A few flamenco guitarist have played Sabicas and Paco de Lucia pieces flawlessly and their playing is in some cases indistinguishable from the masters. I have heard many try to parrot Diego del Gastor, but never have I heard anyone that captures the uniqueness of his playing. I think this is what fuels the degrading of Diego ... jealously! I think Paco de Lucia is jealous and that is what was the catalyst for his derogatory comments about Diego. Even Sabicas and Nino Ricardo realized the genius of Diego, but Paco de Lucia who was trained from an early age to be the worlds best flamenco guitarist, will not admit that the "simple playing" Diego is perhaps the only one that eludes the parrots. I think it is because he played from feelings and for the moment. Another persons feeling are impossible to parrot and that exact moment is gone forever, however technique regardless of how difficult, still is in the realm of achievable.

I found this article interesting ... read the last paragraph ... whose photo was used on the backdrop?

http://www.deflamenco.com/revista/pagin ... odigo=2228

iOla, Manos!

I think Paco de Lucia is jealous and that is what was the catalyst for his derogatory comments about Diego.

Could you give a link to any article backing your reference to Paco de Lucia's saying, please? I would like to read the whole thing. Thanks.

Here is one article written by Brook Zern. Brook spent time in Moron back in the 60's.

http://www.deflamenco.com/articulos/ver ... go=FLA|460

Great article! Thank you so much!!
I knew that Diego del Gastor was highly considered by many guitarists and singers inside Spains but I couldn't imagine that almost all of them are actually legendary figures of flamenco art.
Ah, I really love the Moron style...

Just a quick drop in
In his book giving the history and analysis of Moron toque,"Guitarras de Cal", the author quotes an interview with Paco de Lucia (I have seen this interview in other places) I am not a PdL fan, tho I recognize his genius. This interview was sleazy and what he said should have been beneath the dignity of a genio like him. It was full of petty jealousy of Diego.

As for all time great singers who worked with Diego-Well, we could satrt with LLave del Cante winner Manuel Vallejo who hireed Diego to be his tour guitarist (Diego said he quit mid-season because whenver he tried to playa falseta, Valllejo would dig his fingers into Diego's shoulder)

We could mention the all-time greatest singer of solea -Fernanda de Utrera (I wont go thru their relationship, you can read it in the liner notes of teh two cd booklet that came with a set of she and Bernarda siging
It is easily summed up in Fernanda's jaleo to Diego as he playeed - "Ni Beethoven , ni sus muertos!"
We could mention-before they foght- Antonio Mairena
Juan Talega
Manolito de la Maria
In later years he was whisked off to Jerez for fiestas with La Perinaca

Dnt let confused writings confuse youHe was not a product of American worship.He had a reputation in Spain. His choice not to tour or to travel much was his choice.
Fernanda lived in Utrera-a few kliks from Sevilla She coud have had her chocie of guitarists. But it was Diego Diego Diego
Last month in SEvila,I was at a flamenco event. I dind't recognize teh young guitarist.But he played Diego Diego Diego

Afterwards I asked him about it (No-he wasn't American,it turns out he is one of Concha Vargas; son)

He said to me
"Any guitarist who is either not familiar with the toque of Diego, or cannot play it, does not know flamenco guitar"

Look up Diego on Spanish flamenco webpages of repute like tristeyazul.com

1 The unfortunate words of Paco de Lucia (about which I really hope he blushes every time he re-reads them) can be found in a few places. One such is the book on Moron toque and Diego “Guitarras de Cal" by Gonzalez-Caballos Martinez (pub by Disputacion de Sevilla no pub date on my copy] ISBN84-88603-71-1

2 I am happy to see that Brook has come to some new gestalts about Diego in recent revisions of his early article on Diego.
Earlier on, Brook seemed willing to bite into the idea that Diego's fame was an American invention. In some sense, reasonable-as he himself wrote= as a foreigner coming into this complex music one is (and should be) wary about making absolute value judgments.
The natural approach to dealing with that is to ask the native experts in the music.
But I think Brook fell into a common trap when he did that. Performing artists-especially when work is scarce and more especially in a country (Spain) whose informal motto is "!Viva yo !" are unlikely to (how to phrase this?) to be overly generous when asked about the talents of their rivals.
So, to ask a rival Spanish guitarist about Diego's talents, one should not expect a Michelin 4 star [Look at PdLs remarks for example- His status is such that Diego posed no threat t his fame. Believe me, in spite of that interview, there are a zillion more foreign flamenco guitar fans of PdL than there are of Diego dG)
3 yes, Brook should have been aware (as he was) that as a foreigner his ability to judge quality might be limited. But the next step he should have taken (and seems now to have taken) was to look at the facts and how they weighed.

What are some of the facts?
1 Yes, Diego did not like to travel far and did not like to record. And, although foreigners made many tapes of Diego, the price of a tape recorder in Franco’s time was enormous in Spain.
In part, that reluctance to travel and record was personality, but in part- look at the history and character of his main teacher Pepe Naranjo
Diego’s first teacher was an older brother, but after moving to Moron, his guitar mentor as a nonprofessional named Pepe Naranjo
What do we know about Pepe Naranjo?
One thing we know is that in his famous book "Art y Artistas de Flamenco", a 1935 book by cantaor Fernando de Triana, the author spends almost all of the book writing about singers and a bit about guitarists. In a guitar section (I cant find my copy to get th exact quote) ,he writes, "I am writing about professional guitarists but I must put that aside for a moment to write about an extraordinary guitarist who does not earn his living with the guitar- Pepe Naranjo [Pepe was a liquor dealer] He goes on to heap praise on Naranjo and in black and white in 1935 gives us Diego’s direct heritage from Paco de Lucena. He writes that Pepe Naranjo studied with Nino de Moron and Pepe Mesa [I closely paraphrase Fernando here]"two of the three only direct students of Paco de Lucena" [So when Mairena writes in his Memoire that Diego’s toque descends from Javier Molina, he is wrong I have posted about others article now appearing tying Diego to Paco de Lucena (e.g. on the tristeyazul.com website)

Other things we know about Pepe Naranjo from other sources, was that his character had similarities to that of his student Diego. So we know the famous story that King Alfonso XIII was in the Moron area and sent a messenger to Pepe asking him to come and play for the King. Pepe's message in reply was " I don’t feel like playing today"

2 What singers of note did Diego play for?
Here , first, Brook downplays two singers he mentioned.
A. Joselero-Diego’s brother-in-law had, in fact, won a major prize for knowing the most varieties of soleares-and there are a LOT of soleares. But Joselero had, I think, a quality that I think Diego shared to a certain degree- a shyness (e.g. Look at that Rito program where Diego plays a solo bulerias-and notice how quickly-no bows- he runs off the stage)

B Brook passes by Manuel Vallejo in a sentence .
But Vallejo contracted Diego to be his guitarist in a major tour (I don’t know the years but it couldn’t be later than the early 40s [In fact I think Vallejo fled Franco Spain much earlier]
Who was Vallejo?
Well, he won the coveted copa del oro of cante

But much more heavy duty than that, he won the Llave del Oro del Cante (I think awarded only once before in the 19th century to El Nitri [but I could be wrong]

Vallejo could have had his pick of guitarists, but he chose Diego.

What happened? Diego said (following Pepe Naranjo’s footsteps) that standing next to the seated Diego with his hand on Diego’s shoulder as he sang, every time Diego would try to play a falseta, Vallejo would dig his fingers into Diego’s shoulder- so Diego quit

C Juan Talega and Manolito el de la Maria
Like Diego, these two singers recorded almost nothing, but were famed in the flamenco world. Talega didn’t start professional (other than fiestas) singing until his 70s, and Manolito did little if any stage work. They are known for their knowledge and preservation of old cante, such as the solea de Joaquin el de la Paula which they brought from Alcala and Dos Hermanas to Triana Antonio Mairena credits much of his knowledge of cante as learned from Talega

Both constantly chose Diego to accompany them

D Antonio Mairena. There came a time when Antonio and Diego had a fight and never worked together. But before that Diego was a regular guitarist for Antonio

E Fernanda Fernanda Fernanda. I cannot begin to describe the working and personal relationship between Fernanda de Utrera and Diego
Fernanda de Utrera -unless something extraordinary happens in the future {Like Mary Mother of Jesus coming down to Earth in order to be a soleares singer] Fernanda will be taken as the best singer of solea ever.
Utrera aint that far from Sevilla, and Sevilla has lots of good guitarists.
Her choice was ALWAYS Diego (even up to half-joking talk about their marrying)
F. There were many others. I have mentioned just top names. To add one more-two years I sat in jealousy in Moron, watching a car come by to pick up Diego and take him to Jerez for fiestas wit la Perinaca. [I know SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE has tapes of those]

Other hints about Diego’s status in Spain

a. Do you think it was an accident or joke that his playing was used as lead-in for the Rito series?
b. If you go to Spain now you will hear an assortment of young guitarists-not from Moron-playing Diego stuff
(and the tradition carries on outside the family-the approach to compas, everything, with ‘youngsters” like Martin Revuelo, Raul “El Parla”, Concha Vargas’ son, children of La Chico de Moron, etc and....... The great Moron dancer Pepe Torres who could (I swear) make his living playing guitar- Moron guitar

c For god’s sake Son de la Frontera won international prizes playing essentially Diego
d Look up “Diego del Gastor” on the main Spanish flamenco websites “Cabales en el Red (www tristeyazul.com) www.andalucia.org, Horizante Flamenco, etc

Diego’s Foreign Students

Many mention the place of Pohren n attracting foreigners. But it was far more than that. Diego was not only a certified genius at guitar, but interested in the world, and open to accepting foreigners as students (Contrast that with say Manolo de Huelva the great great guitarist who would never play his “good stuff” if another guitarist was in the room who could copy and whose recorded solos are boring(you get a taste of his genius only listening to him accompany)

Moreover, the foreigners who came to learn flamenco were NOT “weird hippies” in the Haight Ashbury sense of dress ,culture and being. Local Moroneses accepted the foreigners
AND-I think noone but me has mentioned this obvious fact- Diego had 4 nephews who could teach guitar and pick up the slack of students that Diego couldn’t accommodate

Finally, Diego’s Toque

Last month I had the opportunity to sit and listen to Pepe Torres play Diego’s stuff and analyze it differently and, as well, when I came home.,to sit and listen to some Diego riffing (Admittedly l-I never had the chance to sit with other top guitarist while they were “(censored) around’

But Diego did stuff that NOBODY does (not PdL for sure) -and maybe that is why that altho Diego’s soleares are the best as are his tangos, his rosas, etc, we concentrate on his bulerias, he played with compas and musical resolution in ways like noone else

For example, he would put himself in a “musical trap” from which there could seem to be no escape that wasn’t discordant or out of compas-and he would get out of the trap- and in elegant ways that pulled you up by some antigravity force to yell “ole!” He would start a falseta with a note or two that sounded as if they came from outer space and could no way emerge as “musically” resolved-but he resolved it with beauty
It wasn’t just his strong thumb and his use of bourdones. And it wasn’t lack of “technique “Or-put another way--when I hear Diego disssed fro lack of technique and hear PdL praised, I am always reminded of a critics remark about Chopins (who I hate) technically difficult famous “Funeral Etude’ fro piano The critic described an excellent performance of the piece by a pianist with facile hand as “Two undertakers working on the body of a dead poet”

I just came across this

n her prime she was so majestic, her voice rough and raucous, tearing at your heartstrings and smothering the listener with a warm and glowing duende.
La Fernanda was said to be at her most pleasing in the juerga atmosphere, and to watch her perform with Diego del Gastor, one of her preferred guitarists, was probably the most rewarding show of flamenco delivery one could ever hope to experience.
La Fernanda de Utrera once said that “Diego and I were the couple with the best understanding of flamenco, each one loved the other's art, and no one has known how to bring out what I have in me, like Diego”.

http://www.andalucia.com/flamenco/music ... rnarda.htm

Thanks for all the good information Jay. I know you knew Fernanda and Diego well and having spent time hearing and watching them in many juergas was an experience one cannot duplicate by watching them on video. My favorites singers with Diego are Fernanda and Perrate.

I have encountered what you talk about when Diego would suddenly during a falseta play a note or two that seemed wrong, but then bring it around to something special. That is one of the things that makes learning some of his falsetas difficult. What many don't understand is Diego never did compositions. The Diego transcriptions available are from recording that he played improvisational. They were never intended to be compositions.

Hola Amigos
I was thinking that in a way it is perfectly natural that parrots should imitate that which they can understand; that which speaks in a language that is familiar to them.
At the same time that which is a little unexpected but very encouraging is the number of people who do feel that a music so distant from their own culture speaks to them and is meaningful and desirable.
Saludos
Tomás