Paco De Lucia
I’ve stated that I’ll try not to rant, however, this one has been burbling in my belly like a bad batch of raw oysters on a mid week binge at Long Doggers. I don’t like jazz. I hate ‘smooth jazz’. I sometimes enjoy ‘Nola ‘ Jazz. I don’t like and rarely listen to Paco De Lucia , though I do respect him as a great musician who has…..whatever. Flamenco/Jazz fusion is what I consider elevator world music pooped in a bag, lit on fire and left at the doorstep of all who want to feel cuddly because they listen to ‘ethnic’ music and are ‘down’ with what was once the songs of outcasts and is now ‘stuff white people like’. That is an unfair assessment and I really don’t believe that all who listen to jazz are enjoying the tonal equivalent of a flaming bag of crap (except for smooth sexy jazz ). I know jazz and all its bastard fusion variants take a lot of technical ability as well as inborn talent. I get it. A lot of people love jazz. That’s great. I don’t. I have always loved music in it’s rawest form, especially, Flamenco and Blues. Corey Harris has an entire album dedicated to exploring and juxtaposing delta blues with its Mali origins. I dare not link the two musical genres together as they are mostly disimilar.
Have you ever seen something original that was good, maybe great, then saw a remake and decided to pull the good ‘ol suicide note out of your copy of Purpose Driven Life and tie the chord to the chandelier after realizing there is no hope mankind. Who gives a damn about global warming when there are Michael Bay movies. This isn’t the battle of generations. I listen to a lot of contemporary new music. Radiohead, Muse, Nuerosis, Interpol, Last of the Shadow Puppets, Libertines, Babyshambles, Mastodon, Melvins, they are all great bands in my opinion. This is a battle about bastardization and taste.
Ultimately I see Paco De Lucia as the father of Flamenco-Jazz Fusion. Every time I hear it I feel like howling like a slowly dying dog.
