S.C./Flamenco-world.com, October 2006

Argentinean tango is “in” among flamencos. Miguel Poveda, Estrella Morente, Eva Durán and now also Pepe de Lucía have taken a look at the music from Buenos Aires. In October 2006, the Algeciras-born cantaor releases the album ‘Tomo y obligo’, which takes its name from a tango by Carlos Gardel in 1931. To be exact, the entire repertoire consists of classics of the genre from the ’20s and ’30s authored, besides Gardel, by other composers like Juan Carlos Cobián, by whom he does a new version of ‘Nostalgias’; and Mariano Mores, from whose repertoire he’s chosen ‘Uno’. The musical accompaniment is by a jazz band.

	'Tomo y obligo'. Front cover

In the inside booklet of his new album, Pepe de Lucía tells that his mother Luzía sang the tango ‘Tomo y obligo’ to him when he was a little boy, “which she made me understand as a flamenco style or message”. Stemming from this childhood memory is the Algeciras-born cantaor’s new album, which isn’t missing the usual tangos like ‘Nostalgias’, ‘El día que me quieras’ and ‘Volver’. The cantaor does versions of a total of ten tangos, “the so-called between-war ones”, taking them to flamenco territory, but only in the vocal. He leaves the music in the hands of a jazz band consisting of pianist Jacob Sureda, contrabassist José Vera, drummer Pedro Barceló and saxophonist Bob Sands, among others.

Pepe de Lucía hadn’t recorded a solo album since 2002, when he published ‘El corazón de mi gente’, with the collaborations of artists such as Vicente Amigo, Tomatito and Remedios Amaya. During this time, although his most recent titles have disappeared from the record company catalogues, recordings from his youth have come out once again such as ‘Los hijos de Luzía’ and even ‘Los Chiquitos de Algeciras’, that is, the brothers Pepe and Paco de Lucía in 1963, when they were still boys.

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