Cante, chico...

One of the figures from the flamenco world interviewed today about the death of Paco de Lucia -- one of the truly international stars in flamenco, in part because he crossed over into jazz -- said "you know, flamenco is like the wine; it gets better as you get older."  Undoubtedly.  Flamenco is a unique and dramatic art form.  It demands massive technique.  However, a single note, or held pose, can cut through the flurry of scales and, because that note or pose counterposes the massive set of sounds and gestures the music sets up in your head, it can capture all of them, and make them fall like a single leaf from a bare tree.  Delicate.

I know very little about de Lucia as a traditional flamenco player.  I got to know de Lucia's work through fusion; his records with Al DiMeola, John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell and others exploring the waters between rock and jazz -- but keeping it jazz -- after Miles Davis' Bitches Brew (1970).  If you know flamenco, you know such work wasn't well-received; it was a betrayal of flamenco, the traditionalists claimed.  Somehow all the wowing of wealthy European and American audiences seemed to divert attention from the full breadth of flamenco; the dance, the costumes -- an art form where clapping is a deeply expressive gesture, as important as any guitar pyrotechnics.

In crossing into jazz and pioneering "new flamenco" with tunes like "Entre dos Aguas," de Lucia nonetheless did for flamenco what Leonard Bernstein would do, around the same time, for classical music:  bring in massive new audiences. A movement in which flamenco became a determined part of world music was birthed; flamenco's vocabularies became necessary learning for any serious guitarist.  As Paco leaves us, we can say, sing, friend; a new generation of music lovers knows this music largely because of you.