Paco de Lucia – Paco de Lucia: The Montreux Years (BMG, 2023)
Guitarist, composer, and producer Paco de Lucia once said, “You must understand that a Gypsy’s life is a life of anarchy. That is a reason why the way of flamenco music is a way without discipline, as you know it. We don’t try to organize things with our minds, we don’t go to school to find out. We just live… music is everywhere in our lives.”
Considered to be one of the finest flamenco guitarists, Paco de Lucia wasn’t one to rein in that Gypsy anarchy and rest on his musical prowess. Investing in that restless spirit, he would go on to seek out new musical connections, gracefully lending his own flamenco mastery to classical and jazz compositions. Logically, if music was found to be everywhere in the Gypsy’s life, it certainly meant that flamenco could go everywhere along with him. And, it did.
It should come as no surprise that he also said, “I have never lost my roots in my music, because I would lose myself. What I have tried to do is have a hand holding onto tradition and the other scratching, digging in other places trying to find new things I can bring into flamenco.”
Finding kindred spirits in the jazz world, Paco de Lucia ignored the complaints from flamenco traditionalists and hooked up with jazz greats like Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell and Al DiMeola. It would come as no surprise that he found like-minded musical explorers and a collaborative space at Switzerland’s Montreux Jazz Festival. Paco de Lucia would return to Montreux several times between 1984 and 2012. And, it just so happens, those savvy music curators at Montreux have compiled the best of two of those 1984 and 2012 live performances and put out “Paco de Lucia: The Montreux Years.”
Paco de Lucia is just the latest installment to BMG’s The Montreux Years series, celebrating past luminaries to hit the stage at the festival. Other offerings in the collection include Muddy Waters, Etta James, Monty Alexander, Dr. John, Michel Petrucciani, John McLaughlin, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea and Nina Simone.
Paco de Lucia: The Montreux Years is fashioned from eight tracks taken from 1984, 2006 and 2012 live performances at Casino Montreux, Casino Barriere and Miles Davis Hall. Kudos go out to Tony Cousins’s audio restoration and mastering at London’s Metropolis Mastering and audio edits by Pete Schwier for the clean, crystalline quality of the recording and the seamless sound.
Paco de Lucia: The Montreux Years is by turns elegant, fiery and exciting, sometimes all contained within a single track. Flamenco sensibilities slide smoothing up against jazzy sleek turns, making the whole impossible to resist. Paco de Lucia’s prowess in the guitar is evident from the get go, and flamenco fans and jazz fans alike will not be disappointed. Each track comes across fresh and far from dated or flat in the recording.
Opening with the elegant lines of “Vamonos,” this track soon takes off into the spectacular. Paco de Lucia plays along with Antonio Serrano on keyboards and harmonica, Alain Perez on bass, David de Jacoba on vocals, Israel Suarez on percussion, Duquende on vocals and Antonia Sanchez on second guitar in a wonderland of flamenco and jazz.
Taken from the 2006 concert, “La Barrosa” savors the true intricacy and precise mastery of Paco de Lucia. “Solo Quiero Caminar,” equally delicious, where a breezy jazz flows out of the flamenco backdrop with Jorge Pardo on flute.
“Alta Mar,” extracted from the 1984 concert and “El Tesorillo,” drawn from the 2006 concert, are bright, vibrant, and extraordinary.
“Buana Buana King Kong,” selected from the 1984 concert, features Paco de Lucia along with Jorge Pardo on guitar and vocals, Ramón de Algeciras on guitar, Carlos Rebato on guitar, Carles Benavent on bass and Rubem Dantas on percussion on this track that is something akin to musical fireworks.
Paco de Lucia: The Montreux Years rounds out the performances with the intricate loveliness of “Variaciones de Minera” and a truly stunning live version of “Zyryab.”
Paco de Lucia: The Montreux Years is testament to de Lucia’s brilliance as a musician and collaborator. Guitar fans everywhere will surely weep over this collection.
Buy Paco de Lucia: The Montreux Years.
Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow. Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931. Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.