I've found these two quite informative: http://www.salon.com/people/feature/1999/10/02/pohren/index.html, and http://www.deflamenco.com/articulos/verArticuloi.jsp?codigo=FLA%7C460.

The first is a discussion of and interview with Donn Pohren by Jon B. Rhine; the second is a discussion of Diego del Gastor by Brook Zern.

Carlos

Odano Icifa wrote:I've found these two quite informative: http://www.salon.com/people/feature/1999/10/02/pohren/index.html, and http://www.deflamenco.com/articulos/verArticuloi.jsp?codigo=FLA%7C460.

The first is a discussion of and interview with Donn Pohren by Jon B. Rhine; the second is a discussion of Diego del Gastor by Brook Zern.

Carlos

Very interesting articles, Carlos.

Thank you.

Doog

Here is another interesting and informative posting, which discusses the Pohren/Moron/Diego phenomenon from the perspective of Diego disciple David Serva: http://sfflamenco.com/historical/features/2002-04/balladofgypsydavy.html

Carlos

Carlos, It is good you have studied the San Francisco Bay Area flamenco information. I have a video posted here with a great singer and Diegos nephew Juan playing in SF. I haven't had the health in recent years to visit the disciples of Moron in SF, but I have corresponded with some of them and bought a lot of books, videos, CD's, etc. from them. I have videos of baptisms, wedding, funerals, juergas, etc. that took place in the 60's-70's in Moron de la Frontera. I was never in Spain physically, but with my experience learning from a student of Diego's and all the books and videos, I feel I have spent some time in Moron spiritually perhaps via duende.

This article really hits home on the division of puro VS modern flamenco. So many of the moderns have NO appreciation of Cante. It is all about virtuoso solo guitar with technique ruling over expression and melody. It is true my focus is on guitar as I love stringed instruments, especially flamenco guitars. I wish I could still make them and play them at a higher level. Where I differ from most is when I touch the strings, I want to try to produce a sound that has components of the human voice as well as the guitar accompaniment. I try to make my falsetas express what a singer would since I do not sing and no one around here knows anything about flamenco, let alone cante.

I agree that the advent of solo flamenco with Ramon Montoya was the death of "the gypsy" in flamenco. I love Ramon Montoya and mess around with some of his easier falsetas, but the international commercial stage put the focus on the guitar first, with dance second, and vocals last or excluded. I saw Sabicas perform, but this was after he and Carmen split, so it was all solo guitar. It was like magic watching him and I can only imagine what seeing in person his playing and Carmen dancing would have been like. I can only imagine what seeing Fernanda with Diego in person would have been like. One of my life's regret is I wanted to go to Moron in 1971, but never could afford it. Then Diego died in 73 and the opportunity of a lifetime was lost.

Carlos it might inspire more appreciation for solo guitar to listen and watch the Melchor de Marchena videos I have posted. He captures the essence of the human voice in some of his falsetas. His dynamics are so expressive of the feeling that cante might invoke.

Sam, I appreciate your thoughtful comments on the relationship today between cante, baile, and toque, with the solo guitar and dance becoming more and more the focal point of interest in "flamenco" among great masses of people. Yet I am not surprised that el cante is eclipsed by the guitar and the dance. Most people, unless they have been exposed at an early age to cante (or are unusually sensitive to its unique charms), are actually repelled by the sound of serious cante. My mother used to shout at me about whether that "chicken-strangling" would stop soon, as I played my flamenco LPs in my room. My wife loathes cante. I am not bothered by their dislike at all; I understand it completely; cante is definitely for the few. And it is also easy to understand why people are drawn to solo guitar, hearing it and possibly wanting to play it themselves, as the guitar is the primo instrument of romance and virtuosity--portable and muy macho. And everybody (almost) likes to see dance, especially "Spanish" dance, and imagines themselves dancing. Jose Greco once said something about every woman wishing she was loved by Jose Greco and every man wishing he was Jose Greco.

About Sabicas. As an accompanist to cante, he (playing alone or with his brother and Mario Escudero) was fabulous, in my view. While admiring Sabicas, Donn Pohren did Sabicas something of a disservice in The Art of Flamenco by unfavorably contrasting Sabicas' solo guitar work with Perico el del Lunar as an accompanist--apples vs. oranges. There isn't that much recorded Sabicas as accompanist to cante, but when he did accompany, he was superb.

Carlos

Brook Zern, longtime Moron aficionado, has, unfortunately, made some serious mistakes in his writings on Diego.

The fame of Diego was not a product of Pohren or Americans (though they certainly helped spread the word abroad)
Diego was, in fact, well known of in Spain by aficionados, though until the tv series Rito y Geografica was shown, many never had a chance to hear him. Remember that, like his teacher Pepe Naranjo who had a reputation in Spain too, Diego never really recorded and never really went commercial.
We know from documented sources that, for example, he was very respected by Nino Ricardo
We know that the LLave del Oro cante winner Manuel Vallejo hired Diego to be his guitarist for tours through Spain (Though Diego quit on him)
We know that the older Morao picked up some of Diego's falsetas.

For a more realistic view of how Spaniards thought of Diego without any spin about Americnas, ready the interveiw with Paco Cepero on the deflamenco site or better yet, the book "Guitarras de Cal."
For more about the tradition and quality and reputation of Moron toque, read "Flamenco-Arte y Artistas" the book by Fernando de Triana.

Just to add- Just by logic and induction alone, Does anyone believe that Diego, favorite guitarist of the Utrera sisters, of Juan Talega, of Perrate, wasn't known at least by those connections before Pohren and the Americans arrived?

Jacinto

I went back and again re-read Brook Zern's essay, and also the Paco Cepero interview, both very carefully. IMO Brook Zern's point is not whether or how well-known Diego was in Spain, but rather that, because Donn Pohren found out about Diego del Gastor and wrote about him in several of the first widely-distributed books for non-Spaniards, Diego's "reputation became greater outside of Spain than within it" (from Zern's essay). There is no implication in this that Diego was not well known and respected in Spain; it's just that he became even better known in America. Let's compare, say, Melchor de Marchena's reputation inside vs. outside Spain in the 50s, 60s, 70's. All know that Melchor was well known in Spain, but how many knew of him, let alone lauded him outside Spain, compared with Diego? Brook Zern's essay is very well worth reading by anybody who wants to learn more about Diego del Gastor, and, again, there is no imputation in that essay that Diego was not known and respected in Spain.

My only open question with Zern remains whether there was any other pathway of knowledge about Diego to the "outside world" that did not come through Donn Pohren. Zern mentions David Serva and Chris Carnes--Carl Nagin asserts that Serva came to Moron via Pohren; Carnes' situation is still unresolved.

Carlos

In my mind I have no question as to how Chris Carnes found Diego and Moron. It was during his studies with Perico del Lunar and had nothing to do with Donn Pohren. A few of those that spent time in Moron during the 60's tell me that the best of Diego and flamenco was not at the Finca. It was at private Juergas or at Pepe's bar. The guy that got me started in flamenco went to the Finca once in the years he spent in Moron. He lived in town near Diego and was involved in many of the gypsy spontaneous festivals as well as planned ones. Many who studied seriously in Moron saw the Finca as a commercial flamenco experience and avoided it. Diego and his nephews played there simply for money. I don't think Donn Pohren ever got to know Diego del Gastor as well as many think he did. Many of the old Moron flamencos that are still alive today knew Diego more intensely than Pohren. I find many of them don't like to share much of their experience in Moron because of the extreme views of many of today's flamencos and the unfair judgments rendered or the desire to turn the Moron following into a cult. We have those that discount Diego and Moron as a joke and then we have those that think Moron flamenco as per Diego is the only flamenco and everything else is garbage.

I found a happy medium and enjoy all the old school flamenco's!

Paco de Lucia made some rather disparaging statements about Diego. IMO it is because PdL is a master technician and judges Diego del Gastor and his teacher Pepe Naranjo on technical merit alone. PdL was trained from a child to be a master flamenco technician with a worldwide commercial goal and never experienced some of the hardships that gypsies like Diego did and thus cannot grasp the "magic" of Moron.

Sam, from what I've read and heard, I can agree 100% with every comment you make in your post (but one). I agree that the evidence shows that Donn Pohren and the Finca Espartero people were only a part, and maybe a small part, of the Diego-Moron scene, and I also agree that reality lies between the two extremes of dismissal of Diego and the Moron school, and dismissal of all other sorts of then-contemporary flamenco. The only issue I have is that I cannot share your certainty that Chris Carnes learned of Diego from Perico; there is no public first-hand testimony to that effect that I am aware of. As I stated before, I have private testimony from someone very close to Chris Carnes who believes (doesn't know, but believes) that he learned of Diego from reading The Art of Flamenco but I will not name this person, and there is no corroborating evidence for that assertion. In my mind, the question remains open.

Carlos

Carlos
Sorry, but the way Brook writes it, it as if he is claiming that Diego had as much fame in the US as did Sabicas, C. Montoya, and Paco de Lucia. That is surely absurd.

I don't know if the book mentions how Chris and Maria his wife got to Moron, but in Pohren's "Lives and Legends", Chris and wife are pretty cruelly described there under another name. They worked at the Finca for a while (that's what Pohren writes about)--but I don't know when and for how long. When I got to Sevilla-Moron in 1968, Chris was living in Sevilla working at La Cuadra.

Jacinto

Sorry-Some mistakes- 1. Chris And Maria are described in "A Way of Life" not "Lives and Legends"
2 Brook's updated article on Diego on the deflamenco website is better than the first version (which still may up on Steve Kahn's website) but still retains that unjustified uncertainess about Diego's standing in Spain.
Too, the success of Son de la Frontera- which does some of Diego's stuff "verbatim" (as well as cantes that were standards in Moron in Diego's time), the act hat it was Diego playing that introduces the episodes of Rito y Geografica) should do away with any uncertianness