Flamingos can also say that what night was that day, with more brightness than darkness.
Paco de Lucia is still more than present ten years after his death. His guitar played again performing ‘Mi Niño Curro’ at the opening of the concert that a constellation of stars starred in at Carnegie Hall in New York in remembrance and tribute to the memory of the “teacher”, the “greatest”, “the best of all time” by the guitarist who revolutionized flamenco by introducing variants far from orthodoxy and “opened it to the world.”
Music and singing and nothing more. No introductory words or speeches. It was the night in which the artists placed their hands on their hearts, blew kisses into the air and pointed their fingers at that divine throne on which they have enthroned Paco.
“He was a unique person in the world of music, if it weren’t for him we wouldn’t be here,” commented Pepe Habichuela, another six-string genius who feels devotion to that friend who left too soon. His phrase goes beyond the literal meaning of this specific meeting, in recognition of Francisco Sánchez Gómez, renamed in the tablaos as Paco de Lucía (the son of Lucia, the Portuguese woman), and transcends the expansion that this artist fostered in the entire atlas.
“He was the superhero of the flamencos,” said Josemi Carmona, son of Habichuela. “Paco learned to live with the myth that he assumed for others. He was shy and had to get used to the impression that he made on people when they saw him, when he entered a place, as if he were a ‘rockstar’, and there he defended himself with humor,” he stressed. .
Father and son are two of the more than 30 celebrities from flamenco and beyond who gathered at the famous Manhattan venue. From voices like those of José Mercé, El Cigala, Duquende, Carmen Linares, Silvia Pérez Cruz or the Makarines and Chonchi Heredia, to dancers like Farru or Farruquito and Karime Amaya, passing through musicians like Chano Domínguez, Carles Benavent, Jorge Pardo, Antonio Serrano, Alain Pérez, Javier Colina, Nesrine Belmokh, Ruben Dantas, Israel Suárez ‘Piranha’ or Tino de Di Geraldo.
And, of course, a plethora of guitarists, heirs, such as the aforementioned father and son Carmona, Riqueni, Antonio Rey, Dani de Morón, Yerai Cortés, José María Bandera, Antonio Sánchez or Niño Josele. Without forgetting special guests like Rubén Blades and Al Di Meola, who together with John McLaughlin and the one from Algeciras formed the most revered international guitar trio for a couple of decades, making fusion a success. “He knew how to transcend all borders, without forgetting that he was flamenco. He said that you could share your music with other musicians, but not make his own music. And he never took the pick,” Farru stressed.
Among these musicians there were those who played with Paco and those who knew him but did not share the stage. All of them, however, are united by admiration for the maestro who transformed flamenco. Many of them will meet again throughout this week at this festival called ‘Paco de Lucía Legacy’. The guitarist’s family foundation and the Andalusian Government have scheduled commemorative events until Saturday. There are several concerts, including another large format at the Town Hall on Thursday night.
At Carnegie Hall, Paco de Lucia’s own songs or songs by others that he performed were played, such as ‘María de la O’, by maestro Lecuona, which opened with musicians as conductor after the audio start, or ‘Danza del fuego’ by Manuel de Falla. In that first part he reached a high point with ‘I only want to walk’, one of his hymns, and with the closing performing ‘Moraito siempre’ based on Farru’s dance.
Upon returning from the break, Riqueni opened solo and raised the tone with the voice of Carmen Linares, who was followed by a stellar Silvia Pérez Cruz. She sang ‘María la Portuguesa’ and she paid tribute to the artist’s mother by changing her title to ‘Lucía la Portuguesa’ in her chorus.
The Catalan is one of the few, perhaps the only one of the protagonists of the evening who did not meet the guitarist, but considers that being able to be here was a gift. “I guess they thought of me because of that vision and those bridges that he opened,” she confessed. “I saw him once at the Liceu and I thought that I had already heard that and I understood that everyone had him as a reference, that everyone did in different ways what he had already done. They have always said that there has not been another like him and they continue to be part of the collective imagination, of a soundtrack that belongs to everyone,” he commented in a previous talk.
Then, precisely Paco de Lucía’s ability to connect with other music took maximum expression in the concert. Al Di Meola, Rubén Blades and the African Madou Diabaté were there, although the loss of Salif Keita due to bureaucratic issues was regretted.
The auction began with Farruquito, who preceded the finale with a version of ‘Entre dos aguas’, the pinnacle creation of the much-missed artist, who brought together all the guests on stage, with the audience clapping and the artists raising their hands to the sky.
“To play the way he played, you have to be very aware of who you are and, at the same time, be from another planet,” commented Niño Josele offstage, who for ten years accompanied his guitar with the maestro’s. “He was an incredible person, very down to earth, not at all believed, but he was aware that he was a myth for us,” he added.
El Piranha also spent eleven years in the band. He plays the cajon, an instrument that Paco de Lucía incorporated into flamenco from Peru, where he discovered it. “Since I started working with Paco it was a dream and a radical change in my way of playing and in myself,” stressed this percussionist. “When such a genius, who is an extremely musical genius, is so humble, it makes you change,” he added.
“I always say that Paco, like Camarón (they were in tandem), have been chosen by God who sent them to give us blessed glory,” he said. Some showed their firm conviction that the maestro was watching them from glory on that stage where he triumphed.
