Flamenco legend continues musical journey
Even Paco de Lucia has reached a point in his four-decade career where he doesn't know where his music will take him next. The most influential and innovative flamenco guitarist of his generation is starting to wonder: So now what?
"You know, I've been doing this for some 40 years now," he says in Spanish by phone from a hotel in Vancouver, Canada. "Eventually, you start to realize there are expectations of your work, and it becomes harder to do something entirely different. You don't exactly want to return to the same corners of your music; you want to explore new places within it."
It's an astonishing revelation from a musician who has repeatedly reinvented the canon of his work. From his earliest 1960s recordings that emulated the flamenco masters of the day, to his latest album, "Cositas Buenas," which is in a league of its own in terms of rhythmic structures and virtuosity, de Lucia has been a musician in perpetual flux.
And yet he always finds his footing. "Cositas Buenas" is a departure from 1998's "Luzia," an album heralded at the time as a new direction for de Lucia because it featured his vocals for the first time. This time around, he has forsaken overt jazz influences and revisited the organic connection between the guitar and the cantaor (the singer). He brings his US tour to the Orpheum Theatre tomorrow night.
As restless as he is, de Lucia, 56, returns to his roots on "Cositas Buenas," featuring eight new compositions and more singing than on previous albums. For "Que Venga el Alba," he unearthed master tapes to resurrect vocals from his former musical partner, the fabled singer Camaron de la Isla, who died in 1992. "Bringing back Camaron was really something special for me," he says, adding that there is more unreleased material with Camaron to mine.
Other collaborations on the album -- a mix of buleria, rumba, tango, and tiento rhythms -- include the guitarist Tomatito and pop singer Alejandro Sanz on the tres, a three-stringed instrument. "I never plan on whom I'm going to work with," de Lucia says. What was planned, however, was the album's minimalist trajectory. "The essence of this album is the same of all my albums: It deals with the evolution of flamenco."
Born in the southern province of Cadiz, Spain, and playing guitar by age 12, de Lucia has navigated an impressive musical journey since the spare "La Fabulosa Guitarra de Paco de Lucia," the 1967 album, his first solo recording, that is often considered the turning point in his career. Like bossa nova great Joao Gilberto, de Lucia has collaborated with several US musicians. Along with John McLaughlin and Al DiMeola, de Lucia recorded three acclaimed albums as a member of the Guitar Trio. And even the world of pop music has taken notice, such as when Bryan Adams featured de Lucia's guitar work on the song "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?"
Of course, such crossover affairs have brought naysayers. By now, de Lucia is immune to early criticisms that dogged him. To the point of branding him blasphemous, purists were skeptical of his groundbreaking synthesis of traditional flamenco with contemporary genres such as jazz, bossa nova, and even rock 'n' roll. What they couldn't foreshadow is that Paco de Lucia's brand of flamenco fusion is the reason the art form has endured, certainly beyond its native Spanish origins. Guitarists will tell you that de Lucia now is regarded as the mold from which younger players are cast. Vicente Amigo, Tomatito, and even Boston's own aspiring flamenco maestro, Jonathan "Juanito" Pascual, credit him as chief inspiration.
"I'm constantly going back to his work to understand the language of flamenco and the artistry of composition," says Pascual, who began listening to de Lucia in 1988, when Pascual was 14. "What's interesting about him is that musicians will tell you that he's the most influential guitarist in flamenco, and he's also the most popular and beloved guitarist among the general public."
Pascual says his first impression of "Cositas Buenas" was that it's so advanced: "It's full of these rhythmic nuances that create shapes and their own structures. He's really explored timbres and tones that we haven't heard from him before." Pascual, who met de Lucia briefly once in Boston, is taking his guitar to tomorrow's performance. "I'm going to try to play for him."
It's quite possible he will, too. De Lucia says it's nice that so many musicians look up to him, and he's happy to give them advice. "It certainly wasn't that way when I first started," he says. "I began with Nino Ricardo, and then I met Sabicas, who was in the United States. Sabicas was the one who told me that I needed to pursue my own style of playing. They were great, but back in those days, there was a lot of jealousy among flamenco musicians. Your relationship with one another was one of respect and affection, but not advice."
But that was more than 30 years ago. Again, so now what?
"Oh, I have no idea what's next. I think if you want to craft a future full of wonderful things, you have to live the present with all your might," he says. "That's the way to do it."
(Paco de Lucia plays at the Orpheum Theatre, 1 Hamilton Place, tomorrow at 8 p.m. Tickets are $35-$50. Call 617-876-4275, 617-931-2787 or visit www.worldmusic.org.)
