RECOMMENDED

Some folks claim flamenco’s lineage reaches back several centuries. And that may well be the truth. The genre has its canonical figures, and Paco de Lucia is one of them. While the sixty-four-year-old ranks as the music’s best-known contemporary performer, he’s remained one of flamenco’s most explorative composers, conspiring with players engaged with jazz and other sympathetic genres. His ability to inject an adventurous tone into a music with such a long history, though, troubles some traditionalists. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

It’s an unlikely back-story: metal enthusiasts hone an appreciation for Spanish flamenco, head to Ireland and hit it big, relatively. But over the last several years, Rodrigo y Gabriela have toted around a pair of nylon string guitars, taken a music rooted in the past and served it to a new audience. The Mexican duo of Rodrigo Sánchez and Gabriela Quintero don’t play the music exactly as fans of the genre might imagine–and they stray from the psychedelicized version Peter Walker touts. Working in Led Zeppelin and Metallica covers isn’t the norm for most acoustic acts. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Harper Smith

RECOMMENDED

It took a while for sitarist Anoushka Shankar to get out of her comfort zone as an artist. Her first releases mostly consisted of ragas written by her father Ravi, but after 2005’s “Rise,” she began expanding her musical horizons by incorporating jazz, world music and electronica (2007’s excellent “Breathing Under Water” is a great example) while collaborating with other musicians.

On “Traveller” (Deutsche Grammophon), she takes things up a notch by mixing her signature sitar sound with the sounds of flamenco. Read the rest of this entry »