Paco De Lucia - Zyryab & Siroco [2LP in 1CD] (2004)

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Paco De Lucia - Zyryab & Siroco [2LP in 1CD] (2004)

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Paco De Lucia - Zyryab & Siroco [2LP in 1CD] (2004)

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Thousand words could be written about flamenco, dance, music and song. To me a few words are sufficient. Gypsies are free, were meant to be free, they are proud to be free. That shows in their music, in their singing, in their dance. Zyryab is a fitting homage to an inspired man of yesterday that first had the idea to add a sixth string to an instrument that had traveled from as far back as India, possibly even China, Mongolia and Manchuria, from the ends of the world to South Spain, way back in the 13th century. The rest is history: Hendrix, Clapton, Segovia, Dylan, Paco. The title track is a masterpiece of composition, taste, ingenuity, flawless execution, arrangement, syncopation, melody, in this reviewer opinion, a par to any major composer's work: Debussy, Mahler, Saint-Saens, Rachmaninov, Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven. Paco playing alone during major solo's shows music, melody, harmony, technical supremacy of the guitar as an instrument by itself as the most complex, most sophisticated, more so than piano or violin, ever. All of this made by a people that were once and during a large period of history shot on sight, persecuted, murdered, alienated. Their desire to be free prevailed. The result is music, divine music. The Almonte track has a little arrangenment of singers, flute, violins, an inspired theme that easily surpasses Carl Orf's Carmina Burana or Saint-Saens Aquarius in grace and beauty: magical duendes speaking, loving, making music, dancing and singing, down a road full of heart. Just to show what the desire to be free can do. Wish they played it forever…

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Paco De Lucia - Zyryab & Siroco [2LP in 1CD] (2004)

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…an album of so much purity, that it almost feels as if you are "there", listening to Paco play in an intimate setting. The first time I heard "Siroco" was in a very impersonal big department store in Córdoba. Tears streamed over my face during the opening song: I forgot totally where I was and let me be grabbed by this beautiful guitar playing. Well over a decade of listening to this album have not diminished its enchantment. This is to where the flamenco guitar had developed: the master first learned how to play traditionally, took an experimental and then jazzy approach, and now came back, enriched, to the roots to make a profound statement of what could be done within this traditional yet totally new idiom.

Other, younger players stood up and gave Paco a run for his money. We heard the records and concerts of people like Gerardo Nuñez, Cañizares, Tomatito, and of course Vicente Amigo, and these guitar players, who started with the level and musicianship of Paco as the leading example, and current trend, of course developed it further, and impressed us all. And, well, Paco surely was resting on his laurels. Wrong. Out comes "Luzia". It is as if Paco de Lucia wanted to set the record straight: who exactly is the master of flamenco guitar? This is an album by a mature player who is in total control of both his instrument and his idiom of choice. Gone is the youthful exploration of "Almoraima", and in comes a statement so profound and personal it is almost frightening. Paco sings (!) of how his friend and long-time collaborator, gypsy singer El Camaron, has been taken away from his side (Cameron died in 1992). There are two bulerias on this cd that are so flawlessly filled with new and exciting material it is frightening. A solea that has melodies straddling the traditional compas in a way that had never been done before and yet makes total sense; a siguiryias that builds like a classical composition…. All right, the Alegría seems a reworking of that on "Siroco" (but just as great), and the Tangos (with Duquende singing) sounds a little too easy-listening to me, but all-in-all this ranks in my world as the definitive Paco de Lucia-album. To anyone who is in doubt whether to buy "Almoraima", "Siroco" or "Luzia", my honest advice is: skip dinner and buy all three.

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