[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Tonight kicks off a week long local celebration of iconic flamenco guitarist, Paco de Lucía. The festival is organized by the Paco de Lucía Foundation and is taking place around the 10th anniversary of his death. Paco de Lucía was known for his special ability to blend the historical music traditions of flamenco with jazz and rock and classical music. Let's listen to an example of his playing. This is in performing Entre Dos Aguas in 1976.

[MUSIC - Entre dos aguas: Paco de Lucía]

Alison Stewart: Starting tonight at Carnegie Hall, and later in the week in venues around the city, more than 30 musicians will perform flamenco and its unique dance style and rhythms, including some who are lucky enough to once play with the maestro. With me now to preview the festival's artistic director Julio Marti, and also to play some flamenco for us, Cortés Yerai.

Yerai Cortés: Yerai.

Alison Stewart: Yerai Cortés. Hi, Yerai?

Yerai Cortés: Hi.

Alison Stewart: Hi. Paco de Lucía is famous around the world, Julio, but how would you describe his legacy and what he means?

Julio Martí: Paco de Lucía is the most important flamenco musician ever. In other genres like in rock and roll, you can have different references. In flamenco, there are only two gods, Camarón singing, Paco playing. The importance of Paco de Lucía is transcendental because the guitar in the flamenco idiom is just for accompanying the singing or the dancing. That was the role till Paco de Lucía. Even being Sabicas that was a master of the guitar playing who was living in York, to Niño Ricardo, who was the first influence in Paco. They were just a companion singers or dancers.

Having a role of guitarist, but with Paco, it just went to another level, making the guitar the most important known thing of flamenco in the world on top of dancing and on top of singing. That's tremendous. That's the key of the thing. From that point, he blended everything, but he had to work hard. People thinks, "Okay, he was a genius, so it was easy for him." Nothing is easy, even for genius.

He had to come here when he was 16 years old to play in a dance company, and then come by himself in the late '60s just to start being [unintelligible 00:03:01] and knowing the people, knowing the audience, and knowing how to project his music. It take a lot of time to get that hit that you just played. Entre Dos Aguas 1973, 50 years. [unintelligible 00:03:16] is the piece that just make him a star even in Spain, because the guitar, as I'm telling you, in flamenco is just for accompanying, many took it just to-- and that piece just changed the world.

Alison Stewart: We're going to hear some music from our performer. I would try my bad Spanish but I'll try. [Spanish language]

Julio Martí: Say something. Say, "Hello, New York. Thank you for listening."

Yerai Cortés: Hello New York. Thank you for listening.

Alison Stewart: Love it.

[music]

Alison Stewart: Yerai Cortés performing in part of the festival. My guests are Julio Martí, the festival director of the Paco de Lucía Legacy Festival kicking off tonight at Carnegie Hall. We just heard that beautiful music. What is unique about flamenco guitar playing as opposed to other styles?

Julio Martí: The basic thing with the guitar playing in flamenco is being mostly oral transference. Most of these guitar players they don't read music.

Alison Stewart: Oh, interesting.

Julio Martí: It's very interesting because it's another way of transmitting. A lot of times have to watch the hands of the player to get into what they have to do. It's very demanding at that point because they just want to keep that way of approaching to music. It's a very instinctive way of approaching. They, instead of what we call improvisation, they create what they call falseta. Mostly is that inside a song, they made different songs. That's the way that the guitar sings in the flamenco world. Since Paco, we have an incredible amount of incredible guitar players. We have eight of them. I just brought you here one example of a guy who's going to become one of the greatest of all times. Now he is under 30 and you're going to keep listening to this magnificent kid.

Alison Stewart: Would you ask him how he started playing guitar for us, and translate if you would?

Julio Martí: Sure. [Spanish language]

Yerai Cortés: [Spanish language]

Julio Martí: [Spanish language]

Yerai Cortés: [Spanish language]

Alison Stewart: Let me see if I can do it. You learned from your father about eight years old. You watched his hands.

Julio Martí: He was a guy playing at home and he lent him a guitar when he was eight.

Alison Stewart: Is that how most people learn to play?

Julio Martí: Yes. [Spanish language]

Yerai Cortés: Si. Yes.

Alison Stewart: Could you give us a little bit of a history lesson in flamenco for people who don't know, when it started, what was the original purpose that we know?

Julio Martí: Flamenco music is a blend of musics. Mostly it comes from India. Send it out of the country. They made two trips. When they got into Turkey, they went up another went through Africa. The guys going through Africa go to the south of Spain and the other guys who were up came through the north of Spain. We had the gypsies arriving mostly in the south of Spain, Andalusia, and blend. What they bring, the things that we had there, because Andalusia has been always a blend of Christian, Jews and Muslim.

Alison Stewart: Muslim, yes.

Julio Martí: They live together nicely, and Africa because there were also Black people taking part of this mixture. That's the way we created flamenco. Then the movement of flamenco create different changes. The most important move is from Spain through the Atlantic into America. Then we have what we call a music of [Spanish language], means going there and coming back. That's the reason that we have in the flamenco idiom, [Spanish language], we have Roomba. That thing is different but it's also in the Caribbean or it's in Argentina. That's not the same but it's related.

All that created what we know now as flamenco. What happened is that with Paco, he blended with other musics like jazz, especially because flamenco is very important, rhythmically and medially, but because they don't know music, you have to develop the harmonic thing. Paco is the one who just want to know more about the harmony. Through jazz he just develop a new sense, a new knowledge, created the new harmonies for the future. Everybody listens to Paco de Lucía and takes as a reference. Nobody will deny that Paco is a main influence in the play.

Alison Stewart: We are previewing the The Paco de Lucía Legacy Festival, which kicks off tonight at Carnegie Hall and runs through venues throughout the city through February 24th. Joining me now is Julio Martí, festival artistic director, and Yerai Cortés, who is a guitarist. Could we hear another song?

[music]

Alison Stewart: Julio, when we think about flamenco guitar, I think people's mind goes to flamenco dance. Are they always together? Is it always a marriage of those two?

Julio Martí: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Julio Martí: The flamenco guitar was born to accompany dancing and singing. All of them started at that point before getting soloist. Even [foreign language] same thing. All flamenco guitars first have to know how to back singer or back dancer, and then they develop a soloist career. It's very interconnected. Here in the festival, just also to explain you a little bit how it works.

Alison Stewart: Yes, please.

Julio Martí: What we're planning is that in the Carnegie Hall tonight, we going to show the life and music of Paco. All our performance will recreate his music and also the music that he loved. We'll have Soul Faya. Manuel de Falla, probably the best Spanish composer ever. He will also perform some classical music in the Canción de [unintelligible 00:12:31] in the de Lucían's songs that he played in his last record, by the way. In two days, the other major concert at the town hall will have the same lineup of people, but they will play their own music.

Alison Stewart: Oh, interesting.

Julio Martí: We're going then into the legacy. Once we show how Paco is in our lives now, we're going to show people what we are doing now, what is the level of our own creativity. The town hall, we have some more guests coming. We'll have Marc Johnson, a bass player. We have Richard Bona who is coming who will be here in New York. We'll have other artists. Also will Reuben Blades that they say here. We'll have another kind of representation with original music.

In both places, mostly, will be playing and singing, but we have probably three of the most prominent dancing figures in the world. They have very incredible spots. By the way, the first part of the concert in Carnegie finish with dancing, and the second part also finish with dancing, because after dancing, you have to stop. We'll have as the grand finale, of course, Entre Dos Aguas that you played before. The dancing is going to be also a very beautiful part of our presentations here in New York, just to tell the people to know.

Alison Stewart: That's going to sound amazing at Carnegie Hall. Why do you think flamenco touches so many people?

Julio Martí: It's music from the heart. Also, it's a music of hundreds of years of tradition. It's a very sophisticated music. The people thinks are simple, but all the rhythms are very complicated. It touches people. We know that a second most important country listening to flamenco is Japan, just you to know, and numbers of followers. In Asia, there's an incredible following of flamenco. Flamenco is probably the most followed Spanish music in the planet. Of course, in Latin America, because we speak all the same language, it's easy that pop music goes both ways. The music that touches everybody besides the Spanish-speaking world is flamenco. We don't have anything stronger than flamenco because it's a marble. I can tell you that it's magic music. We are a little bit conscious of jazz music in a way.

Alison Stewart: I can hear that.

Julio Martí: Because you need the impact of the moment. The magic of the moment only is with great artists. In jazz, it's been happening during decades with all those big stars. Flamenco probably is in the best time ever because things like YouTube-

Alison Stewart: Sure.

Julio Martí: -help because you can watch it. As I told you, is oral and seeing it helps. It's a lot of new people in Spain playing flamenco because this way of communication is helping a lot to increase the knowledge and the importance of flamenco. Also, is schools all around the world. We know that in Mexico, also in New York, I find out that there are many schools. I didn't know that there was so much people wanting to dance or play flamenco. It's a very alive music.

Alison Stewart: I just want to remind people that he Paco de Lucía Legacy Festival kicks off tonight at Carnegie Hall and runs through February 24th. Will you play one last song for us?

Yerai Cortés: Yes.

[music]

Alison Stewart: Thank you. Before we [unintelligible 00:17:21], I wonder what Paco de Lucía means to you.

Julio Martí: [Spanish language]

Yerai Cortés: [Spanish language]

Julio Martí: What we were talking before. Paco de Lucía, Camarón, both guys are just the inspiration for all of them. He said, "Not for me. For all of us." That is just our reference.

Alison Stewart: The Paco de Lucía Legacy Festival kicks off tonight at Carnegie Hall and runs at venues throughout the city on February 24th. My guests have been Yerai Cortés as well as Julio Martí. Would you just play us out for the rest of the hour, just a little bit?

Julio Martí: [Spanish language]

Alison Stewart: About a minute.

[music]

Alison Stewart: There's more All Of It coming up right after the news. Thank you so much.

Julio Martí: Thank you.

 

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