo flamenco.  The other song we recorded - “La Lengua Del Rió” - well, that’s another story…

• Chapter One : El Zapateado
  

  Flamenco Folk Songs vs Classical Art Music

  (( false dichotomies in dancemusic )) by canyon cody

Ni la música sería lo que es,
ni la orquesta moderna sonaría como suena
de no haber existido la influencia del cante jondo.
[Manuel de Falla]

The guitar was born in Spain, but its evolution extends back to the dawn of woman.  Primitive stringed instruments were plucked by Babylonian and Egyptian musicians more then 4,000 years ago.  The ancient Greek  lyre was  transformed by Romans and Arabs during the Middle Ages, producing the 2 grandfathers of the guitar:  the cithara (which entered Spain with the Romans in the 6th century) and the ‘ud (which was introduced to Andalusia by the Muslims in the 9th century).

After 8 centuries as the primary instrument in the hispano-arab culture of Al-Andalus, the ‘ud evolved into the European lute and became the most important stringed instrument for the Renaissance composers of classical music, but in Spain the vihuela was preferred instead, in part as a reaction against the lute’s Arab legacy and historic connections to Islam  following the Christian reconquest and Inquisition.

The 8th century musical manuscripts Las Cantigas de Santa María depict another stringed instrument from medieval Spain: the guitar.  In contrast to the vihuela and lute,  which were considered aristocratic instruments, the guitar was used by the lower class as an everyday instrument for accompanying popular songs and folkloric dances such as the jota aragonesa, the fandango, the zarabanda, and the zapateado.

When popular dances attracted the attention of the court, many composers took advantage of these [lower-class] cultural legacies as raw melodic or rhythmic material for constructing their classical compositions. Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) - an Italian composer who worked in the Spanish royal court for the last 28 years of his life  - incorporated into his sonatas many elements of popular Andalusian music which he had heard during his time in the southern Spanish city of Seville.  His works demonstrate a convincing similarity with certain types of modern flamenco songs — or “palos” –  particularly the saeta (K490), the bulería (K492), the tango gaditano (K450) and the peternera (K502) .

These similarities are convincing evidence that flamenco music’s gestation period extends back far beyond the genre’s generally accepted birth date of the mid 1800s.

In 1674, the Spanish Baroque composer Gaspar Sanz published his Instrucción de música sobre la guitarra española, a guitar tutorial which contained 90 adaptations of popular songs and dances from the era.  His transcriptions of the zarabanda and the canario [video above] demonstrate certain rhythmic similarities to modern flamenco, particularly the asymmetrical intervals of the accented beats [3+3+2+2+2] of modern palos such as the guajiras and peteneras. [más info]

The canario dance originally comes form the guanches, the Berber people who inhabited the Canary Islands before the Spanish conquest, which happened at the end of the 15th century just after the Christian reconquista of Granada.  Imported the Spain from colonial Africa, the canario dance became popular in the royal court of Spain and eventually evolved into the zapateado.

Here we’ve got the first appearance of the musical concept of ida y vuelta — which means “to go and return” or “roundtrip.”  The effects of Spanish colonialism are explored further in the chapter “Calabazar de Sagua“

In 1880, the virtuoso Spanish violinist Pablo Sarasate composed a version of the zapateado as part of his Opus 23/2 [video above, plus sheet music].

From outside of Spain, other classical also began to turn their ears towards Spanish folklore for inspiration in their work, including the French Ravel, Debussy, Chabrier + Bizet and the Russians Glinka + Rimsky-Korsakov.

Sounds a bit like Paul Simon, the American musician who traveled to South Africa to incorporate foreign rhythms into his album Graceland.

In 1846, Glinka traveled to Andalusia, where (according to his letters) he found “the gypsy dances with the Olé… where the best Spanish singers sing in an Oriental style, while they dance extraordinarily, appearing to listen to three different rhythms; the song in one place, the guitar in another, while the clapping and foot stomping seem to move independently form the music.”

Spanish composers such as Isaac Albéniz, Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados y Joaquín Turina also incorporated aspects of folkloric Spanish music into their classical peices. While in Granada, the Spanish classical guitarist, Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909) wrote his famous tremolo “Recuerdos de la Alhambra.”

Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999) incorporated a zapateado into his Tres Piezas Españolas. [video above]. In 1960, jazz trumpeter Miles Davis reinterpreted Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez on his album Sketches of Spain.

***Curious Tangent: The most oft-heard song in the world — the default ringtone for Nokie mobile phones — was taken from a piece by Tárrega called Gran Vals (listen @ 20 seconds).

La guitarra es una montaña con dos vertientes.
Una es la flamenca; la otra, la clásica.
Ambas igualmente admirables.
[Andrés Segovia]

Andrés Segovia (1893-1987) - the father of the modern classical guitar - was born in Salobreña  (Spain)  but moved at a young age to Granada, where he began to play the guitar: “Busqué la compañía de los mejores tocadores de flamenco, y poco a poco tuve que imponerme la áspera tarea de desaprender lo que me enseñaron.” Segovia even played in the infamous Concurso de Cante Jondo in 1922, though the future star failed to impress the critics:”La tarde musical la terminó Segovia con unas soleares que gustaron mucho, pero este genio no nació para tocar flamenco.” [más info]

Celedonio Romero (1913-1996) was one of the first classical guitarist to incorporate elements of flamenco into his style of playing. In the video above, his song Pepe Romero interprets the zapateado.

Ramón Montoya (1880 -1949) is considered the founding father of the modern flamenco guitar.  In traditional flamenco, the guitar was relegated to a supporting role, primarily there to accompany the singer. Montoya was the first to record a solo guitar album, Arte clásico flamenco, an appropriate title since he was also the first to incorporate arpeggio and four-fingered tremolo into flamenco from classical music.

Sabicas (1912 - 1990) was born in Pamplona but moved to America in 1936 as exile during the Spanish Civil War.  With the flamenco dancer Carmen Amaya, Sabicas played a major role in popularizing flamenco outside of Spain.  In the video above, Sabicas plays Zapateado en Re.

“Ves un zapateao de hace cuarenta años y te puede dar risa. Quiero decir, no me da risa hablar de genios que ha habido, pero técnicamente se ha evolucionado. Es natural, habrá que ir hacia delante.” José Manuel Gamboa

In 1972 Paco de Lucía began his seminal album  El Duende Flamenco with “La Percusion Flamenca” — a zapateado accompanied by a full orchestra.  Three years later, Paco de Lucía returned to the song without the orchestra on his live album En Vivo desde el Teatro Real. The video above of Paco played the zapateado comes from the TV documentary Rito y Geografía del Cante.

Repeated Andrés Segovia experience at the Concurso de Cante Jondo, but in reverse, Paco De Lucía was severely criticized for his interpretation of the classical music of Spanish composer Manuel de Falla (1978).  Years later, his version of Joaquín Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez” (1991) provoked classical guitarist Narcisco Yepes’ strongest criticism: “Es terrible. No se puede soportar. Paco de Lucía, que es un guitarrista flamenco fenomenal, no tiene técnica para tocar ese concierto. Es un sonido tan horrible, tan feo, tan pequeñito, tan fuera de lugar que es una lástima que se lo hayan hecho estudiar. Una verdadera pena.”

Amongst the newer interpretations of the zapateado, the most impressive include Vincente Amigo (”Vivencias imaginadas” y “Oriente Mediterraneo“), Jeronimo Maya (”Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart“), y my personal favorite, the zapateado by Granada-native Miguel Ochando.