Heard tonight, while crossing the Seine near Notre-Dame, where a guitarist was giving a [rather mediocre] rendition of Albéniz’s Suite española, op. 47:
Oh, honey! I know this one, that’s the Gipsy kings!
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Heard tonight, while crossing the Seine near Notre-Dame, where a guitarist was giving a [rather mediocre] rendition of Albéniz’s Suite española, op. 47:
Oh, honey! I know this one, that’s the Gipsy kings!
Comments are closed.
Ah, Albeniz. Love that piece. Didn’t realize that it was that short though.
Ugh, Gipsy Kings. Can anybody out there tell me why, oh why, in any corner of the world, when a bar, restaurant, or cafe is trying to be “cool” or “worldly” they inevitably put on:
1. Gipsy Kings
2. Cesaria Evora
3. Bossanova
4. a combination of all of the above.
Mind you, I like Cesaria, and I’ll even admit at going through a Gipsy Kings phase when I was, like, 12 years old, but c’mon people! Anything Starbucks puts down on a CD and sells for twelve bucks is not “hip.”
[sorry for the venting, didn’t know I had that rant in me. and thanks, I feel much better now.]
DrDave,very appreciate show us so nice music,you really know a lot about music..follow the
rhythm and image the dancer’s immotion..how ramntic and passion. 乾杯! i am was drunking in the tempo!! (*^_^*) .
e
Heh, no worries Felix: anytime you feel like venting about the streamlining of music for the purpose of selling overpriced branded coffee…
I must admit I haven’t seen anything on the scale of the Gipsy Kings with the use of Cesaria Evora or bossa nova (unless you count the ultimately lethal wave of elevator smushiness repackaged as easy-listening that came and went in the late 90’s)… But I sure know there probably isn’t a single “latino”/”world”/whatevers-not-from-here restaurant in half the world that doesn’t end the night with some Gypsy Kings mixtape…
Albeniz’ “Leyenda”: yes, overplayed as it is (I think I’ve heard it already half a dozen times in miscellaneous busking-happy parts of the city, since I got here), it’s still haunting when played right. As for its length: maybe you are thinking of the full piece (this is only the last movement of a 3-to-8 movements suite: see its convoluted story linked above)… Also, I only know a few interpretations, but I reckon Narcisso Yepes might have picked a faster than usual tempo (well, compared to the tourist-oriented hack who was playing it yesterday, he sounds about 10 times faster and with a dozen extra hands, but probably not a fair comparison 😉 )…
I’m sure it was the same guy who I saw playing at the same spot last year. I thought he was playing pretty well for a 20-times-a-day street show. I’ve been playing guitar for over 20 years and had to admire and envy his fingerwork.
Ria
As I said, I think I’ve heard that one piece a dozen times in the short span of my stay so far, so it really may be a different one, but who knows…
At any rate, he wasn’t actually bad, simply mediocre, especially for somebody who would be playing that one track a few hundred times a year… All that, to my absolutely ignorant ear, as far as actual guitar technique is concerned. Granted once again, the comparison with Yepes is pretty unfair, as I doubt there are many people out there who could compete with him on such a piece…
In the early 60’s I got into traditional flamenco music–along with the bullfights, mind you. It was very hip at the time. I tossed the bullfights and kept the music on the back burner, so to speak. What really got my attention was the cantaors of the time, singers of fllamenco. It takes some vocal calesthenics to do it right, and this skill varies among singers. Many years later, in the 90’s, I discovered the Gipsy Kings and recognized Nicolas Reyes’ flamenco singing style. He had for many years the finest flamenco voice I had heard. IMO, he surpassed his own famous father who taught all the boys, evidently. He weaves that style of singing throughout the group’s repertoir, and his roots are never far away. —-O’Ross