Search - Paco De Lucia :: Zyryab

"Soniquete" worth the whole album

L. K. Coleman | New Orleans, LA USA | 12/02/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Matters of taste.... The "deeply disappointed" fan from Ohio finds no merit in this album, and even calls the cut "Zyryab" "elevator music." (I'd like to watch the reaction of the riders if they ever played "Zyryab" in an elevator - way, way too intense to be called "elevator music.") The first cut, "Soniquete" (a word difficult to translate - "a large, pleasing musical sound" does not convey the real meaning), a buleria, is, from a guitarist's perspective, worth the price of the album. It is one of the most inventive, richly textured and intricate buleria's ever recorded - a masterpiece of creativity.The reviewer from California should immediately snub out whatever it is he/she's smoking before it causes permanent brain damage. This is an excellent album, but let's not go over the top about Gypsies. They're not all "free." They're not the exclusive source of Flamenco, nor did they invent it. And Paco is not Gypsy. As to the album's namesake: "Zyryab" was the nickname of a legendary court musician (full name: Abu 'l-Hassan Ali ibn Nafi). He lived in the first half of the ninth century, not the thirteenth. And he was reputed to have added a fifth string to the oud ("al oud," from which we derive the word "lute"), not a sixth. However, no one knows for sure as the true historical record is sketchy, especially since the first hard records we have about Zyryab were written around 1600 by an author (al-Maqarri) who reputedly quoted verbatim from another historian (Ibn Hayyan) whose works have long since been lost, and which in any event would have been written well over a century after the death of Zyryab. In any event, Zyryab was reputed to have been a multi-talented genius, not only as a genius of musical innovation, but also, amongst other things, as the inventor of the concept that "well bred" people should change their fashions four times a year with the seasons, and that meals should be served in courses rather than all at once - literally decreeing "soup to nuts." He died around 850 c.e. in Cordoba, Spain ("al Qurtuba, al Andalus"), and Paco's album is a tribute by a Spanish musical genius of the twentieth century to a Spanish (albeit adopted - he was from Baghdad) genius of the ninth."

Zyryab- transcends the genre

Rick Heiman | San Francisco | 05/20/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have listened to Paco for years, and still feel I am learning about his brilliance. As a choreographer, I have long been fascinated with the challenge of choreographing the title track, and now, as artistic director of Dance Romanesque, a Bay Area modern dance company, I am well underway with it...I am approaching Zyryab not as a flamenco piece, but as a truly classical piece of music which transcends the flamenco movement vocabulary (great though it is)- Zyryab is intense, lyrical and jazzy, and these are the qualities I hope will come out in my finished dance. Paco's work has also led me back to Al Di Meola, another guitar genius whom I will "tackle" choreographically later this year, probably a cut from one of his compilation albums featuring his work with Chick Corea, Paco and John Mac, among others. As a dance artist who takes pride in selecting the best music (I have recently worked with music by Chopin and Schubert among others), I am thrilled that there are great contemporary geniuses like Paco and Al D. out there who combine soul and technical virtuosity in such great proportions, the perfect antidote to a "modern classical" world dominated by Glass and his watered down ilk."

Paco keeps exploring

Rick Heiman | 01/10/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I especially like the brief singing of Potito on this cd. I wish paco would have let him sing more. T Martínez-Medley"