| María
la Tero, April 2006
After two years attaining maturity,
the project ‘Qawwali flamenco’ is
finally released in a special collector's edition:
a deluxe pack including a book, two CDs and a
DVD. The encounter between ‘qawwals’
and flamenco artists - between Faiz Ali Faiz and
his men, and Duquende,
Miguel Poveda and Chicuelo - is recorded for posterity
in a deluxe pack combining sound, images, texts
and photos. And all this material shows, once
again, that flamenco is as universal as music
itself.
This isn't the first attempt
at bringing together the flamenco and Indian arts,
two musical worlds with common ancestry. You have
‘Yerbagüena’ by Pepe Habichuela
and The Bollywood Strings, released in 2001. Whilst
the meeting point then was the instruments, with
‘Qawwali Flamenco’ the nexus is the
voice. “The way you shape the sound is the
same”, explains Duquende in the intriguing
‘making of’. This seventeen minute
documentary reveals the very core of this musical
project, allowing you to peek behind the scenes
at the rehearsal venues and listen to the stars'
declarations, their points of view on this joint
venture.
The result is here in complete
form, spanning two CDs, one with six and another
with five pieces of three different types, all
recorded live. There are exclusively flamenco
tracks on which Chicuelo's
guitar accompanies Duquende or Miguel
Poveda on vocals por tangos, por malagueñas,
por granaínas and por soleá. There
are exclusively ‘qawwali’ tracks,
with the Faiz Ali Faiz Qawwali Ensemble performing
their sufi songs with voice, tabla and harmonium.
And there are tracks - the most intriguing ones
- where flamenco and ‘qawwali’ become
one: ‘Allah hu’, ‘Tere Ishq
Ne Nashaya/Con esa morena’ and ‘Tango
al mar’. A repertoire that takes in seguiriyas,
tientos, tangos, and which rounds off with the
sum of the three vocalists in front of a single
microphone, on a track that has come to be called
‘De querer a no querer’.
Concert on DVD
The intensity of this project,
its complexity, its sentiment, its emotion and
its musical value are here not just to listen
to, but also to see. And the fact is the pack
also includes a DVD with almost an hour of the
concert that this ground-breaking band offered
in June 2005 at the Fez Festival (Morocco), beneath
the arches of the ancient palace of Bab Makina.
Forty illustrated pages are also
included in the pack, with color photos, the transcript
of a dialog between the artistic directors of
the project (Mingus B. Formentor and Martina A.
Catella), the credits and the biographies of the
stars in English, French and Spanish.
Contents
Special
feature. Qawwali jondo, with Duquende, Miguel
Poveda and Chicuelo
Listener's
guide. Flamenco and world music
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