Guitarist Carlos Montoya (1903-1993) was the driving force behind the acceptance of flamenco as a serious form of music. Traditionally, flamenco was used to accompany gypsy folk singers and dancers, but in the late 1940s Montoya became the first flamenco guitarist to tour with symphony orchestras and perform his own guitar recitals. He often included blues, jazz and folk tunes in those performances.
So we come to this 1959 LP for RCA Victor, From St. Louis to Seville, split evenly between jazz and blues influenced numbers and flamenco.
Flamenco is not really my cup of tea, so let's consider the pop side of the LP, which includes a version of the standard Blues in the Night. This Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer tune served as the title song for a 1941 film.
Montoya's version is certainly interesting, with the guitarist in a bluesy jazz mode in the first half of the tune then morphing into flamenco just past the halfway point. The transition doesn't really work for me, but I'll leave it up to you to decide whether this interpretation of Blues in the Night holds together.
Blues in the Night
The complete From St. Louis to Seville LP is included in Flamenco Fury, a two-CD set released last month by the U.K.-based Jasmine label. The album is also available as a download in the U.K. and Europe but not in the U.S. or Canada, so far.
There is an iTunes download album available in North America called The Very Best of Carlos Montoya that includes the tracks on From St. Louis to Seville, but it seems to me to be of dubious origin.
Here's Montoya's take on St. Louis Blues, from the original From St. Louis to Seville LP.
No comments:
Post a Comment