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Flamenco (Song, not Dance)

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发表于 11-15-2023 11:54:03 | 只看该作者 回帖奖励 |倒序浏览 |阅读模式
本帖最后由 choi 于 11-18-2023 10:44 编辑

Carolina Abbott Galvão, Flamenco Roots Raising a Ruckus; María José Llergo  experiments with a signature genre of her Andalusian homeland on her debut album, 'Ultrabelleza,' creating an unexpected homage. New York Times, Oct 26, at page C2 of Arts section).
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/ ... o-ultrabelleza.html


Note: I know nothing about music, do not hear it and am tone deaf. If a term is not explained, that is because I do not understand it.
(a) "Andalusia, where flamenco was born * * * '“I remember him raking the earth, watering the plants and singing — everything from tangos to boleros,' she said * * * Infusing electronica and R&B with traditional Andalusian influences — including flamenco snaps and the off-kilter melodies of cante jondo, a guttural singing style common to folk music in the south of Spain — Llergo's 2020 EP 'Sanación' is a testament to the versatility of flamenco as a genre. 'Ultrabelleza,' her debut album out Friday, takes this experiment a step further."
(i) Andalusia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andalusia
(section 1 Name; is a region (population 8.5 m) whose "capital (and largest city) Seville" (see table; population 684 k) in English and Sevilla in Spanish)
(ii) "flamenco snaps"
(A) The Fiery Art of Flamenco. Dance Spirit, Mar 18, 2009
https://dancespirit.com/the-fiery-art-of-flamenco/
("Ruffled skirts, snapping fingers and stomping feet—these are the hallmarks of flamenco. * * * Jeff Teta, a historian with a focus on flamenco in NYC, '[Gypsies] fused together the various aspects to create flamenco, which is full of stomping, snapping and storytelling through body language, movements of the hips, clicking of tongues and clapping hands.' * * * As in tap dance, flamenco dancers spend years practicing the style's heel stomps and clicks to perfect the sound as well as the look. The hands are incorporated for sound as well—dancers can snap their fingers or wear small hand cymbals called castanets" (brackets original)
(B) The English (not Spanish) noun castanet has accent in the syllable "net," because its Spanish counterpart has the accent on "ñe."

castanet (n; etymology: "Spanish [noun feminine] castañeta, from [noun feminine] castaña chestnut + diminutive suffix -eta; castaña from Latin [noun feminine; from Ancient Greek if similar spelling for chestnut] castanea [chestnut]"): "a percussion instrument used especially by dancers that consists of two small shells of hard wood, ivory, or plastic usually fastened to the thumb and clicked together by the other fingers —usually used in plural" (take notice of the last clause)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/castanet

The (spelling of) English noun chestnut came from Old English.

The Spanish diminutive suffix -eta (masculine -ete) and another pair of (Spanish) diminutive suffix (masculine -ito; feminine -ita) came from French diminutive suffix (masculine -et; feminine -ette). That is why Eva Perón of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" fame is nicknamed Evita; and the French form of English female given name Henrietta is Henriette.  
(iii) cante jondo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cante_jondo
("The name means "deep song" in Spanish, with hondo ('deep') spelled with" j)

Both cante and hondo are defined in Note (b).

In Spanish, the consonant h is silent (as if the consonant does not exist) and j (is) pronounced the same as English consonant h (as in hit).
(iv)
(A) EP stands for extended play
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_play
(B) phonograph record
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph_record
(or a vinyl (record)

Everything else being the same, long play (LP) approximately doubles the duration of play time of EP.


(b) Spanish-English dictionary:
* The word ultra in both Spanish and English (meaning extreme) came from Latin preposition of the same spelling and meaning.
* belleza (noun feminine): "beauty"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/belleza
* cante (noun masculine; from verb [from Latin verb cantare to sing] cantar [to sing]): "(traditional Andalusian) song"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cante
   ^ The ordinary word for song in Spanish is noun feminine canción.
   ^ The English verb chant, enchant as well as noun incantation all came from Latin verb cantare.
* hondo (adjective masculine; from Latin noun masculine fundus bottom)
* sanación (noun feminine; from Latin sānātiōnis[, an inflection of noun feminine sanatio healing, from Latin verb sanare to heal]): "healing"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sanación
* rueda (from Latin [noun feminine] rota wheel): "wheel"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rued
* mal (adjective masculine): "(before the noun) apocopic form of [adjective masculine] malo bad; evil"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mal
* querer (v): "want"
* All derived from Ancient Greek noun feminine and meaning school is SPANISH noun feminine escuela, and Catalan noun feminine escola.
* superior (adjective masculine or feminine; from Latin superior): "1: upper, higher * * * 3: superior"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/superior
   ^ Latin-English dictionary:
   * superus (adjective masculine; comparative superior, superlative suprēmus): "above, upper, higher"
   https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/superus
* música (noun feminine; from Latin musica): "music"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/música
* camarón (noun masculine; from Latin [noun masculine] cammarus [lobster]): "shrimp"
   ^ The Scottish surname Cameron (accent on the first syllable) means "crooked nose,"
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_(surname)
  whereas Scottish surname Campbell, crooked mouth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_(surname)
* como (preposition; from Latin como: "a non-literary form of [adverb] quōmodo how"): "like"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/como
* sierra (noun feminine; from Latin [noun feminine] serra [saw (tool)]): "1: saw (tool)  2: mountain range"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sierra
* juramento (noun masculine; from Latin [verb] iurare to confirm formally): "1: an oath; 2: a sworn statement"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/juramento
* bonito (adjective masculine; diminutive of [adjective masculine] bueno [good] + [suffix] -ito): "pretty, cute"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
* palma (noun feminine; from Latin [noun feminine] palma of the same definitions): "palm of the hand [antonym (noun masculine) dorso]);palm tree, palm leaf"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/palma
   ^ palmas (n; always plural): "hand clapping; applause"
* jaleo (noun masculine; from [verb] jalear to encourage): "ruckus, uproar"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jale


(c) "The record's lead single, 'Rueda, Rueda,' begins with a chant and handclaps before a sprawling pop chorus arrives. On tracks like 'Visión y Reflejo,' Llergo even tries her hand at rapping. 'María had never done it before,' the Spanish indie singer Zahara * * * said * * * "
(i) The word rueda is defined in Note (b). You may watch video of the video clip in the Web, and search (in English) its "lyrics" and have it translated by clicking Google Translate at the right upper corner of the new Web page.
(ii) track in a vinyl
(A) track (n):
"2 * * *
b: a path made by or as if by repeated footfalls : TRAIL
c: a course laid out especially for racing
* * *
e (1): material recorded especially on or as if on a track"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/track
(B) album
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Album
(section 3 Tracks: "Material (music or sounds) is stored on an album in sections termed tracks")
(C) visualization:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph_record
, where an illustration contains the caption: "Comparison of several forms of disk storage showing tracks (tracks not to scale); green denotes start and red denotes end")
(iii) "Visión y Reflejo" means Vision and Reflection, where visión is noun feminine and reflejo noun masculine, with the latter from Latin reflexus -- perfect passive participle of verb reflectere turn back or reflect.
(iv) Zahara
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahara
(may refer to "Zahara (Spanish musician) (born 1983), Spanish singer-songwriter")


(d) "Catalan pop star Rosalía [Rosalía is a female given name in Spanish], whose debut album, 'El Mal Querer [meaning 'The Bad Want'],' is often credited with catapulting flamenco into 21st-century global pop. (Incidentally, she and Llergo both studied at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona under the same mentor, José Miguel Vizcay.) * * * During the 1970s and '80s, Camarón de la Isla, a Romani from Cádiz whose stage name is Spanish for 'shrimp,' breathed new life into flamenco by adding instruments not traditionally found in the genre, such as the drums and bass guitar, to his recordings. * * * In his [Camarón's] best-known song, 'Como el Água,' he compares the strength of his love for someone to a river running through the sierra [defined in Note (b)]. * * * she sings in the synth-heavy 'Juramento' [to be defined in Note (b)] * * * From the plucky guitar riffs on Madonna's 1987 hit 'La Isla Bonita' to the handclaps, or palmas, on Caroline Polachek's 'Sunset' from earlier this year, there's a long history of American pop artists' experimenting with flamenco."
(i)
(A) Camarón de la Isla
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camarón_de_la_Isla
(1950-1992; "his stage name Camarón de la Isla (Spanish [for] Shrimp from the Island) * * * He was born in San Fernando, Cádiz, Spain" )
(B) Province of Cádiz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_C%C3%A1diz
(ii) The Spanish noun feminine agua (not água, because in Spanish agua itself has the accent on the first syllable, so there is no need to place an accent there in the first syllable -- being superfluous) means water and came from Latin noun feminine aqua water.
(iii) For synth-heavy, see synth-pop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synth-pop
("is a music genre that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument")
(iv) La Isla Bonita
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Isla_Bonita
("The lyrics talk about an island named San Pedro, whose location has been debated")

The word bonito is to be defined in Note (b).
(v) Caroline Polachek
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Polachek
(born in 1985 to "James Montel Polachek (1944–2020), a scholar in Chinese history and trained classical musician, and Elizabeth Allan. Her family relocated to Tokyo, Japan, where she lived between the ages of one and six")

James M Polachek spent his life like a rolling stone which gathered no moss. He was not really affiliated with any academic institution. His best known publication was Inner Opium War. Harvard University Asia Center Publications Program, 1991.
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/307/monograph/book/75620


(e) "Manuel Jubera, Llergo's A&R at Sony Music Spain * * * 'I thought about Federico García Lorca [1898 – 1936; a Spanish poet] a lot,' she said * * * 'Flamenco is like the blues,' she said. It [Flamenco] originated in Andalusia's marginalized Roma communities. 'The lyrics tell stories of survival — it's always been a way for the most oppressed to escape.' Llergo, who said she faced discrimination at school because of her lower-class background, still finds solace in them.   Like many people, she also appreciates the communal nature of flamenco, an idea grounded in the concept of el jaleo [to be defined in Note (b)], roughly 'hell-raising' or causing a ruckus, which refers to the audience's hand-clapping, foot-stomping shouts of encouragement during a performance."
(i) artists and repertoire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artists_and_repertoire
("or A&R is the division of a record label or music publishing company that is responsible for scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists and songwriters")
(ii) blues
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues
(section 1 Etymology)

I am aware of blue law: In 2003 Massachusetts Legislature lifted total ban on Sunday alcohol sales, which had been law of Massachusetts since Puritans founded Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628–1691). Still, remnants of blue law remain in Massachusetts. See Working on Sundays and Holidays ("Blue Laws"). Office of Attorney General, Massachusetts, undated
https://www.mass.gov/guides/work ... -holidays-blue-laws
("in full: "The Massachusetts Blue Laws control hours of operation for certain businesses and require some businesses to abide by voluntariness of employment provisions on Sundays and some legal holidays. These laws are enforced by the Attorney General's Office. The Department of Labor Standards has authority over the statewide approval of local permits allowing businesses to open on Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas when they otherwise could not open for some or all hours on those days")

(f)
(i) About the singer María José Llergo.
(A) Regarding her name. There is little information about her. Certainly none about her name: Thus I do not know if this her stage name or birth name. In case of the latter, the name is odd. See Spanish naming customs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs
("Spanish names * * * are composed of a given name (simple or composite ['composite' means several (given names); there is NO middle name]) and two surnames (the first surname of each parent). Traditionally, the first surname is the father's first surname, and the second is the mother's first surname. * * * note that women do not change their name with marriage * * * In an English-speaking environment, Spanish-named people sometimes hyphenate their surnames to avoid Anglophone confusion or to fill in forms with only one space provided for the last name: for example, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is of Puerto Rican heritage [However, neither Spaniards nor Latin Americans (including Puerto Ricans living in that island) do NOT hyphenate their (two) last names]"/ section 1 Basic structure, section 1.2 Forenames [or given names]: : Although the first part of a composite forename generally reflects the gender of the child, the second personal name need not (eg José María Aznar [Spain's (male) prime minister (1996-2004)])."/  section 1.3 María and José; section 3 Denominations, section 3.5 Flamenco artists)

Pepe is a pet form of Spanish male given name José. María José Llergo's grandfather (she does not say on her father's or mother's side) who sang in his garden was Pepe. I speculate that she commemorated the grandfather by placing José in her (stage) name.

Hispanics tell me that José can NOT be a last name in Spanish. But Joseph can be (last name) in English.
(B) In a Spanish interview (that is, an interview conducted in Spanish -- and published in Spanish), María José Llergo said people often approached her in Spain and asked her whether she was a Romani (plural can be Romani (plural in Spanish) or Romanis (plural according to English)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Romani
, due to her darker skin (she did not answer in that interview, but did allowed that her ancestry included one from sub-Saharan Africa).
(ii) About Flamenco.
(A) flamenco
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamenco
("The oldest record of flamenco music dates to 1774 in the book Las Cartas Marruecas by José Cadalso")

There is no need to read the rest of this Wiki page.
(B) flamenco (n; etymology: from Spanish of the same spelling that means (of the Gypsies) "of the Gypsies, literally, Flemish, from Middle Dutch Vlaminc Fleming"/ First Known Use (in English) 1896)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flamenco
(C) flamenco
https://www.etymonline.com/word/flamenco
("Spain ruled Flanders for many years in 16c., and King Carlos I brought with him to Madrid an entire Flemish court")

Flanders
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders
today denotes the northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. However, the term the Netherlands used to cover both present-day the Netherlands the nation AND present-day Belgium the nation (called Habsburg Netherlands) -- and later (Dutch rebelled against Spanish rule and left in 1581, but not Belgians) present-day Belgium only (called Spanish Netherlands). See Netherlands (disambiguation)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_(disambiguation)
(Historical:
• Habsburg Netherlands, the lands belonging to the House of Habsburg (1477–1556)
• Spanish Netherlands, the lands belonging to the Spanish Empire (1556–1581/1713)

"Habsburg Netherlands" was founded by Charles V of Holy Roman Empire, another title of whom was Charles I (Spanish: Carlos I) of Spain. See Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_V,_Holy_Roman_Emperor
(1500 – 1558; "Charles was born in Flanders to Habsburg Archduke Philip the Handsome, the son of Emperor Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy, and [Charles's mother] Joanna of Castile, younger child of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. The heir of his four grandparents, Charles inherited all his family dominions at a young age. After the death of his father Philip in 1506, he inherited the Habsburg Netherlands, originally held by his paternal grandmother Mary [the same Mary of Burgundy]. In 1516, inheriting the dynastic union formed by his maternal grandparents Isabella I and Ferdinand II, he became King of Spain as co-monarch of the Crowns of Castile and Aragon with his mother, who was deemed incapable of ruling due to mental illness")








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沙发
 楼主| 发表于 11-15-2023 11:54:45 | 只看该作者
------------------------------NYT
When the Spanish singer María José Llergo talks about flamenco, it often sounds as though she is describing something springing from beneath her feet. “The genre is rooted in my land,” she said, in a video call from her place just outside Madrid. “It’s in our roots.”

Growing up in rural Andalusia, where flamenco was born, Llergo first became interested in music while watching her grandfather work on his farm. “I remember him raking the earth, watering the plants and singing — everything from tangos to boleros,” she said, speaking in Spanish. Life for him wasn’t exactly easy back then. “My grandparents come from very humble — albeit very happy — origins,” said Llergo, surrounded by family portraits. She comes from that world too.

Llergo, now 29, has developed a voice and singing style of her own, but she’s intent on keeping regional traditions alive. Infusing electronica and R&B with traditional Andalusian influences — including flamenco snaps and the off-kilter melodies of cante jondo, a guttural singing style common to folk music in the south of Spain — Llergo’s 2020 EP “Sanación” is a testament to the versatility of flamenco as a genre. “Ultrabelleza,” her debut album out Friday, takes this experiment a step further.

The record’s lead single, “Rueda, Rueda,” begins with a chant and handclaps before a sprawling pop chorus arrives. On tracks like “Visión y Reflejo,” Llergo even tries her hand at rapping. “María had never done it before,” the Spanish indie singer Zahara, who was one of the album’s main producers, said in a video call. “But she managed to do it in one take when we were recording the song. It was super impressive.”

Llergo said she knows she isn’t the first person to traverse genres — and she’s not just talking about the Catalan pop star Rosalía, whose debut album, “El Mal Querer,” is often credited with catapulting flamenco into 21st-century global pop. (Incidentally, she and Llergo both studied at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona under the same mentor, José Miguel Vizcay.)

“Flamenco has always lent itself to other styles. All you have to do to find proof of that is look back at people like Lola Flores and Camarón,” Llergo said, referring to Camarón de la Isla, the singer often credited as the 20th century’s “god” of flamenco. “It’s always been global.”

During the 1970s and ’80s, Camarón de la Isla, a Romani from Cádiz whose stage name is Spanish for “shrimp,” breathed new life into flamenco by adding instruments not traditionally found in the genre, such as the drums and bass guitar, to his recordings. His heartfelt lyrics and acrobatic vocal range would also eventually earn him a reputation as one of the country’s top crooners: In his best-known song, “Como el Água,” he compares the strength of his love for someone to a river running through the sierra.

Llergo tends to speak in that language, too, drawing from the rich natural landscapes of southern Spain to tell stories about herself, her hometown and the people in it. “I run through your body like water runs through a river,” she sings in the synth-heavy “Juramento,” in a nod to her predecessor.

While “Juramento” and other songs on the record don’t necessarily sound like flamenco, Llergo knows there are different ways artists can pay homage to the genre. Drawing clear demarcations around who or what fits into it isn’t one of them. “It’s flamenco’s ability to mix into other genres that makes it more appealing on a global level,” she said.

From the plucky guitar riffs on Madonna’s 1987 hit “La Isla Bonita” to the handclaps, or palmas, on Caroline Polachek’s “Sunset” from earlier this year, there’s a long history of American pop artists’ experimenting with flamenco. As the market becomes friendlier to Spanish-language pop, listeners might find themselves looking for more of the genre.

“Folk music in general — take regional Mexican music, for example — is becoming increasingly popular,” said Manuel Jubera, Llergo’s A&R at Sony Music Spain, in a recent phone interview. “So it’s a good moment for flamenco to export itself.” Next year Llergo will bring her music directly to the United States with a show at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex in Los Angeles in March and one at Le Poisson Rouge in New York the following week.

“I remember the first time I went to New York, I couldn’t stop crying and taking videos on my phone,” she said. “I still think about the way the sun reflects on the buildings there.” (When she’s on the road, she misses home, though. She beckoned her 1-year-old Chihuahua, Torres, to show him off on camera, but he was nowhere to be found.)

When Llergo was in New York, she found herself reflecting on the culture of her homeland. “I thought about Federico García Lorca a lot,” she said, referring to his book, “Poet in New York,” written during a 10-month stint in the city in 1929.

Like Llergo, García Lorca came from Andalusia. “And do you know what the street I grew up in in Pozoblanco is called?” she asked, looking straight at the camera, her eyebrows rising. “Federico García Lorca.”

These types of connections — including ones between America and Spain — are often on her mind. “Flamenco is like the blues,” she said. It originated in Andalusia’s marginalized Roma communities. “The lyrics tell stories of survival — it’s always been a way for the most oppressed to escape.” Llergo, who said she faced discrimination at school because of her lower-class background, still finds solace in them.

Like many people, she also appreciates the communal nature of flamenco, an idea grounded in the concept of el jaleo, roughly “hell-raising” or causing a ruckus, which refers to the audience’s hand-clapping, foot-stomping shouts of encouragement during a performance.

Over the years, a number of people have encouraged Llergo to raise hell too, and when she looks to the future, she can’t help but feel grateful for them. “It’s crazy,” she said. “To think that when my grandfather was watering the plants in his field, he was also nurturing me.”
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