Posts Tagged ‘Paco De Lucía’
Pepe Romero Jr. – Paco De Lucia’s New Guitar
Update – I just wanted to post this photo of Paco playing his new Pepe Jr. guitar. I just wish I was there to hear it..
We just found out that Paco De Lucia has bought a new flamenco guitar from Pepe Romero Jr. Apparently when Paco was in Los Angeles to play at Disney Hall, Pepe Sr. showed him Pepe’s latest flamenco guitar (Pepe Jr. was out of town), and the long and short of it was w that Paco decided to keep that guitar. There’s more to the story, as you can hear in the video here of Pepe Jr. playing the guitar in our showroom. Pepe Jr. was recently telling me that he’d like to increase his output of flamencos but that he keeps getting orders for classicals, so I imagine this will help balance things out some. Check out the video to hear the guitar and Pepe Jr. talking about it and about Paco’s decision to keep it, and check out the guitar itself here.
One of the questions we’re asked a lot is ‘what’s the big deal about Conde guitars?’. Certainly no other name in flamenco guitars is quite as well known as Conde, and the reason is actually pretty simple – no other guitars are played by as many of the top flamenco players in Spain. Paco de Lucia has played a Conde since the beginning of his career (and many players from the generation before Paco played them as well), and while Paco has surely had a huge influence on almost every flamenco guitarist since, it’s hard to imagine that he’s the only reason so many great players play Condes. So I’ve put together some videos of just a few of the great players who play these guitars, and I’ll put up more soon. For starters here are Melchor de Marchena, a very young Paco de Lucia, Tomatito with Camarón, Pepe Habichuela, Gerardo Nuñez and Moraito, all playing their Condes. I’ve left out plenty of great players, but this feels like a good start.
Also check out Felipe Conde’s bio here. Felipe is the heir to the Conde tradition and we’re very happy to represent him here in the US.
We’ve got a traditional blanca with mechanical pegs coming in any day now from Erez Perelman. These are fantastic guitars – Paco De Lucia ordered one recently, and you can watch the video of their first meeting here. We’ve got some great photos of the guitar that Erez sent us as well as video of Angel Romero playing one of Erez’s classical guitars at a concert in Israel.
If you build flamenco guitars the dream is to have Paco De Lucia play one of your guitars, and I imagine you try not to allow yourself to hope that he’ll like it enough to actually want one. But when Erez Perelman put a guitar in Paco’s hands Paco just kept playing it and saying how much he liked it, then how great it would be to record on, and now Paco’s manager has contacted Erez in order to get a guitar for Paco to record with! Not that we’re surprised, given the quality of the guitars that Erez has been sending us.. My favorite comment that Paco makes in the videos is ‘it sounds old’.
Among his many claims to fame, which include being part of that wave of flamencos who made it an international thing in the ’60s, Jose Greco gave Paco De Lucia his first steady gig touring when he was just 13. I’m guessing that the responses to this video will be either: a) Too theatrical; b) That’s exactly what flamenco is supposed to be like; or c) Wow, that’s outdated. Now that I’ve poisoned your opinion by giving you my three options, let’s see what you think.
So Paco De Lucia was controversial. Apparently still is in some circles. And his sextet was probably the biggest reason for that. As much as his compositions were evolving, it was the addition of bass and a horn that seems to have really pushed people over the edge (the rest of the sextet is cante, another guitar and percussion/dance, so not too controversial there, I hope). There was no Rite of Spring style riot that I know of, but man were some people upset.
When I was coming up the sextet already existed, and it was just one more part of this music I was falling in love with, so no big deal as far as I was concerned. But if you haven’t seen/heard the sextet you should so you can judge for yourselves. This is a clip from Carlos Saura’s movie ‘Flamenco’ from 1995. Oh, and sometimes there are seven people in the sextet. Or more. Or less. Sextet is a state of mind.
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OK – so I’m considering Paco as two generations since his style has evolved so much over time. But here you have a super-condensed history of the modern flamenco guitar as solo instrument. And this photo just proves that Sabicas was the coolest guitarist ever.
Here’s El Turronero and Camarón singing and Paco Cepero playing. That’s Paco de Lucia in the stylish plaid blazer and ascot.
About 20 years ago, when Jeronimo Maya was around this age, I got to see a show at Carnegie Hall (I think, I could be wrong on that) where Sabicas, Paco De Lucia and a very young Jeronimo each played solo. It was billed, appropriately, as three generations of flamenco guitar. It was one of Sabicas’ last live performances and one of those experiences I’ll never forget. Anyway, this video will show you a little of why Jeronimo Maya, at that age, was considered to be in the same category as the Sabicas and Paco.
OK – so here we have a serious guitar god matchup (with all due respect to Mr. Clapton): John Williams & Julian Bream vs. Paco De Lucia and Ramon De Algeciras (Paco’s recently departed older brother and one of the people who taught Paco how to play in the first place) – classical vs. flamenco to decide this thing once and for all. Both teams are playing Manuel de Falla’s ‘La Vida Breve.’
