Melisma

“Melisma” is an interesting word. While its meaning might be relatively unknown among many, it describes a phenomenon that is somehow known and encountered by many, yet not mentally or rationally “named” as such.. perhaps because there was not really a need to “name” it.

Simply put: melisma is a singing style stretching one syllable over several notes. Often resulting in one “vocal run” across notes (but of one syllable). This can thus be contrasted to “syllabic” singing, with each syllable representing a note. The latter, syllabic singing, is much more common in large parts of the world, including in Western pop music.

On the other extreme, though, are regions in this world where “melismatic” singing is very common, even close to “the norm” and have a long tradition: the Middle East, North Africa, parts of Eastern Africa, India, but also the Greek Orthodox world, and the South of Spain, with Flamenco as known "folk music"/world music example.

Its origins is dated at least to 3.000 years back.

In these regions melismatic singing has a century-long tradition, with dominance in certain (sub)genres, especially more “religious” singing or “free” singing, less bound to certain rhythmic patterns. Within Flamenco, some subgenres have a fixed, faster rhythm and therefore allow less melismatic singing, though some skilled singers still can pull it off. Outside of these regions and influences, it has somewhat of a tradition in singing in the Celtic and Slavic world, in some aspects and song forms.

To most people’s ears, in its rough form, though, melisma reminds of North African and Arabic music, though it is also found in Jewish singing, and in Ethiopia, which has a long Christian tradition. There is thus no specific religious connection, also as it became common in European Gregorian chanting as well, though with different “feels” (more intense in North Africa).

TOWARD POP

Global Spanish influence, and Islamic influence, might have helped spread melisma wider, though often mixed with local precedents. After all: it does not seem so strange a thought to “lengthen” vocally a syllable or word over several notes, for an effect of “intensity” for instance.

This effect of “intensity” made it common in Black music in the Americas as well. From religious Gospel to secular Soul and R&B, and related genres. Again, like in Flamenco, more in the “slower”, less rhythmically bound genres, with “freer” singing.

Melismatic singing can thus be found here and there in songs by Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, and Aretha Franklin, and even more in songs by Whitney Houston, Deniece Williams, Mariah Carey, Luther Vandross, as it entered more the Western pop mainstream. Whitney Houston’s mass global hit ‘I will always love you’ is said to be the song that popularized “melismatic” singing most.. even among people who did not know the word “melisma”.

Houston’s song is a good example, becoming especially powerful with actually good singers with extraordinary vocal reach: like Whitney Houston, but also Mariah Carey, or Luther Vandross, to name some known ones, using melisma.

In this Black “soul” music, it is often associated with the more-or-less spiritual concept of “soul” itself, due to its intense feel, though not the only component – of course – of “soulful” singing, but an important one.

Even more structurally, also in secular “pop” music in e.g. Ethiopia – Ethio-pop - melisma is used, as in Spain (even in “flamenco pop”), in Hindustani Pop or in modernized pop-like music in North Africa (like Rai) and the Arab world.

I myself tried to sing melimatically too, of course (e.g. in the chorus of my song "Mañana Mañana"). I found it was - as so often - not as easy as it seemed: a skill requiring both experience and commitment, really only learned within a culture itself. Others only can (maybe) come close.

In other contexts, the “trance-like” feel of melisma and multi-notes syllable has a kind of religious function, in spiritual contexts, such as in the Islamic world (think of the mosques’ Muezzin chanter calling for prayer), Jewish services, or Gregorian chants. Also in the Hindu world of India there are examples of this.

RHYTHM

Though I like all music, I consider myself a “rhythm man” (I play percussion, for one). An interesting question I therefore find is in how far melisma in singing can be combined well with a groovy rhythm. Vaguely I know this to be the case, finding the challenge of fitting melisma in the rhythm of singers intriguing.

Good examples I know from Stevie Wonder, Reggae songs by soulful singers like Alton Ellis, Dennis Brown, Don Carlos, and Ijahman Levi (example: song Moulding), but in fact Ijahman Levi uses melisma in several songs.

Also other singing styles found within Reggae “echo” melismatic traits, certainly the “Waterhouse style” (named after a ghetto area in Kingston, Jamaica) “wailing” chant, with some hints towards “yodeling”, but likewise to soulful melisma, by singers like Michael Rose and Yami Bolo, and in the band Black Uhuru (where Michael Rose long sang)

In Flamenco, it is common to restrain/keep from melisma in faster, more rhythmically bound subgenres of Flamenco – sticking there more to syllabic note-per-syllable singing, although very skilled singers, such as Arcángel, are revered for “fitting” melisma in the rhythm/beat (“compás” in Spanish). In Flamenco this skill is praised as “velocidad” (literal: “velocity/speed”): fitting melismatic singing in faster rhythms.

Several already mentioned Reggae artists proved as well that melismatic singing can be "fitted" well in a good Reggae groove (Black Uhuru!), as did Soul or R&B singers.

Also Ethiopian music genres with strong rhythms often combine successfully with variants of melismatic singing, often faster types.

It is thus not restricted to “ballad”-like songs, or slow Soul or R&B. Some Soul singers made upbeat, “dance” song using melisma, such as Beyoncé and Leona Lewis.

So, interesting from the musical perspective is its link with “rhythm”. In fact, one can argue that melisma relates more to relatively “rhythmic” music, as also Spanish folk music is known (compared to the rest of Europe). Melisma and flexible rhythms seemed made for each other.

“Straighter” rhythms as in the Sub-Saharan African tradition, i.e. clave-based polyrhythmic pieces, with its rhythmic “tight complexity” and call-and-response, allows less melismatic singing, or extended notes.

Cuba inherited that tradition through its African-descended population, mainly from that “clave-based” polyrhythmic cultural region (Congo region, Yorubaland, Calabar), while singing more similar to melisma can be found in the (guitar-based) “Punto” or "Punto Guajiro" genre in rural Cuba, which is said to represent influences from other historical heritages in Cuba: of the Canary islands and South Spain, including Flamenco-like vocal influences.

To a lesser degree, these also show in vocal parts in Son and Salsa, mixed in with African (esp. Congo) influences.

Part of the variation in singing – of say: a lead singer between the chorus - is also covered as African languages are mostly tonal, so “up and down” movements are inherent to the languages, whereas in languages like Arab and Spanish this should be deliberately searched by own intonation.

COMPENSATION

That is also an interesting way to look at it, and I think an interesting conclusion: melisma as musical/vocal “compensation” for speaking a non-tonal language, like e.g. Arab, Hindi, English, or Spanish, thus adding desired vocal variety and fluctuation. Bantu languages, for instance, have that inherently, but this vocal varying is sought by in other languages too, apparently.

Always pleasant to notice that there’s more that unites humanity worldwide than divides it, which at the same time – as a nice irony - translates in quite different cultures and music styles.. This only makes this world more varied and interesting.

We’re not the same, but we’re equally creative. Something like that..

Dancing feet

I still do not know how I feel about “tap dancing”. I know it exists from since I was a child: television, films. I thought it was lively and somehow intriguing. I liked Gregory Hines’ dancing, and his natural charisma. He seemed like a nice guy. I also saw Sammy Davis jr. and Fred Astaire performing tap dancing since young, but only heard of “Bojangles” until later in life. Hines seemed to me the “coolest” tap dancer, from what I first saw.

Later in life, I became a percussionist, playing rhythm-focussed music and (small and big) percussion instruments. Even before this, I liked to dance to “rhythms” of music I liked: Reggae mainly, but also Latin American music, Funk, and African music. I even tried to dance – in some multi-genre-focussed clubs – to other genres like Blues, Rock, Jazz, Techno, Pop, even Country.

SKANKING AND ROCKSTEADY

My dancing was influenced by Reggae dancing, such as what is called “skanking”, and other Rocksteady, Reggae, and Dancehall dances that developed over time in the 1970s and 1980s in Jamaica. In Jamaica itself, I picked up the dance called “water pumpee”, nicely fitting most Reggae rhythms since the 1970s, while the original Rocksteady dance – characterized by a stationary grid – also appealed to me, perhaps especially because it was stationary. I felt no need to walk around, and considered it in busy places even impolite.. The Rocksteady dance made me instead move more my hips, shoulders, and torso, also arms. This fitted the Jamaican grooves (since Rocksteady) I liked so much.

An earlier Jamaican music genre, Ska, had a different dance. Since I liked Ska less, I also liked the accompanying dance less. Ska dancing – described as “Shake it, and Catch it again” - is less stationary and hip-centered, instead involving moving about and walking (so more leg and foot), and arm movements. It fitted the faster Ska rhythms.

The “Skanking” of later Reggae, mixes Rocksteady daces, with a few Ska, and other influences, and involves a “slow-running-like” motion, a bit less stationary than the Rocksteady dance.

I say all this, because it explains why I did not focus on the feet so much, when dancing. Not in my own dancing, where I tend to be stationary and focus on my middle body and hip and arm coordination. Semi-skanking. However, neither did I became very fascinated with “footwork” dances I encountered.

SALSA

When I went to Cuba, I got a few “informal” Salsa dance lessons.

Though I liked Cuban music and percussion – more or less fell in love with it there - , the Salsa couple dance was a bit too rigid for my taste. Not so much "stiff": it is as much African as European in origin, with also hip and pelvis movements and other African dance principles (found e.g. in Rumba dances too)- especially in Cuban variants - but the feet lead, making it rigid. Even if Salsa music as such (a genre term coined in New York) is for over 70% based on (Afro-)Cuban music, and people dance on it in Cuba too. I danced however rather “a mi manera” (in my own way) and alone to it, I mostly told my Cuban friends, when we danced, just moving naturally to the rhythm. The Salsa dance that I did not really get into, involved footwork, and “counting” steps. I felt it distracted me, ironically, from the music, one was supposed to dance it to.

The Irish River dance dancers, I still found aesthetic and skilled, and I saw some engaging “tapping” in jazz and other genres.

PERCUSSION

So we come slowly and surely to the elephant in the room: the connection between the “feet dancing” and the music.. Feet responding to it, but also tapping as sound, becoming an (extra) percussion instrument. This I found a bit more interesting. The folk Zaouli dancers, among the Guro people in Ivory Coast, Africa, focusing on fast, rhythmic footwork on percussive music of mainly drums (with bells on the feet), while being masked, engaged me a lot. It had a magical, meditational appeal.

That was the first time I thought – I was by then already years playing percussion -: maybe I should explore more the relation between footwork and percussion and rhythm. Another percussive aspects, so to speak. After all: the (trap) drum kit has the “kick” bass drum, and I had “foot shakers” (as the Zaouli dancers used), and a hand drum that could be played while sat on, muting the tone with heels. Partly subconsciously – like other musicians – I also tapped along with my feet on rhythms and beats, a s a type of metronome.

In other words: my activities as musician involved sometimes using feet too.

EUROPEAN OR AFRICAN?

An interesting, related question is a cultural one. Is it perhaps an European characteristic, that focus on feet, footwork, and walking in dancing? In line, after all, with e.g. the marching bands. It is found in folk dances, some say, of European peoples, like some Celtic peoples, in Slavic dances, in ancient Rome and Italy, and Greece. Europeans apparently have to walk around when they dance.

Then there is the stereotype that hip, pelvic, and torso movements are originally African ways of dancing, not found so much in Europe (or Asia or elsewhere), where dances are “stiffer”. A stereotype that is partly true, if simplistic. Some European, Asian, or Amerindian dances involve – more often for women – hip or buttocks moving too, although much less common than in sub-Saharan Africa.

It is true, however, that African, particularly sub-Saharan African, culture has an own concept of dancing, that is more advanced and spiritual than elsewhere in the world. This was partly retained in the West among Afro-Americans. Crucially: it involves all body parts, also separately. Of course, there is a tight relationship with rhythms and music in Africa, and African music is more percussive than that of other continents. Focussed on the pelvis, hips, buttocks, and torso, but dependent on the music and its (spiritual) function, every body part can be emphasized, as is shown with the mentioned masked Zaouli dancers in Ivory Coast, and their rhythmic footwork.

European dances, in comparison, seem stiffer, with the body as a whole held stiffer, even if footwork patterns are followed. This is noticeable in dances like the Waltz, the contredanse, and other dances that also went to the Americas with colonization. African descendants in the Caribbean and elsewhere often gave an own, looser interpretation of these “stiffer” European dances.

Spanish Flamenco dance is also quite well-known, and has some of these “stiffer” aspects too, though it is a bit overemphasized. I know, after all, the difference between original, “pure”, folk Flamenco, and later stylized versions in academia, with other European influences.. These stylized versions made some Flamenco moves stiffer than they originally were. Spain, even South Spain where Flamenco is from, is of course still Europe, but original folk Flamenco dances was more loose and flexible in body and hip movements, certainly for European standards.

The same applies to some other Spanish folk dances like Jota, Fandango, or even Paso Doble, the latter also presented as one of those stiff “white man” dances, while it originally was looser. Here, Spain’s colonial past (colonialism was in essence connected with white supremacy and an European sense of cultural superiority) even made it rewrite its own history, instead of rewriting other people’s history, as Europeans also have done.

Not all Spaniards liked the French philosopher Voltaire’s famous statement “Behind the Pyrenees begins Africa..”, he made once, for the same reason. Voltaire meant this both culturally and economically in the time of writing. In some senses, it might be a bit true.

Yet, also dances in other parts of Europe than Spain (parts of the Balkan, Italy, some Celtic dances) were a bit looser and more hip-focussed than one would assume of European folk dances.

MUSIC AND DANCE

There is, despite these nuances, one overwhelming truth, though, as also concluded by scholar Robert Farris Thomson in his book 'Aesthetic of the cool : Afro-Atlantic art and music' (2011), regarding the difference between African and European dancing. Namely: that in European culture musicians play together (harmony, unison, chords), but that music and dance are separate. In African culture, on the other hand, musicians play apart (cross-rhythms, counter-rhythms, own patterns), but dance and music are on the other hand intertwined. A deep cultural and musical difference, explaining also the differences in dancing, broadly speaking, between Europe and Africa.

Pure anatomy: the feet carry your whole body, and Western (harmonic) music perhaps require solid, singular body movements: bodies as united and solid as the music piece, as exemplified by the waltz dance moves. No attention or need for separate body part movements, not even the hip or arms.

In that sense, tap dancing shows its (partly) African origin. Some describe it as a mixture of African and Irish traditions, which is an interesting mix, although first troubled by its early appearance in the racist Minstrel shows, stereotyping tap dancing. Despite this, there are actual foot/leg dance traditions among African Americans, and the jig tradition among Irish Americans.

ZAPATEO

Somewhere in-between these “tap/footwork” dance traditions, or perhaps besides them, is the use of feet and tapping in Spanish Flamenco music, known as “Zapateo”, or also “zapateado”. Both terms describe subgenres, or rather “techniques”, within Flamenco music, being both percussive and dance, and derive from the Spanish word for “shoe”.

Many historians assume a Gipsy origin of zapate(ad)o, i.e. brought by the Roma migrants into Spain, historically present especially since the 16th c. Flamenco music is not of Gipsy/Roma origin as such – a common misconception -, rather mixed-Andalusian/South Spanish, though without a doubt Spain’s, especially South-Spain’s/Andalusian, Gipsy population influenced Flamenco’s development strongly over time. Some claim they added thus the zapateo dancing.

How does this Zapateo relate to the mentioned anthropological differences between dancing and music in Europe, Africa and elsewhere? I guess Andalusia is of course at the brink of Europe, being geographically closer to Africa than any other part of Europe: the Strait of Gibraltar is at its smallest about 14 km wide. Andalusia and more Southern parts of Spain have of course a Moorish past (North African/Islamic) rule, so already for these reasons Flamenco can hardly be seen as prototypically White or European.

Due to colonialism – and its associated Euro/White supremacy ideas - spread to Latin America, Spain got in several Latin American countries the image of “White Europe”, as the benchmark of it. Notwithstanding the even whiter, and more Northern Britons, Germans, or Dutch.

The long reign of Catholicism, mixed with militarism, and later even fascism, in Spain, enforced that distorted image of Spain as THE European nation. Voltaire’s comment: “behind the Pyrenees begins Africa” is no less true or exaggerated. Spain simply received several influences, especially Mediterranean ones, including from the African side. The known percussion instrument the “castanets”, have been known in Spain from before the Romans, and probably have a Phoenician or Egyptian genealogy.

Moreover, some African influences returned to Spain, as also related in the mentioned book of Farris Thompson, because of Spain’s colonialism, from Afro-Cuban music for instance. This would later also help shape forms of Flamenco rhythmically, notably the Tangos or Rumba subforms of Flamenco, and in the Sevillana folk genre in Sevilla.

Yet, apart from such theoretical frameworks: how is that Zapate(ad)o in practice? How does it come across? As stereotypically “stiff European”? More African than one would expect, perhaps?

I am somewhere in between, having seen Zapateo: on media, but also live a few times, even of the “authentic Flamenco” kind: I mainly see and sense a link with Jazz. Tapping is also connected to Jazz, quite similar to how Zapateo is connected to Flamenco. The taps in both cultural contexts serve to “instruct” or “lead” the musical response, in the case of Flamenco often of the Spanish guitar and other instruments. However, the Ivory Coast Zaouli dance has the same principle.

The sound with the shoes in Zapate(ad)o are varied – not unlike the castanets -, including taps, but also semi-rattle, or “sliding” sounds. These become than another percussion instrument in a rhythmic and musical improvisation, as in Jazz. Let’s just call it “free” and “creative” instead of Black or White, or European or African.

Either way, along with the Zaouli dancing among the Guro in Ivory Coast, it increased my interest in the relationship between “tapping” and foot movements and percussion.

Flamenco and I

It is in some sense part of my cultural heritage, Flamenco Music. My mother after all hails from the Southern half of Spain (not far from Córdoba), and the South Spanish region Andalusia, along with parts of surrounding regions (Extremadura, Murcia), is the place of origin of the Flamenco music, dance, and culture.

Flamenco is indeed one of the most developed and maintained folk music genres in Europe. While there is folk music everywhere, even in Europe, especially in more rural areas, few have such an extended, and internationalized tradition, safe perhaps the also quite well-known folk music from Ireland. For that reason, Flamenco is also on Unesco’s World Heritage List.

That Flamenco might be part of my cultural heritage is not that far-fetched a thought, since also what are probably distant family members (surname and place of birth, etcetera) are also active in Flamenco, such as singer Miguel De Tena, having the same surname as my grandmother.

So I encounter it due to my background, have some connection to it.. but do I like it, that whole Flamenco culture? Readers of my (this) blog could deduce that I am mainly a Reggae fan, though also a broader Black music fan. Yet here and there I also pay attention to other music genres, even world wide, including Spanish music.

The answer is yes, I like and appreciate Flamenco.

There are some nuances, though. I noted that there are quite some misconceptions, and divergent definitions and descriptions of Flamenco and its origins. It also is very broad and varied, with several varying subgenres and patterns. In that sense, Flamenco is not “one thing”, but rather a varied cultural complex centered on Andalusia, developing furthermore over time.

Contrary to what many think, Flamenco is not of Gipsy origin. The Andalusian Gipsy/Roma population soon became very active in it, as players and creators, but originally Flamenco combines several cultural influences within the Andalusia region itself, including local Spanish genres. It also is influenced by the Moorish/Islamic history of South Spain, also in some musical aspects, by Jewish presence, and other aspects, combining all this with Gipsy influences. It is thus local, and after all: if not, the Gipsy/Roma populations in Eastern Europe or elsewhere would have that Flamenco too as main expression, but do not.

MY KNOWLEDGE

Throughout my life, I have learned more and more about Flamenco: both its history and its current characteristics and variety. It started with vague information, also mistaken notions, but these got corrected, as I started to study more reliable and scholarly sources. The contradicting information and misconceptions – or deliberate false information spread – made some facts difficult to unearth.

I read the current (English-language) Wikipedia article on Flamenco, and derived from other sources, I can conclude that it is relatively correct and accurate.

Another source is the book 'World Music. – Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East' (London : Rough Guides, 1999), a book of over 700 pages about several countries, which dedicates a separate chapter on Flamenco music, and another one on other Spanish music.

It is overall more sketchy and less scholarly than even the Wikipedia article, let alone other, actually scholarly studies I also know. Some aspects are therefore not even entirely correct, partly maybe because of ideological reasons.

The author on the chapter on Spanish Flamenco in the World Music book, Jan Fairley, separates Flamenco from Spanish folk music as such more than elsewhere, stating “the roots of flamenco have evolved in southern Spain from many sources: Morocco, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Greece, and other parts of the Near and Far East”.. One country she seems to have forgotten: Spain itself (present local Spanish folk music, already there before the Moors conquered Spain, and the Gypsies came). Furthermore I do not really know what the Pakistani or Greek contributions to Flamenco consist of, but there might be.

Not entirely adequate, and probably a (transparent, thus failed) attempt at “political correctness” against a colonizing European nation as Spain, oppressing its minorities. It is a bit more complex than that. Besides, it is a bit less convincing when someone with an English name does that, England having at least a similar colonial, racist past as Spain.

To be fair, other parts of that same chapter are a bit more interesting and correct as an overview. Fairley rightly emphasizes the importance of “improvisation” in Flamenco music and gatherings, and discusses some important aspects, artists and subgenres and mixtures.

For a more correct and easily accessible description of Flamenco’s origins I however recommend the English-language Wikipedia article.

It is hard for me to say if I necessarily like all forms or forms of Flamenco, also because I do not know enough of all forms.

GUITAR

I am more a percussion man than a guitar man - I am a percussionist after all - and also play a drum kit at times. Some Flamenco is very guitar-oriented, and therefore possibly less appealing for non-guitarists. The connection to the classical guitar (Spanish guitar) is however culturally interesting, Spain being the place of origin of the guitar in that form. That form became in time very widespread and influential in international Western pop music, with all the later developments in the guitar outside of Spain (steel strings, electric guitar, country guitar, bass guitar, etcetera). The original acoustic guitar with nylon strings is still the norm within Flamenco, and I personally like the sound of nylon strings more than steel ones.

Both my brothers play guitars: one specialized in bass, the other in Spanish and Flamenco guitars, so I personally encountered it.

Besides music, there are also Flamenco dances, for which the same applies.

I certainly like to dance to music, but as naturally and rhythmically as possible: just following the rhythm. Some of the moves in Flamenco dances I find nice, but others a bit too stylized and rigid to my taste. At times the male-female distinctions of these moves betray old-fashioned, somewhat conservative gender relations, that I as a progressive, modern man do not feel so attached too. Still, even with such more stylized moves, I at times can appreciate the elegancy and grace, especially when it flows naturally with the music.

RHYTHM

What I like most, though, of Flamenco, is that it, for European music standards, has quite an important role for “rhythm”. It is a largely (acoustic) guitar-driven nature, but many styles of playing of the acoustic guitar are quite rhythmic, maintaining specific rhythm patterns, befitting the several subgenres within Flamenco (soleá, buleria, siguiriya, tientos, tangos, regional, etcetera). The recurring hand clapping in Flamenco (and feet tapping) also relate to this. These genre distinctions are defined by differing rhythmic patterns, around which the music is built, rather than chord/harmony structures, as in other Western music. I like this rhythmic focus within Flamenco, being myself quite oriented on rhythm.

Over time, all this became even more interesting, also for me.

SINGING

The vocal part I like too. The impassioned singing can be beautiful and heartfelt, with the melismatic, North African-like singing style adding some passion and fervor to the lyrics. Some, including my “family member” Miguel De Tena, can sing like this quite well, but Flamenco has and has had several great and original singers, such as the legendary Camarón De La Isla.

Regarding lyrics, I again have a caveat, however. Used to and appreciative of the “conscious”, socially critical messages common in Reggae music – rebelling against the system and injustice -, I cannot focus too long on lyrics lacking this. Many (not all!) Flamenco lyrics are about love affairs or romantic love. Nothing wrong with a sincere love song, or nice poetic renderings of “matters of the heart”, but love, heart break, lost love, etcetera, are well-trodden paths in much popular music. It is part of life, but there is more to life than that.

Luckily, there is some socially conscious Flamenco too, and not coincidentally one of those “conscious” Flamenco singers is one of the first I got into, in that genre: Manuel Gerena. A great, intense singer, accompanied by good, improvizing guitarists, plus having socially critical lyrics, often about poverty and exploitation of workers – and other injustices - in rural Andalusia. Spain being a dictatorship up to 1975, censorship probably limited such lyrics long, and as my mother explained to me about growing up during the Franco dictatorship in Spain: employers/bosses had “free reign” to exploit and abuse lowly workers, with few – if any – labourers rights, during this Right-wing, Fascist-like dictatorship lasting in Spain until 1975 (my mother migrated/”escaped” to the Netherlands, around 1966).

Still not the best-known Flamenco artist, Manuel Gerena, but at least his social lyrics are now openly possible. I certainly “felt” his songs, anyway.

AFRO-LATIN

Flamenco developed further, and another interesting direction came with the influences from the Spanish colonies, like Cuba. These “came back” to Spain, you might say, after Spanish music was mixed with African and Amerindian music in Latin America. Some Flamenco musicians, such as Paco De Lucia, were open to these influences, also after travels, and added Afro-Peruvian and Afro-Cuban instruments, such as the cajón percussion, becoming quite common in Flamenco, and at times also congas and bongos, and smaller percussion instruments of Cuban or Latin American origin.

Besides these musical instruments, new patterns and forms developed within Flamenco, influenced by Cuban and other styles, including a subgenre in Flamenco, known as “Rumba”, being Cuban-influenced rhythmically. The style known as “Tangos” in Flamenco is on the other hand partly Argentinian-influenced.

Some Flamenco purists object to these additions and changes, but many Flamenco artists welcome it at the same time, to differing degrees.

I personally like those Afro-Cuban and Latin American additions, and find them often groovy, and combining interestingly rhythmically with the guitar sounds. One of the best-known Flamenco songs, the classic Entre Dos Aguas, certainly has that Cuban-influenced groove.

Rumba-flamenco also spread to Gypsies, outside of Andalusia, notably to the Catalonia and Perpignan (France) regions. Hence, the band known as the Gypsy Kings, based in the South of France, who had some international hits in this rumba-flamenco style (Bamboleo).

More recently, some more innovations took place by musicians active in Flamenco. Flamenco came to influence in recent decades pop genres in Spain – predictably, maybe – resulting in Flamenco Pop and Flamenco Rock, with mixed results. There are several talented artists and musicians, however, active nowadays, mixing Flamenco nicely with not just Rock, but also Funk, Blues and Reggae. I like Makandé, from Cádiz, for instance, mixing Flamenco with funk, reggae, and other genres, adding percussion. He has nice, groovy songs.

Other groups and artists, such as Radio Tarifa, work together with African and other musicians, combining with Flamenco, as a broader “World Music” approach.

The mentioned World Music book names in this regard also, justly, Ketama (mixing Flamenco with Rock and Salsa), and Pata Negra (mixing Flamenco with Blues) as noteworthy bands.

Interesting I find as well some Andalusian reggae artists, e.g. Little Pepe from Málaga, that in their singing clearly show Flamenco influences, on Reggae riddims. Often to good and original effect.

IN CONCLUSION

I can conclude therefore, also from a personal perspective, that I like the Flamenco tradition, and in that sense also that I more or less grew up with it, consisting of a nice heritage. Musically, I went in different directions, and was inspired especially by Black music, like Reggae, already as a child, increasing as teenager.

My musical interest, however, has always remained broad and open-minded, while Spanish and Italian music had my interest due to my background (Italian father, Spanish mother), with Flamenco being part of that. I listened regularly to some Flamenco artists (Camarón De La Isla, Manuel Gerena, Enrique El Extremeño, Paco de Lucia, Fosforito, Antonio Molina, and others), with both Gitano (Gypsy/Roma) and non-Gipsy backgrounds.

Later I began making music myself, and in time specialized in playing percussion. I do not exclude the possibility that some Flamenco influences appeared into my approach to percussion playing, singing, or other music making..