Malaga – 1975
In 1975 I was awarded a Canada Council Travel Grant to learn more about the art of cante and how to accompany singers. I was a typical North American guitarist who fell in love with the sound of the flamenco guitar (via Carlos Montoya records) and years later discovered that the guitar was only a part of larger picture which included singers and dancers. At that time I was starting to perform with more singers in and around Vancouver and felt that I needed some time in Spain to hear singing at the grass roots level and to hear what the guitarists were doing.
One of the places I ended up in was Malaga where I used to go to La Pena Juan Breva, a club of Flamenco aficionados who organized evenings where anyone could get up to sing with the house guitarist. Some singers were more lubricated than others; some singers better than others; but all in all, it was a great learning experience. My friend Chipi – Carlos Lomas – was living in Malaga at that time with his wife Liliana and working in a tablao in Torremolinos. He introduced me to a lot of artists in Malaga and showed me a lot of nice falsettas.
I had just bought a state-of-the-art Sony portable tape recorder, so when I heard of a festival in Carranque on April 26th featuring Camaron, Pansequito, Fosforito and José Menese, I stocked up on tapes. Since this was in April there were no tourists yet and I’m pretty sure that my friends and I were the only foreigners there. The hall was full of gypsy families with kids and an ambiente which is hard to find these days now that flamenco has become so popular and so serious at the same time. There was no cajon or other instrumentation anywhere in sight back in those days but it was definitely a more vocal, spontaneous, and expressive audience. Many times throughout the evening the singers’ last phrasings were drowned out by the crowd. This was not a lack of respect, but an impromptu emotional expression of praise and adulation.
Apparently Camaron didn’t have a guitarist for this festival so he went to a local tablao the night before and picked Tomatito. This was the first time that the two of them performed together and in the years that followed, they continued to be one of flamenco’s most productive and creative partnerships with numerous ground breaking recordings and unforgettable live performances. Tomatito was only about 17 years old – playing all Paco de Lucia material (really well!). When I returned to Vancouver I told everybody about this kid called Little Tomato who now, of course, is world-famous. After all these years, this recording still gives me goosebumps. Has there ever been a singer like Camaron? He wasn’t a legend yet but you knew he was going to be one. Despite the fact that he was painfully shy, he had that rock star celebrity aura about him right from the beginning. Also, this was the performance which definitely launched Tomatito’s career – he nailed his job interview as it were. Listen to Tomatito’s foot as he keeps time during the Tientos – aguantando - not speeding up or rushing the singer. So young! So much control! In the Bulerias, even though he is playing all Paco de Lucia material, he does it with his own rhythmic brilliance. Besides Camaron and Tomatito the third element that made this evening so special was the audience. A noisy boisterous bunch to be sure, but alive, and enjoying themselves. Listen how they get loud and talk to the person next to them while the guitarist is playing (typical!) and then get amazingly quiet when it matters. After asking a number of people if they had ever heard this historic recording – I couldn’t find anyone who had – I therefore decided to post it here. It’s a little bit of history for flamenco fans.
