H-2002 (mono)
HS-72002 (stereo)THE SOUL OF
FLAMENCO
WITH THE RENOWNED
CUADRO FLAMENCO
PEPA REYES, dancer
ANGEL MANCHENO, dancer
JUAN GARCIA
DE LA MATA, guitarist
MANOLO LEIVA, singer
SIDE ONE
1. LA ISLA (Tanguillo)
2. AIRES DE LA CALETA (Malaguefia)
3. TACON FLAMENCO (Farruca)
A. PUNTA HUMBRIA (Fandangos de Huelva)
5. LLANTO ANDALUZ (Soleares)
SIDE TWO
1. LA MACARENA (Saeta)
2. EN LA CUEVA (Bulerias)
3, LOS ALJIBES (Granadina)
4. TU PELO NEGRO (Siguiriya y Martinete)
production supervisor, JAC HOLZMAN
‘engineers, JAC HOLZMAN and DAVID B. JONES
cover art, JOHN TROTTA
‘cover design, WILLIAM S. HARVEY
WHEN the Cuadro Flamenco bursts into the tanguillo
with which this record begins, a controlled furor con-
fronts the audience. The thrumming, strident notes
of the guitar, calling, impelling, pleading, command-
ing; the full throated cries of the cantaor, repeating
the accents of the guitar and embroidering upon them carry the
dancers into renewed ecstasies, extracting all they have to give
from their trained limber bodies. Theirs is a talent for pleasure,
not for sadness. From the ranguillo, tacdn, fandangos, bulerias
and sevillanas, they extract new excitement and joy, whipping
each other along with their shouts and exclamations. Even in the
soleares and saeta, the Granadina and siguiriya, the pleasure of
living overrides any glimpse of Death or Sorrow.
The Cuadro Flamenco is a city group, born and raised in
Madrid, trained in the modern flamenco which is further from
the old tragic jondo attitude than Spain herself is far from her
past, though like Spain, this flamenco relishes remnants of tra-
ditional attitudes. These artists express the joy of being young.
of being in control of a lithe instrument, be it voice, body or
guitar and the anticipation of life’s pleasures ahead.
Seeing Angel Manchefo dance is a marvelous experience for
‘one who has watched too many pallid ballet-trained male
dancers. He is small, dark, smooth-skinned, compact, full of the
aggressive male pleasure of showing his strength and grace, his
ingenuous humor, his handsome being. When he dances a
taconeo, his evident pleasure in the thunder of his heels upon
the floor adds to the excitement of the rhythm he is beating. He is,
about 18, a wild young animal, full of choreographic jokes.
He may act out a cowboy role, with two imaginary six guns
and even the gesture of hiking up his jeans, so weil that one
thinks momentarily that cowboys must be gypsies! He does not
speak much, preferring to dance what he wishes to say. His face
is that of an archangel who has not yet decided whether he'll
take the road to Hell or the road to Heaven. It is a classically
proportioned face with huge black eyes kept purposefully blank
in most social situations, a small well-shaped nose and a full-
lipped classic Greek mouth, curving in an almost Buddha-like
look of contentment. When he dances, he becomes passion
incarnate, mouth contorted, thunder upon his brow, disdain and
desire quivering within him. His dancing could be vulgar,
ingenuously obscene, but he abstains; he could easily be lazy
but his virile energy prevents it; he could be facetious but his
very wildness transforms facetiousness to humor. His imagina-
tion is constantly at work and when he dances alone, he im-
provises all manner of ways. He is not a colt nor yet mature but
has the dramatic driving power of untrammeled youth.
Pepa Reyes is the flamenco woman upon whom the wild youth
vents his passion. She is impassive, aloof—with no intent to snub
—dignified within herself, yet aware of his actions. She has a
Jong nose and a long neck, lovely arms and a slim waist. She
seems to be looking sideways all the time; one is not aware that
she ever looks directly at an object. It is not through her eyes,
but through her emotion and intuition that she senses her sur-
roundings. When she dances siguiriyas, she looks straight ahead
but she is not seeing, she is feeling and her eyes are blind to the
light that illuminates their beauty. Her soul resides deep within
and invisible yet her face is transformed by her every emotion
as she dances, responding to the rhythm and to her partner and
to her own physical pleasure in dancing. She is passive in that
she reacts instead of initiating, yet a Spanish woman's passivity
is that of an eagle, not that of a fish and hers is that of a homing
falcon. She is highly trained and restrained but when the rhythm.
of the dance enters her, there is a beautiful seeking fury about
her as she searches for a purely feminine end.
‘As Angel and Pepa dance, one is aware that this is a mating
ritual in which the emphasis is not upon attracting, nor neces-
sarily upon arousing, nor certainly upon consummating, but
rather their passionate motions explore the ambiguities of love
between man and woman.
Manolo Leiva, the singer, is a tall, broad-shouldered blond
man—a vivid man—with his blue eyes and white silk scarf, his
ruddy complexion and his direct impelling gaze. He has run a
restaurant in Paris (where flamencos make a better living than
they can in Madrid) where he was chef and cantaor alternately.
He is decided, amused by the passing scene, full of the gestures
‘of a flamenco singer whose role is to vocalize the emotions
called forth from the guitar and the dancers. When he bursts
into the ritual of the dancers with a copla, their attitudes change,
their hitherto blind, inward-seeking eyes sce and they listen as
he tells them what they feel, what love will bring, what life will
bring, what gives life its shape, Death. What his voice lacks in
color and nuance, he makes up with his embellishments. He is a
most manly and direct singer.
Juan Garcia de la Mata, the guitarist, plays both classical and
flamenco guitar well. He is a schooled musician and has taught
at the University of Madrid. For ten years he accompanied the
legendary Rosario and Antonio. His habitual expression is one
‘of questing irony. He looks politely not at but through people
‘as though he were searching for a quality they masked. He has
very dark wide set eyes, an intelligent aquiline face and a dark
moustache that expresses its own anarchistic being within that
thin sardonic face. He is very neat and exact looking, economical
‘of movement, yet there is a tension and grace about him that
also escapes his careful control. He is very lean und as he sits,
surrounding the guitar with his long arms, preparing to play it
with his long fingers, he impels the audience's attention to the
content of his stirring music, arousing them from any bootless
pursuit, then directing their attention to the singer or the
dancers. He appears to be a man of strong will and when he
wishes to express through his music things the audience may
prefer to evade, his directness cuts through camouflage and
touches where he wills.
Flamenco emphasizes the masculine and the feminine above
all else. It employs the singular will and the group will to do its
task. Good artists respond to these separate tasks through the
music's running course, to achieve at the end an untrammeled
ecstasy of rhythm, at first so exciting that the audience, bathed
in sensuousness, drawn to new awareness of itself and of life,
senses the road down which the dancers have drawn it, rather
than knowing where it is. This is an exciting road and the word-
less, pure freedom of it is particularly gratifying to Americans
who have long had to see things spelled out, dissected, the magic
replaced by formaldehyde.
‘The Cuadro Flamenco in its bewitching youthful glory restores
the magic. CYNTHIA GOODING
‘formerly issued as CUADRO FLAMENCO on Elektra Records EKL159
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