"RITO Y GEOGRAFÍA DEL TOQUE" (VIDEO N° 1.)

NIÑO RICARDO, PACO DE LUCÍA : Poema de la Guitarra, from the programme FLAMENCO, Antología de Cante y Baile andaluces ; includes « Sevilla es mi tierra » (soleá) by Manuel Serrapi Sánchez « Niño Ricardo » (Sevilla, 1904-72) ; guajira flamenca by Paco de Lucía and Ricardo Modrego ; and views of Paco de Lucía practicing in a barber’s shop.

PACO DE LUCÍA : from the series Rito y Geografía del Cante ; includes an interview of Francisco Sánchez Gómez « Paco de Lucía » (born Algeciras, 1947), and shows him in tarantas, bulerías, and accompanying his brother Pepe de Lucía ; Camarón playing bulerías ; Paco practicing ; Ramón de Algeciras and Paco de Lucía fine-tuning a bulería falseta (variation), playing soleares, and rumbas with Carlos Rebato as a second guitar.

PEPE MARTÍNEZ : interview of José Martínez León « Pepe Martínez » (Sevilla, 1923-84), then seen playing a granaina, interpreting the choros « Xodó da Bahiana » by the Brasilian composer Dilermando Reis, giving guitar classes, and in colombianas, a zapateado, and guajiras in D major with the sixth string in D.

Comments : A moving recording of Niño Ricardo in soleares, and the earliest images of Paco de Lucía, at sixteen, already preparing his future records with Ricardo Modrego, with a stunning guajira in which one can already find one of the variations of his famous « Guajira de Lucía ». Also, from the Flamenco programme of Spanish Television, images shot in 1964 under the guidance of Antonio Sánchez Pecino, the father of Paco de Lucía. It may be owing to this that Paco is particularly prominent in the series  (we even see him dressed up as a barber in a barber’s shop, practicing  tarantos), and we believe that his guitar can also be heard in the video’s opening, in nothing less than Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D flat (BMW 565).

The programme dedicated to Paco de Lucía comes from the series Rito y Geografía del Cante, shot between 1971 and 1973, and it can be dated 1972. We hear him in taranta variations found in his records Fantasía (1969), La Fabulosa Guitarra de Paco de Lucía (1967), a forerunner of Fuente y Caudal (1973), and other pieces then still unpublished ; he also plays bulería variations from « El Tempul », « Plazuela », and « Punta del Faro », and accompanies Pepe de Lucía in the grip of duende (flamenco exaltation) ; we see him at home in pyjamas, in a practising session with Camarón who briefly plays bulerías, working alone on the taranta of « Fuente y Caudal », and fine-tuning with his brother Ramón a bulería variation found in one of the early records of Camarón. The series continues with the soleares « Cuando canta el gallo » and the zapateado from the record El Duende de Paco de Lucía, and it ends with a rumba half-way between the « Rumba Improvisada » from the 1971 record Recital and « Entre Dos Aguas » from Fuente y Caudal (1973) which belies the legend of this famous piece having been improvised and shows that all that Paco de Lucía recorded was the outcome of earlier maturations.

Another pleasant surprise in this video n° 1 is the possibility of listening to Pepe Martínez, a great concert-oriented flamenco guitar as was Ramón Montoya, and now unjustly neglected. The interviews enable us to evaluate the impact of Pepe Martínez in London and the eminent role that he played in spreading the knowledge of flamenco in Great Britain. All this is a delight for the lovers of the classical toque, and the colombiana and the guajira in D major bring a particular homage to Sabicas.

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