Conrad wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote:
I went to a Flamenco show in Madrid last year - in a little bistro on the edge of a not so salubrious part of the city. We bought a package deal - first drink, supper and the show - and I got multiple surprises, including the music which was only vaguely similar to what I had been expecting. Which wasn't that much of a problem - it was a fab performance. Two 45 minute sets, all improvised (it took me a while to figure out what was going on - the clue was the way the guitarist was constantly shifting his seating position to watch the feet of the dancers).
Yes the instruments follow the dancer. Very kind of inverted wisdom to me. Took a lot of time to think that way at the dance school where I accompanied some dancers.
OK... the manager told me that in what this particular outfit does, the singers lead everything, singing whatever they feel like singing at that time, then the dancers pick up from that and the guitarist has to follow the dancers - unless they're out of it at the time, in which case he follows the singers, unless THEY are out of it in which case it's all up to him. So he had his work cut out for him. At one point the guitarist and one of the dancers were trading licks with each other.
I was also struck by how much the dancers added in the way of percussive effects that actually contributed to the music - similar to what those dancers you bought to TJ's did.
Finally the singers, when they weren't singing, also played a percussion role with hand claps.
It was much less formal than I'd anticipated, very uninhibited music. I couldn't understand one word that they sang up on the stage, but the passion of the performance was clear and convincing.
