Vincente Amigo warbles from my Motorola phone. I’d transmit his warblings to my headsets, but I don’t really feel like it. I’ll enjoy his acoustic bumblings from a bit of a distance. As my amigo, Christián, is obsessed with Flamenco, the genre of music that Vincente “belongs” to, I choose to listen and (attempt to) absorb such artists time and again. I haven’t been too successful, truthfully, though on third listen, elements pattering around me during these moments do have their moments. That is, Herr Vincente is more interesting to me than most have been. I recall that Manuel Molina also had a tight and well formed gulag to imprison oneself in for the duration of an album, but somehow, the details of his music escape my remembrance at the moment.
And my theory as to why the details of Manuel’s music escape me is that his, Vincente’s and the music of Flamenco in general has very little intellectual slant to it. One should not be surprised as it is a folk music and had origins in rhythm and especially dance. It’s attractiveness to most, I’d imagine, is on a visceral level. Christián would argue that the technical aspect of the (guitar) playing represents an intellectual facet and he’d be partially right, though I could argue that most of it consists of patterns hammered into muscle memory over years, decades, centuries, epochs. In the future, they’ll be injected directly into the cerebellums of gitano infants - and into the cerebellums of anyone else who might be interested, including into the cerebellums of the Mennonites strung up in Pagan Park. Those guys and gals get Flamenco. Or they will. Fuck um.
In any case, a vast swath of music that appeals to me (and by vast, I mean fucking vast, vole) does appeal on a visceral level. It must. It is music. But the intellectual element - the ability to dissect it especially harmonically and texturally - is present in a degree that is (mostly) wholly absent in Flamenco and folk musics in general.
As I scribed the last paragraph, inevitably, a piece trickles from my Motorola phone in which Vincente has placed an excellent alto saxophone part. You see? Perhaps this will be the most memorable Flamenco album for me of the epoch. Vincente uses a bit more extended harmonic language in his guitar thwakkin, as well, greasing up the air with several scents of ancient jazz. Familiarity is also a factor. Sure, it’s only the third time I’ve listened to this, and this time only semi-actively, but truthfully, and in most cases, one tends to enjoy what one listens to most by choice.
Listening choice brings me back round to thoughts about bare music. I still haven’t gotten around to writing a treatise on the subject. My original notes are virtually lying around somewhere. I’ll revisit when the wind is at my back, the sun is high in the sky and my destination is once again unknown.
