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.

Tarantos
Tientos
Bulerias

Living and teaching outside of Spain, it’s always a challenge to explain to students how the singing relates to the dance and how the dancer responds to the singer, especially in Bulerias! The great thing about Andres’ workshop was that he sings and dances at the same time. In this way, he can better teach how the dancer can rematar con el cante which is so important in the por fiesta setting. He stressed over and over the importance of listening – really listening – which provides a dancer with clues. The difficulty for most students is to anticipate what’s coming next. Should they go or wait? Will the singer leave a compas between the phrases? How do I finish my patada?

The problem is that no one sings it the same way twice – even the cantaor doesn’t know what he’s going to sing – so how can you? You can’t! All you can do is go with the flow – in this case, the singing. So obviously the dancers who listen to cante CDs in their spare time are going to be better prepared than those who do not. I always stress the importance of listening to everything you can get your hands on. Even if your Spanish is not that great, it will seep into your memory banks more than you will ever know. Soon you will recognize forms and letras and you will start to do the right thing naturally.

Even though Andres doesn’t consider himself a singer – he has too much respect for singers and their art – I think he is a great singer! He didn’t believe me when I told him that on this side of the pond he could work as a cantaor any time he wanted!

Andres Peña (audio sample of Andres singing)

OR

The first one was an onyx-like plastic which was very much in vogue when I started playing in the late 1960s. Despite the fact that it was an absolute dog as a capo, I felt very flamenco – muy autentico – since no one else here in Vancouver had one. The problem with these was that it was easy to tighten it too much until the string broke or the  peg would get stuck and nothing could free the damn thing! The other problem was that some of them came without a cover to protect the neck of the guitar from getting marked up. Playing my first paid gigs made me nervous enough – having my cool-looking capo get stuck or breaking it really cranked up the stage fright a notch or two. After a couple of years I graduated to the same model – this time made of wood, which was a definite improvement – but still with the same flaws. The one I have used the longest is the Jim Dunlop model, which truly had a new and original design at the time and I thought that any future attempts to improve on this design would be a pointless exercise.

That is, until I ran across the Shubb model. I was so impressed that I sent the following e-mail to creator Jim Shubb:

From: Victor Kolstee
To: Shubb
Subject: S2 Capo

After doing something for more than 40 years it is easy to convince oneself that we know everything. I started playing flamenco and used the traditional capo with the nylon string and peg. The string would break often, the peg would get horribly stuck – so when Jim Dunlop came out with his model I was very happy. Since I thought that this, in fact, was a better mousetrap, I stopped looking at other options.

Recently we did a show with a guest guitarist from Spain who showed me his capo, a Shubb, and told me how much he liked it. Of course, I was very skeptical since I already owned the best capo ever invented! To really make his point, he went out and bought me one which I used for our concerts. It was a show with many capo changes and I have always had to make tuning adjustments in between numbers. This time it was an incredible experience to move my capo (even up at the 9th fret!) and I never had to re-tune or make any adjustments whatsoever. None – zero!

Thanks for the great product – one which I will highly recommend to others.

Victor Kolstee

From: Shubb
To: Victor Kolstee
Subject: Re: S2 Capo

Victor,

Thank you so very much for the testimonial. It sounds almost like a commercial for Shubb capos!
I have been making these capos for almost as long as you have been playing, and over the years I have received many compliments.  I never, ever get tired of hearing them. To me, this is the best part of being in this business.

Rick Shubb
Shubb Capos
www.shubb.com