Impromptu Flamenco by an old friend: ¡Gracias, Maestro!

Marcos, whom Prospero met some twelve years ago when the tocaor (guitarist) lived in the La Viña section of Cádiz (the heartland of Flamenco), is one of a very small handful of truly knowledgeable British experts on Flamenco, and a specialist on the revolutionary and mythical Camarón de la Isla. He is also an excellent guitarist who is acknowledged by Spanish Flamenco colleagues as 'muy flamenco', a tribute given to a foreigner that cannot be improved on in that rarefied atmosphere. Marcos, whose day job is with the BBC and who has written a book on Camarón, a copy of which he has promised to send to Pepe at La Tasca, gave us an impromptu concert yesterday on the main square in Jimena. It was a wonderful mini event that was nearly ruined by  the insensitivity of people who should know better (a note on Flamenco etiquette is below) but which continued uninterrupted outside La Tasca well into the evening.

Prospero note:

Flamenco ettiquette, which is no more than good manners and therefore applicable to just about any such circumstance, requires that when someone suddenly takes off (se arranca in the vernacular) singing, playing or dancing everyone is quiet and respectful of the sudden need for expression - even if we neither understand nor care for this kind of music. The spectator is expected to stay still until the end of the piece and most certainly does not address the performer in any way until he or she has finished. 'Shut up and put up', is the way someone put it to me years ago.

To be honest, I was ashamed of certain members of the little group that formed around Marcos yesterday, particularly those who chose to tell one of Britain's top Flamenco experts the meaning of the music and to boast about knowing a cantaora (female singer, though the boaster wouldn't know the Spanish word), who is supposedly 'world famous' but no-one in the true Flamenco world has ever heard of even if she has performed in places like Finland or Japan.

Flamenco etiquette, and good manners, also indicates that you do not introduce other kinds of music unless invited to do so by the performer, something that sometimes happens in circumstances such as yesterday's but did not.

Good manners would also tell me that I am a mere guest here, that Flamenco is part of the culture of my host country, and that, whether I like it or not, I do not need to bulldoze my own cultural baggage onto the scene. Any scene.

Nevertheless, ¡Muchas gracias, maestro!