Luzia

Amazon.com
Though he's recognized as flamenco's premier guitarist--with few contenders save for Tomatito, Pepe Habichuela, and Manolo Sanlúcar--Paco de Lucía has met with decades of controversy for his hybridization of the form with bossa, salsa, and jazz; for influencing flamenco-rock renegades like Ketama and Pata Negra; and for his legendary, cultivated arrogance. Albums like Luzia, named for his late mother, restore the balance: true flamenco puro of the highest order, it's a brooding reinvention from within, particularly in its complex harmonies and polyrhythms, forged around time-honored forms like bulerías and alegrías. The bustling bulería "El Chorruelo" is simply blood-boiling, a surging virtuosity at work over rapid key shifts and melodic firestorms. Written for his late collaborator--bad-boy singer Camarón de la Isla--the closing solo "Camarón" is meditative, joyous, forlorn, incensed, and sublime; in short, the real deal. A startlingly good set from a true master. --James Rotondi

Tracks:

Rio de la Miel
Villa Vieja
Calle Municion
Me Regale
Luzia
Manteca Colora
El Chorruelo
Camaron

Amazon.com

Though he's recognized as flamenco's premier guitarist--with few contenders save for Tomatito, Pepe Habichuela, and Manolo Sanlúcar--Paco de Lucía has met with decades of controversy for his hybridization of the form with bossa, salsa, and jazz; for influencing flamenco-rock renegades like Ketama and Pata Negra; and for his legendary, cultivated arrogance. Albums like Luzia, named for his late mother, restore the balance: true flamenco puro of the highest order, it's a brooding reinvention from within, particularly in its complex harmonies and polyrhythms, forged around time-honored forms like bulerías and alegrías. The bustling bulería "El Chorruelo" is simply blood-boiling, a surging virtuosity at work over rapid key shifts and melodic firestorms. Written for his late collaborator--bad-boy singer Camarón de la Isla--the closing solo "Camarón" is meditative, joyous, forlorn, incensed, and sublime; in short, the real deal. A startlingly good set from a true master. --James Rotondi

Customer Reviews:

Exquisite.......2007-03-11

This album grows on you and in you. I especially love how he repeats this certain melodic theme throughout the album in little ways giving it a unique character. It takes several listenings before you notice all the areas it is creatively used. Nothing new to add about Paco, he is simply ethereal. Only wish we had another hundred years of him.

Visionary. A decade ahead of its time........2006-08-16

I must say that I was disappointed and hurt to see some of the negative reviews of this album and almost hateful comments about Paco.

Some seem to think that all flamenco not performed in a tablao or juerga is just garbage. This is simply not true.

You see, this album and others leading up to it, say, after 1980, by Paco and others, namely Tomatito and Manolo Sanlucar, are simply the inevitable progression of contemporary flamenco. Yes, I said contemporary flamenco, as in Puro Flamenco. That said, I think this album is among the purest ever, by any flamenco artist.

This album is nowhere near jazz or pop: On at least 5 of the 8 tracks (the jondos) are the rules of the compas at hand being followed to a T, and at the same time being overdeveloped (not at all a bad thing once you start to understand what's happening, rhythmically and melodically) in real-time, improvisationally, in a way that only Paco, and no one else can do.

This is a very exciting time for contemporary flamenco, and it is my belief that this record will be the standard of flamenco to come in the 21st century. I can only say this in a humble attempt to express what I'm thinking: This album single- handedly solidified the modern "abstraction and ambiguity" movement that had been brewing in a flamenco "pressure-cooker" since around the late eighties. Luzia finally came around and completely blew the top off of this boiler, and now the contents of which are just spilling over with what's to come: Futuristic and strange yet unprecedentedly beautiful new harmonic and tonal adaptations of musical themes dating back, in some cases 200 years or more. This album boldly breaks the seal and lets forth so many new possibilities in traditional flamenco.

As others have noted, this record is not an entry-level flamenco album; It is very much advanced-listening. If you are new to Paco or, for that matter, flamenco guitar, you will likely see no rhyme or reason to the music contained in this masterwork. Even most seasoned aficionados of flamenco will have to give this one a dozen or so spins before they begin to scratch the surface of its potential. It really is that deep an abyss: I've owned it since the week it came out here in America and have listened to it hundreds of times and I still to this day learn something new every time I listen to it.

This is what flamenco is all about! Interpreting and re-interpreting old songs. Developing and re-developing the classic motifs. If everybody played a soleares like Nino Ricardo, how aritistic would that be? Or what if everbody only used the falsetas of old in their bulerias and never considered creating new ones? Every tablao would sound the same, and the entire flamenco catalog would consist of about 5 discs. In which case, flamenco would barely be classifyable as an art.

Fortunately we have had pioneers, visionaries who have followed in the footsteps of Montoya, Nino Ricardo, and Sabicas and have pushed forward, not to detriment of, but in the very name of Flamenco. To advance Flamenco, to beautify it, and to honor it. Not to lock it in a cage, and watch from afar as it grows old and sick.

NOT YOUR TRADITIONAL FLAMENCO ALBUM.......2004-06-28

I believe Artin is a bit FULL of himself - to post his review three times? Ego knows no bounds. If you are looking for really good traditional Flamenco, this is NOT, NOT the album for you. This is "exquisitely" atypical. If you have been listening to flamenco for years and are looking for that next ethereal phase, the next step beyond traditional flamenco, this is it. If you are a novice to flamenco, are will be left completely puzzled by what you hear. Listen to Paco's Fuerte y Caudal or Siroco instead, but not this album. It is beyond the earth bound realities of traditional flamenco, and is a song from Paco's heart about his lost love. This is ABSOLUTELY a love-it or hate-it album, even for Paco fans. Go get Gerardo Nunez or Rafael Riqueni instead, if you are looking for inspired next phase traditional Flamenco. Get Paco's earlier works for fabulous listening. BUY THIS CD AT YOUR OWN RISK, ONLY IF YOU ARE READY!

Artin Karapet.......2004-05-07

Paco de lucia has proved to the world what you could do with the guitar. he has shown that it is more than just music....his last track, Camaron, tells a story..it TALKS TO YOU...its not music,,it is the artists thoughts and feelings brought up through music... Listen to the track carefully and see how different parts of it correspond to these words....
1. here is a story of a dear friends ... who died

2. we had good days ... I remember ...
3. oh he died, and his away for ever

4. I remember that one happy day where....

5. oh but his dead, ohhhh the sorrow ...

6. I cant overcome the pain

7. oh and there was that nice time where...

8. but he died, and left us ponder

9. hear me .... I will always think of you

10. until I die and come to you...
11. I think of us in heaven one day dancing happy...

12. I cant wait to see you and...

13. I know your soul is alive and can hear me....

14. Words: translation

SO NICE, IT MAKES YOU CRY... dont smoke Paco, we need you... ha ha

Artin Karapet.......2004-05-07

2. we had good days ... I remember ...
3. oh he died, and his away for ever

4. I remember that one happy day where....

5. oh but his dead, ohhhh the sorrow ...

6. I cant overcome the pain

7. oh and there was that nice time where...

8. but he died, and left us ponder

9. hear me .... I will always think of you

10. until I die and come to you...
11. I think of us in heaven one day dancing happy...

12. I cant wait to see you and...

13. I know your soul is alive and can hear me....

14. Words: translation

Tracks:

Te Quedas O Te Vas
Estoy Loca
Locomotion
Practicar Sexo
Soy Rebelde
Agua, Fuego, Viento
Y Te Amar
Eres T
Estrella de Mar
Y Regresar

Album Description

Details TBA. Sony/BMG. 2005.

Average customer rating:

Railroad Tracks
Clara Luzia
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000GBE2W0
Release Date: 2006-05-02

Tracks:

My Body Is a Diary
Quiet
Lull
Day by Day
Fine
Something
Push
Blurry
Lucky Gal
Heartattack
High Waters
Nutrition
How I Learned to Disappear
Kedi
Heartattack [Remix]

Average customer rating:

BEST GUITAR ALBUM EVER
Is Flamenco an offshoot of Jazz?

Luzia
Paco De Lucia
Manufacturer: Pid
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Flamenco | Latin Music | Styles | Music

Latin Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00004SG85
Release Date: 1999-03-16

Customer Reviews:

BEST GUITAR ALBUM EVER.......2007-08-02

I am a professional guitarist. This is hands down the BEST guitar album I have ever heard period.

Is Flamenco an offshoot of Jazz?.......2001-02-17

Paco de Lucia in this album finally reveals himself to be bankrupt of ideas and musicality.

He also manages to make manifest the last cynical betrayal of his flamenco heritage. It disturbs me to say that - indeed, I never thought I would be thinking such thoughts - because Paco at one time (the 60s, 70s, and early 80s) was almost single-handedly carrying forward the torch of hope for this unique, and at the time somewhat neglected, folk-art in its instrumental form.

Then came this flamenco guitarist's infatuation with jazz and pop. That was the eighties. It was a romance that evidently went on a little too long, ending in a smug marriage. Almoraima was the beginning of the end. But at least Almoraima was original, steeped as it was in the Gypsy-Arab heritage of Andalucia.

With "Siroco" and "Luzia", the aficionado of flamenco puro is transported into a kind of waking nightmare of flamenquismo, a return to the bad old days of the Flamenco Opera. Remember? - Just what Falla and Lorca so decried in their 1922 Concurso del Cante Jondo. Then, it was orchestration of the chico (light) flamenco with fandanguillos and tanguillos proliferating, along with an almost total marginalization of such profounder forms as the Siguiriya and Solea. In the 1980s, it was proposed to replace these with a dizzying multitude of whirling Bulerias and Rumbas por guitarra. Not so bad a fate, some might think.

Now, for our further delectation, Paco de Luzia manages to give us marimbas and percussion in a rumba-ized Siguiriya no less! I never believed it could happen. Nothing is sacred to this instrumentalist. His bowing and scraping to the demands of a pop-propagandised mass audience will go on: and the worst of it is, people will be convinced that this is what constitutes flamenco, because such is the power of the sleeve-note (Felix Grande turned pseud extraordinaire).

Tracks:

Ri De La Miel (Buleria)
La Villa Vieja (Solea)
Calle Municion (Alegria)
Me Regale (Tangos)
Luzia (Siguiriya)
Manteca Colora (Rumba)
El Chorruelo (Buleria)
Camaron (Rondena)

Customer Reviews:

The Sun, Rising On The Play Of Fingertips........2004-07-23

Anyone who's enjoyed Paco De Lucia over the years will find
LUZIA to be a magnificent summation of the Flamenco master's
innovative mastery, and a peek of what is yet to come. For those
unfamiliar with this grandmaster guitarist, here is a landmark
introduction to one of Music's greatest champions, resplendent
in unveiling vistas of lyrical warmth and momentous challenge.

The troubador swirls the listener through a haunting program of
mystery and revelation, from his unique play upon the oldest
Bulerias sorcery to the ear-popping dance of Rumba into
his timeless spell. Voice frequently enters the ritual,
deepening the wonder with an even more personal edge.

LUZIA is a classic album of sheer musical enchantment.
Enter the circle of Paco De Lucia, and be properly embraced.

Fantastic........1999-10-12

Paco de Lucia is without a doubt one of the most skilled and innovative guitarists out there, as he once again demonstrates in Luzia. A must-have for any flamenco fan, and a nice addition to any solid collection.

It's worth it!!.......1999-05-09

I am Hakan Ener,a Turkish friend of Paco de Lucia.Paco has done a terrific job on bringing flamenco into the 21st century with this album.This is not to say that he ends the Cante Tradition.He rather subtly escapes the notion that every compas should be played in a certain ashion in a fixed musical mode.This is shown vy his renovation of the Buleria.He brings new blood to both bulerias,and to Flamenco itself.Well Done Paco!!!

Fantastic new flamenco album from THE MAESTRO!.......1999-04-08

I have no idea what the person from Tokyo was trying to say ( one word and one star? ). All I can tell you is that as a flamenco "aficionado" for the past fifteen years and an avid follower of Paco de Lucia's recordings and concerts, this album is INCREDIBLE! It easily ranks up there with such albums as "ALMORAIMA" and "SIROCO" and probably surpasses even those monuments in terms of pure expressive playing. Paco has mentioned in interviews that he dedicated this album to his mother who recently passed away. The CD also contains a tribute to his late friend, the legendary flamenco singer Camaron ( Paco actually sings on this cut! ). This man is to the guitar what John Coltrane was to the saxophone- mind boggling technique is subordinate to spiritual expression. Believe me, this CD is worth every penny.

aiueo.......1999-03-30

aiue

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