The Controversial Identity of Flamenco Jazz

163 Pages·2016·34.66 MB·English

by  Pamies Rodriguez, Sergio

THE CONTROVERSIAL IDENTITY OF FLAMENCO JAZZ: A NEW
HISTORICAL AND ANALYTICAL APPROACH
Sergio Pamies Rodriguez, B.M., M.M.
Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS
May 2016
APPROVED:
John Murphy, Major Professor
Kirsten Broberg, Related Field Professor
Frederick Hamilton, Committee Member
Benjamin Brand, Director of Graduate
Studies
Warren Henry, Interim Dean of the College
of Music
Costas Tsatsoulis, Dean of the Toulouse
Graduate School
Pamies Rodriguez, Sergio. The Controversial Identity of Flamenco Jazz: A New
Historical and Analytical Approach. Doctor of Musical Arts (Performance-Jazz Studies), May
2016, 152 pp., 1 figure, 40 musical examples, references, 132 titles.
There are certain recordings by important artists such as Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis,
John Coltrane, Pedro Iturralde, Chick Corea, and Paco de Lucía, among others, that have been
associated with the label flamenco jazz. This label is entering jazz discourse, and it needs to be
better understood in order to clarify its history, its identity, and its impact on recent
developments in flamenco that are labeled nuevo flamenco. There is a lack of agreement in the
existing literature on flamenco jazz on the evaluation of these recordings and these artists’
achievements and contributions to this field. These writings encompass authors from different
backgrounds: journalists, critics, and musicologists, who have approached their analysis of the
recordings from different perspectives. The differences in professional backgrounds, approaches,
and purpose of the writings of these authors has resulted in controversy about this label.
Therefore, the flamenco jazz scholarly conversation needs more objective writings from an
analytical point of view. This historiographical study presents a more comprehensive evaluation
of flamenco jazz by discussing selected recordings using analytical tools from jazz studies. These
analytical arguments clarify the aesthetics of flamenco jazz and the artistic processes that these
artists went through when combining musical elements from flamenco and jazz, which in some
cases are described as creative misreading. In this century of cultural globalization, where jazz
has become a diverse expression of world music because of its capacity to absorb traits from
other musical practices, this study can be a resource for international jazz musicians who are
seeking to combine jazz with their musical cultural heritage.
Copyright 2016
by
Sergio Pamies Rodriguez
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My heartfelt gratitude to my family, Antonio Pamies Bertrán, Francisca Rodríguez
Simón, and Adriana Rueda Harms, for their unconditional support. I thank my advisory
committee members, Dr. John Murphy, Dr. Kirsten Broberg, and Prof. Frederick Hamilton, who
shared their knowledge with generosity. I express my deepest gratitude to Prof. Stefan Karlsson,
for helping me achieve a higher level of musicianship. I am thankful for all the help I have
received at University of North Texas, from professors Edward Soph, Jay Saunders, Richard
DeRosa, Lynn Seaton, Brad Leali, Mike Steinel, José Aponte, Rodney Booth, Gene Cho,
Bernardo Illari, Mark McKnight, and Peter Mondelli. I would also like to thank Alyssa
Hedenstrom for her professionalism. A memory of gratitude to Bob Belden, whose liner notes
for The Flamenco Jazz Project encouraged me to become a better educator.
I express my admiration and gratitude to Josemi Carmona, Diego Amador, Jorge Pardo,
Pepe Luis Carmona, and Rubem Dantas.
This research is dedicated to Paco De Lucía and Chick Corea, for their invaluable
contribution to this particular music that combines two of my biggest passions in life: flamenco
and jazz.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii
LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... vii
LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES .............................................................................................. viii
Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1
Review of Literature ................................................................................................3
State of the Problem .................................................................................................7
Method .....................................................................................................................8
Potential Contributions of Research ........................................................................9
II. EARLY STAGES OF FLAMENCO JAZZ .................................................................11
Lionel Hampton’s Jazz Flamenco (1956) ..............................................................11
Miles Davis’ Spanish Heart: Miles Ahead (1957), Kind of Blue (1959), Sketches of
Spain (1960) ...........................................................................................................13
Charles Mingus’ Tijuana Moods (1957) ................................................................15
Tony Scott’s Dedications (1959) ...........................................................................16
John Coltrane’s Olé (1961) ....................................................................................17
III. WHAT IS FLAMENCO JAZZ? PEDRO ITURRALDES’S JAZZ FLAMENCO
(1967) ...........................................................................................................................19
“Bulerías” ...............................................................................................................21
“Café de Chinitas” .................................................................................................28
“El Vito” ................................................................................................................43
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Iturralde’s Contributions to the Aesthetics of Flamenco Jazz ...............................49
IV. DE LUCIA AND COREA’S MUSICIAL ADVENTURES .......................................53
Paco De Lucía and the Guitar Trios .......................................................................53
Corea’s Spanish Heart ............................................................................................59
V. DE LUCIA AND COREA’S COLLABORATION: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW
ERA OF FLAMENCO JAZZ ......................................................................................62
“Touchstone: Procession, Ceremony, Departure” .................................................63
Paco De Lucía’s solo cadenza ....................................................................63
Chick Corea’s solo cadenza .......................................................................68
“Touchtstone’s” Middle Section in Quartet Format ..................................71
Chick Corea ...................................................................................73
Paco De Lucía ................................................................................73
Carles Benavent .............................................................................77
“The Yellow Nimbus” ...........................................................................................79
“Zyryab” and the “Touchstone Group” .................................................................83
Evaluating the Results of the Experiment and the Concept of Creative
Misreading .............................................................................................................85
VI. THE INDIRECT INFLUENCE OF FLAMENCO JAZZ ON POPULAR MUSIC IN
SPAIN: NUEVO FLAMENCO ....................................................................................89
Spanish Jazz Musicians: Flamenco Jazz, or Jazz Flamenco? ................................89
Mario Pacheco and Nuevos Medios ......................................................................93
“Los Jóvenes Flamencos” ..........................................................................95
“Jazzpaña” ..................................................................................................95
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The Increasing Interest of Flamenco Musicians in Jazz ........................................97
VII. CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................100
APPENDIX A: ANALYZED TRANSCRIPTIONS....................................................................105
“Touchstone” (excerpts) ..................................................................................................106
“The Yellow Nimbus” (excerpt) ......................................................................................127
APPENDIX B: SUGGESTED RECORDINGS FOR FURTHER LISTENING OF FLAMENCO
JAZZ ............................................................................................................................................134
APPENDIX C: ADDITIONAL MUSICAL EXAMPLES FROM RECORDINGS CITED .....137
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................144
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LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Figure 1: Pivotal options in flamenco harmony .............................................................................35
vii
LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES
All the musical examples in the text and appendices are my original transcriptions of the cited
sources. I believe these musical examples are a fair use of copyrighted work as allowed on
section 107 from The Copyright Act of October 19, 1976.
Page
Example 1: Basic accents pattern in a traditional bulerías ............................................................21
Example 2: Iturralde, “Bulerías,” first falseta (0:01-0:15) ............................................................22
Example 3a: De Lucía, Remate in “Bulerías” (0:31-0:33) ............................................................23
Example 3b: Differences in the rhythmic and harmonic interpretation of bulerías ......................24
Example 4: Piana, Chromaticism in a descending line targeting a chord tone (1:34-1:36) ...........25
Example 5: Piana, Chromatic notes as an enclosure targeting an arpeggiated idea (1:51-1:53) ...25
Example 6: Iturralde, Four-notes group sequence over A Phrygian (3:22-3:26) ..........................26
Example 7: Grassl, Outside playing approach to chromaticism (5:01-5:07) .................................26
Example 8: Grassl, AmM7sus4 (b9) combination with A Phrygian – Featuring chromatic passing
notes (5:08-5:12) ............................................................................................................................27
Example 9: Iturralde, “Café de Chinitas,” Head arrangement (1:53-2:05) ....................................29
Example 10: Iturralde, “Café de Chinitas,” Head arrangement with walking bass
line (2:06-2:12) ..............................................................................................................................30
Example 11: Iturralde, “Café de Chinitas,” Rhythmic modulation (2:12-2:20) ............................31
Example 12: Andalusian cadence, Traditional harmonic analysis ................................................34
Example 13: José Antonio Pérez, New model for Andalusian cadence analysis ..........................34
Example 14: Pérez, Justification of three tonalities in flamenco harmony based on bulerías
harmonic rhythm ............................................................................................................................34
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Example 15: Two options of the Andalusian cadence harmonic analysis .....................................35
Example 16: Iturralde, “Café de Chinitas,” Harmonic and metric transition of solo section (2:15-
2:20) ...............................................................................................................................................36
Example 17: Iturralde, “Café de Chinitas,” Harmonic analysis of Iturralde’s solo section (3:18-
4:14) ...............................................................................................................................................37
Example 18: Iturralde’s improvisational devices over ii-V of flat vi ............................................39
Example 19: Half-whole diminished lick ......................................................................................39
Example 20a: D half-whole diminished over a D root ..................................................................40
Example 20b: C half-whole diminished over a D root ..................................................................40
Example 21: Iturralde’s half-whole diminished patterns in the style of John Coltrane .................40
Example 22: Joe Henderson’s arpeggiated voicing idea on “Inner Urge” (1964), 3:09-3:15 .......41
Example 23: Iturralde’s use of Joe Henderson’s shapes ................................................................41
Example 24a: Iturralde’s recurring rhythm and articulation ..........................................................42
Example 24b: Iturralde’s second improvised chorus in “Café de Chinitas,” (3:18-4:16) .............42
Example 25: Differences in the bulerías and seguiriya rhythmic patterns ....................................44
Example 26: Iturralde, “El Vito” refrain (0:22-0:45) ....................................................................44
Example 27: Iturralde, Melody of “El Vito” verses adjusted to the seguiriyas rhythm and
harmonic rhythm (0:46-0:59) .........................................................................................................46
Example 28: Popular harmonization for “El Vito” ........................................................................48
Example 29: Iturralde’s reharmonization of “El Vito” refrain ......................................................49
Example 30: Corea’s harmonic interpretation of Andalusian cadence using secondary dominants
on “Spanish Fantasy Part III” (0:20-0:37) .....................................................................................60
Example 31: De Lucía’s solo cadenza (1:46-2:34) ........................................................................64
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