Toque 2024
Weaving a new tapestry out of traditional threads, a pair of virtuosi pay homage to flamenco’s most famous proponent.
JOSÉ MARIA BANDERA –
Paqueando
Paco de Lucia’s name may be synonymous with flamenco, yet non-aficionados remember the Spanish legend mostly as a virtuosic performer rather than an innovative composer who refused to see his chosen genre as something solid – though, of course, filigreed and transparent – and who would be aghast to see its arrested development in recent years. Still, this stop in creative growth is deceptive, and there’s no better proof of such a point than the conspiracy between singing multi-instrumentalist Diego Amador and guitarist José María Bandera – the former a formidable, if self-taught, force behind the drive to reinvent the role of piano in multiple contexts, the latter a direct descendant of De Lucia line, a nephew and a former accompanist of Paco and a student of Paco’s pater. Together, the two masters of the trade came up with a reverently incendiary tribute to their hero, covering his tracks and leaving a fresh imprint on his classics.
It’s hardly surprising, however, that the pair set the fluttering medley of “Potpourri Buleria” where their own melodies complement De Lucia’s tunes as this album centerpiece, but having it start with the passionate, and artificially patinated by a crackle of plastic, “Gloria al Maestro” where Amador’s left alone to run his fingers over both ivories and strings and to intone Andalusian stanzas over his son’s percussive spicing. Diego’s jazzy approach to keyboards may invoke Alberto Ginastera’s, and when his synthesizer, mandola and bass underpin Bandera’s lace on “Canción de Amor” – which fleshes out the original’s elegy first with pastel-hued strokes and then with muscular twang – the gates into a world of fairly contemporary sensuality get open wide. And while the voice-spurred “Palenque” offers a diaphanous, albeit riff-ruffled, panorama of the players’ abilities to venture beyond their chose genre’s folk frontiers, there’s also immense energy in their delivery – toned down to a baroque dance for “Monasterio de Sal” to shine an elegant light and turned up to angular splashes for “Zyryab” to marry abstract ripples and strum to rapturous unison.
With “Montiño” getting increasingly hotter in an apparently live atmosphere, and “Minera” burning briefly yet brightly in its vibrant soundscape, before “Chiquito” unfolds into serenade, staying cool listening to this platter is all but impossible, and even the solemn “Callejón de Muro” that brings things to a close here in the most magnificent fashion can’t dim the fire of “Paqueando” making the Amador and Bandera’s effort a genuine game-changer in the field of flamenco.
*****
