Not Traveling To Spain? Try Listening To Some Flamenco

This summer, when people today would ask me what I was listening to, I would likely list off a few indie bands or a couple of throwback albums I seemed to have missed out on in the ’80s (I’m searching at you New Order). But what I would fail to mention, for no actual unique cause, is that every single summer I listen to a lot of flamenco. I ask, is there any other style of music as closely and singularly related with a single unique country than flamenco is to Spain?

Nonetheless, its image has been slightly tainted as getting kitschy as a outcome of its unfortunate association (in the U.S. at least) with cleaning item commercials and Spanish tourism promotions. But this couldn’t be additional from the truth. Take for example the high regard that this really old, really technically hard, pretty dynamic music has in the eyes of someone like famed jazz bassist Dave Holland (who, among other factors, can count Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew to his credits).

A couple of years back, Holland met up with famed flamenco guitarist Pepe Habichuela, the acclaimed scion of a deep-rooted Gypsy household from Granada, as component of a jazz-meets-flamenco pairing instigated by a Sevilla arts organization. Each self-taught masters of their instrument, they quickly formed a connection and as a outcome of a time spent together over the course of three years — which integrated Holland traveling to Spain and immersing himself in flamenco music and culture — are placing out an album appropriately called “Hands” (which has been obtaining rave evaluations exactly where out there — like this a single from the Guardian and this one from the Telegraph). The album comes out here in the U.S. on October 5, 2010, but you can uncover some astounding performances on line, like the one above of their track “Camarón (Taranta)” live in July at the San Sebastian Jazz Festival, to hold you over until then.