Carnaval culminates with Fat Tuesday. With the arrival of Ash Wednesday celebration is over and it is a time for meditation and attonement. Tell that to the Gaditanos.

In 2011 Cadiz carnaval goes beyond the March 8 ‘Mardi Gras’ to Sunday the 13th. The eleven day or so event really begins gearing up much earlier, because of the numerous competitions that take place to select the best chirigota for the year’s carnaval. Cadiz is considered somewhat the humor/comedy capital of Spain and nowhere is this in greater evidence than during carnaval. Chirigotas, or groups (usually men) of singers with a guitarist and an oom-pah drummer in accompaniment compose and rehearse their compositions for a chance at the finales in the Gran Teatro Falla (considered the traditional start of Carnaval), where other chirigotas compete with comic skits and costumes in addition to their songs. Difficult sometimes even for other Spaniards to understand, they choose current events in Spain and beyond to satirise, with hilarious lyrics that spare no public figure, not even King Juan Carlos II, as evidenced by the “cuple’ of 2011 winner of the final Ricas y Maduras) ,or celebrity figures such as Isabel Pantoja or political figures such as the current president, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Add to the chirigotas the coros, or orchestras of costumed performers usually accompanied with traditional spanish mandolin and lute player and, outside of the Teatro Falla you are bound to find many groups of ilegales, groups of enthusiasts not participating officially in the contests but providing no less a spectacle with their own witty and humorous kazoo enriched music and lyrics. It is really the ilegales who provide the street atmosphere for carnaval and for a memorable experience one should seek them out at night in the streets of the neighborhood of La Viña, such as calles Martínez Campos, Corralón de los Carros, Trinidad, Patrocinio, Virgen de la Palma, San Nicolás, Paz, and Paco Alba; and plazas such as Tío de la Tiza, and José Macías Rete.

Just about everyone gets into the spirit of Carnaval so you may feel out of place if you show up without some kind of costume. Masks are uncommon, in fact for many years the carnaval of Jerez was prohibited in the past because of masked carnaval goers that used their anonimity to ‘settle scores’ with enemies. Undoubtedly the most popular time to go are the two weekends of Carnaval, the first considered to be the better of the two but gaditanos will tell you this is not when they really celebrate Carnaval, leaving it to the scores of outsiders that come from all over to join in the celebration. Gaditanos love their Carnaval and are usually out carrousing until the early morning hours even during the work (?)week. The two Sundays of Carnaval also feature parades throughout the old town, the first known popularly as ‘El Domingo de Coros’ (the Sunday of Choirs, the huge groups of carnaval singers that parade through the streets) and ‘El Domingo de los Hartibles’ (the Sunday of the ‘ones who can’t get enough’, in reference to those that want the party to continue on, well beyond Mardi Gras!)

Though Jerez and other towns in the area and for that matter Spain celebrate carnaval, few can match the intensity of Cadiz in its finest hour. Visitors will find this as the friendliest time to be in Cadiz as just about the whole town gets roaring drunk. Fights are rare despite the huge crowds and it is easy to make local friends who can point you in the direction of the good spots from which to hear the various chirigotas, coros, or ilegales perform. RENFE also offers an extended train service to and from Jerez during the two weekends of Carnaval for revelers wanting to experience it without staying overnight, though its likely you’ll be there until the early hours of the morning. Well worth experiencing at least once!

El Cristo de la Viga reposes in the Cathedral of Jerez

Before you get the wrong idea, I have to say I’ve had a « Jerez, je t’aime » kind of day.

The day was gorgeous….stunning. Temperature was a perfect 24 degrees.  The sun was shinning, and not a drop of rain in sight. After three solid months of it, the fact that the sun was out at all was almost a miracle.

"Azahar" in Jerez

And what a day for miracles, el domingo de Ramos, or Palm Sunday, celebrated by Christians as the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on an ass. Also the first official day of what is known in Spain as la Semana Santa, or Holy Week…6 days where various cofradias or brotherhoods in cities all over Andalucia parade ornate floats with an image of Christ and some aspect of the Passion, or a float of the Virgin Mary, or both. Many people associate this important event with Seville, however the Semana Santa of Jerez is quite a production in itself, with over 30 brotherhoods participating.

I was up early and decided to be one of the first people in town to take advantage of the beautiful weather. Stepping outside at around 8 a.m. (hey, for Spain, that IS early!) the first thing that struck me was a very strong scent of orange blossom in the air, despite the fact that there are no orange trees on the street in San Miguel where I live. This scent was to pervade everywhere I went throughout the day, and never has the smell been so welcome. After months and months of heavy rain, spring was literally bursting with life and the orange trees around town produced blooms to a density I had never seen in my 12 years here. Walking around the Alameda Vieja (where the Alcazar or old Muslim fortress of Jerez is located) I could see the rows of trees, speckled with the tiny blossoms like delicate snowflakes, which were giving off their intoxicating fragrance.

Maybe it was just the fact that I was so happy with the weather and my morning stroll, inhaling deeply of this gift of

Mr. Sherry

Spring, but the morning was spent with such serenity that I wondered if the orange blossom scent isn’t something that could combat stress, because you could’ve run over my feet with a car and I probably would have just smiled!

Balconies all over the center of town were adorned with draped red cloth and lanterns, a sign of respect from the households which would be granted the honor witnessing the procession pass by. I decided to make my way towards the cathedral of Jerez, pausing briefly to admire the beautiful deep purple petunias planted at the statue of Manuel Maria Gonzalez…the founder of the bodega Gonzalez Byass and one of the first sherry exporters in a city-wide dynasty that would last several hundred years.

Carved detail of processional float

Once inside the cathedral, I spotted two processional floats, which were to later grace the streets of the town. El Cristo del Socorro, and the accompanying float of the Virgin del Socorro. The floats, massive with intricate wood carving and worked metal, seemed very at home in the stillness of the cathedral. Meanwhile the priest was bustling about, preparing his sermon for the Sunday mass, and being from Jerez, addressing his minions with the typical booming voice and loud exclamations, things only a priest from Jerez would dain to utter… »Picha! Cojones! «  (see the HouseinJerez glossary if you’re lost!)

I didn’t linger too long in the church, preferring to continue my walk around the center.

Detail of metal work

As the morning went on the streets came alive with people, looking to find a café with outdoor seating in order to soak up as much of the sun as possible.

On my way back to San Miguel, I popped into Bar Maypa in the Cruz Vieja for a coffee. Maypa holds a special status for being THE bar to go to during Semana Santa. It’s a simple bar open from 7 in the morning for breakfast, closing at midday (Spanish midday, so roughly 3 o ‘clock) and reopening again for coffees and later, tapas at 5 in the afternoon (closed Sundays, although it opens for the Sundays during Lent). It’s garnered its reputation for Semana Santa because of the saetas that are sung from the rooms upstairs to the passing processions.

The saeta is quite a unique aspect of holy week, particularly in Andalucia. In the style of a martinete (one of the oldest flamenco styles there is, and traditionally the song of the blacksmiths who would sing its verses while pounding the rhythm in sync with the pounding of their hammers, hence ‘martinete’ from ‘martillo’ or hammer), the saeta is a short series of verses dedicated to the suffering of Christ or the Virgin Mary at Christ’s crucifixtion. The style is recognisable even to people who don’t speak Spanish for its drawn out melismas, and deep evocative wails. Even people that do not share the faith in Christianity can’t help but feel their hair stand on end when a singer hits that particular moment in which, through the power of verse and their interpretation of it, they manage to transmit such deep sentiment and emotion, rendering verbal comprehension unnecessary.

Bar Maypa in San Miguel, a Jerez institution during Semana Santa

My first year in Jerez, I was told by some recently made friends that if I wanted to understand Semana Santa, I had to position myself on the street opposite bar Maypa on Viernes Santo (Holy Friday), at around 2 a.m., as one particular procession housed in San Miguel neighborhood would be making its way back to its ‘home’ in the Ermita de San Telmo, El Cristo de la Expiration (Christ of the Expiration, the transfiguring moment in which Christ dies on the cross). This particular Cristo has a long and venerated history with the people of Jerez, particularly the gypsy population many of whom regard him as their patron saviour. As a sign of this, each year a gypsy woman cuts her locks to donate them to the statue…viewing el Cristo in broad daylight is testimony to this, as the straight long hair that hangs down from his head is clearly human. He is pictured nailed to his cross, with the look on his face a combination of anguish and rapture, capturing what I would interpet to be the essence of the sacrifice of Christ, a figure who was both a man of flesh and blood who knew suffering at the same time as the figure chosen by God to fulfill a prophecy of redemption for mankind through the giving of his life. Believers choose to concentrate on his status as the Son of God, I’ve always been intrigued by the notion of a human being given the supernatural opportunity to save mankind through terrible sacrifice, and how Jesus must have grappled with the desire to live a normal life (hence, the « last temptation », the devil’s offer to relieve his suffering and allow him to choose the path of mortality and earthly happiness. Thank you, Paul Schrader, for summing this duality perfectly in the screenplay to Scorcese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ”, one of my all-time favorite films).

But I digress. That night I was not disappointed. I arrived ahead of the slowly moving procession as it made its way up the calle Caballeros on its way to the Cruz Vieja. Bar Maypa was packed as it has always been, and up above, I could see people in the dark passing by the two simple windows. The procession, without the accompaniment of a marching band as with other processions, was being carried on the shoulders of some 20 costaleros (stevedores), dressed in the style of the « egipcio ». This is significant for two reasons: the first being that most floats in Jerez are carried by the costaleros who are under the float, completely unseen by the public. The procession literally appears to glide, swaying gently as it makes its way along the destined route. The Cristo de la Expiration however, is designed so that the costaleros bear it upon their shoulder, what must make for a rather painful experience considering that it takes over 7 hours for it to complete its route (hey, this is Catholicism, gotta have a little suffering!)

The second reason making this Cristo speacial is the headdress the members wear. As opposed to the traditional

The "Bacalao" or Egyptian style headress of this special procession's penitents

« penitente » look, KKK style with the long pointed hats and mask which cover the entire face except for the eyes, the head dress drapes down from the head, leaving the face exposed, very similar to pharaonic period head-dresses (hence the word « egipcio », which is a reference at once to the style as well as the name in Spanish of the head dress. The name for the headress in Spanish is “Bacalao” or “cod”, a reference to the sea-faring backround of this patron’s followers as well as the neighborhood it represents) It also alludes to a local legend of the origin of some of Jerez’s gypsy clans, that in their exodus from western India (commonly agreed to be the origin of the gypsy race) many traced their migratory route through Egypt and North Africa as opposed to the other method of entry into Spain, via the north coming from France and the rest of western Europe. From the anthropological perspective, this legend is particularly enticing to consider what musical contributions appear in flamenco due to the migration of gypsies from the North African route.

The Cristo’s cross also bears a particular adornment, a triangular shaped cloth draped behind him which symbolises the sail of a ship, another allusion to his beloved San Telmo church- this area was traditionally popular with fishermen, and even to this day fishmongers in the local plaza gather at the nearby Peña los Cernicalos to carouse together and sing flamenco. The weather vane atop the San Telmo church is that of a ship.

The first saeta to be sung to the Cristo as it approached Maypa was that from Diego Rubichi, unfortunately now dead in his grave several years. It ripped through me with a power and intensity I had never experienced before.

I am, in case the reader can’t tell yet, a non-believer…but that night the suffering of Christ was as real to me as my own flesh and blood.

And amazing things happened afterwards. The float, which traditionally has to stop in front of the Saeta singer as he sings his verses, inched forward, and stopped again. This time, from a singer who was almost beside me, down on the street looking up at his patron with true emotion and anguish. His saeta was received with murmurs as the entire street fell still to hear him. Next to him was Moraito, one of my flamenco idols. I’ve got used to it by now but that is one of the amazing things about Jerez, if you are a flamenco nut like I am…the proximity one can have to artists that most of us worship for their artistry.

Toitas las madres tienen
pena, pero la tuya es la
mayor, porque delante llevas
a tu hijo amante, ammaraito
de pies y manos,
como si fuera un traidor.

All mothers have sorrow,
but yours is the greatest,
because you have before
you your beloved son, his
feet and hands tied,
as if he were a traitor.

-(Traditional Saeta, thank you “Flamenco Quote of the Day”)

In Semana Santa, the faithful who do penance hide their faces in this traditional, and suggestive way

Coming back to this Sunday, March 28 2010…later that day, towards half past five in the afternoon, the atmosphere around the center changed dramatically. On any normal Sunday in Jerez, crowds start to taper off after lunch, or there are fewer people in the center in general, as many people like to take advantage of the day to go to the beach or to a country venta (restaurant), visit family, etc.

"Only the penitent man shall pass"

This afternoon, the first thing that was noticeable was just how smartened up everyone looked. As is the tradition, Semana Santa is a time to be wearing one’s best…culminating in Jueves y Viernes Santo (Holy Thursday and Friday), where not only is it customary to wear a suit, women dress in widow’s black, with a mantilla (a traditional head dress, see link), reminiscent of the Spain of old.  There is something very “Goyesque” about a procession of women dressed in this fashion.

Luckily, I was able to visit the balcony of a friend’s house directly opposite the San Marcos church, and the near the exit of the Colegio San José, from which “La Borriquita” would emerge, a popular Jerez procession featuring penitents in bright white with blue hoods, leading a float depicting Christ on his donkey on his entrance to Jerusalem, complete with an enormous Palm tree that sways with its slow progress along the designated route through the center of town.  The procession is quite a production, with a long train of penitents, incense bearers, priests, standard bearers, little children tasked with lighting the penitent’s candles, all before the actual procession makes its appearance.  In this particular procession, a marching band accompanies both the Christ float as well as the Virgin Mary float which follows behind, complete with her own entourage of penitents et. al.

"La Borriquita", an emblematic procession on Palm Sunday in Jerez

A penitent standard bearer

Standing on top of the balcony, the tops of the orange trees swaying gently in the breeze, the procession made its way up the cobbled street, with chatty onlookers taking photos, eating pipas (sunflower seeds)…the celebrations also see lots of kids and teens out by themselves, and for many, one of the rites of passage of young adulthood is being allowed to go out to see pasos on your own with friends…so you can imagine a lot of flirting between boys and girls is also going on!

The thunderous beating of the drums announces the arrival of the float as it rounds the corner.  The street becomes hazy with frankincense, mixing with the citrus blossoms.  The sun, still potent at 5:30 in the afternoon, reflects off the leaves of the trees, the timeless stones of the church.  As the horns shrilly announce the coming of Christ on his donkey, Jerez is temporarily transported to another time and place, and the normally silent streets become witness to Christ’s arrival…for a few moments, Jerez IS Jerusalem.  I can imagine a world with no religion, but in this moment, I realise that we would also not have many beautiful images such as these.

HouseinJerez took it to the road this weekend, I’m currently in Morocco leading a private trip for 9 days, starting in my old stomping grounds and second home, Fès, and ending in Marrakech.  But starting from the beginning…

SEVILLA

I chose to fly to Fès this time as I had never done it before, usually relying on public transport (bus to Algeciras, ferry to Tangier, train to Fès) or car (drive to Algeciras, ferry to Ceuta where one crosses the border from Spanish territory to Morocco, and then a beautiful drive through the Rif to Fès).

The only inconvenience of this method is that fact that there is no public transport from Jerez to Seville at that hour to get you to the airport in time, forcing me to spend a night in Seville.

Well, there are worse circumstances in the world, so I made the best of it, checking into my hotel in the Macarena neighborhood and taking a stroll to the Alameda de Hércules, the wide plaza lined with bars and restaurants, effectively the bohemian neighborhood of Seville.

I chose Restaurante Al Aljibe (Alameda de Hércules 76, Tel. 954 900 951) a chic looking place with a lovely upstairs dining area and some very creative tapas accompanied by a well thought-out wine list.  I wasn’ too hungry and found my two choices very satisfying, salmorejo de remolacha con crocantes de lagostinos y aceite de tinte de calamar (a gazpacho like soup made from beetroot with a crispy langoustine in squid ink oil) and the sushi de ensaladilla con vieras y aceite de wasabi, a delightful take on the tired old “ensaladilla rusa” tapas standard, with additions such as nori, scallops and wasabi oil.  Washed it down with a glass of  Codice vinto tinto (2007, Castilla y Leon).  Excellent, attentive staff, and friendly owner. Anyone in Seville around the 18-27 of March should check out Al Aljibe as they will be serving special menus that have been designed to be paired with wines from Jerez- these are my kind of people!

Strolling around some of the streets near the Alameda on my way home, I chanced upon Bar Ambigú (calle Feria 47, tel. 954 38 10 15 ) my real find for the evening.

I enjoy finer places such as Al Aljibe, but what I really like discovering are the unassuming, neighborhood bars where the locals go to meet friends and where the food is excellent and at the right price, the answer you get when you ask the question, “do you know a really good place to go?”  Ambigú ticks all the boxes and more.  The place was packed wall to wall with a mixed crowd of younger people, hippies, elders, punks and the suit and tie crowd, equally smoking, drinking manzanilla or beer, and sampling some excellent tapas…the outside belies the variety available within. Mixed in with the locals were a number of cargadores, resting from a practice run of marching their Holy Week processional float through the streets of Seville, a common sight in fact throughout Andalucia in the weeks leading up to Palm Sunday.  The sweaty guys, each with their neck wrapped with a cushion to soften the weight of the float (weighing up to 2,000 kgs distributed among some 20-25 men who proceed through the streets at a slow pace for hours) thirstily downed their beers before heading back into the cool evening to continue their practice run.  Holy Week in 2010 runs from March 28-April 4 this year.

After being served a free tapa of remolacha aliñada (marinated beetroot salad) with my glass of house rioja, I opted for a tapa of bacalao a la plancha (grilled salt-cod) and a small casserole of garbanzos con espinacas (chickpea and spinach stew, excellently flavoured and a good pairing with the cod)…the only potential drawback I could see with the place is all the cigarette smoke, which is pretty much a problem almost anywhere you go in Spain.  But if you are looking for that kind of local atmosphere with excellent food that won’t break the bank, Ambigú firmly belongs on the list.  It was 11 at night on a Saturday and I was the only foreigner in the place.

It was an early night for me as I had to be up at the crack of dawn to be at the airport for the flight, so I made my way back to the hotel and crashed until 6 a.m., making my way to the airport by bus from Santa Justa.

FES

Everyone seems to have a nasty RyanAir story to tell, but surprisingly, I could find no fault with any aspect of the trip.  Pre-printed boarding pass in hand, I was checked through quickly, went through border check, seated and took off at the scheduled time without any fuss.  And the ride was beautiful.  We maintained a slightly lower cruising altitude, following the N-4 past Jerez, with lovely views of the Sierra de Cadiz, and soon, looming up on the left, the rock of Gibraltar and the Straits, with the Moroccan Rif fast approaching.  I marvelled at how this trip by car would take the better part of the day (some 8-9 hours).  In almost no time at all, we made our descent among the lush hills of Fès (blessed, or cursed as some would say, by the unusual amount of rain that has fallen in the region in the last 3 months) to the airport, where passports were processed and bags collected in the space of about 20 minutes.  Not too bad for 25 euros!  Anyone making this trip in the direction Seville-Fes would be well advised to sit on the left side of the plane, as this is where the best views are.

My group is currently staying at Dar Roumana, my former place of business, a beautifully restored maison d’hôtes that I co-ran for nearly 5 years.  Lovely rooms, lovely views, and wonderful food.  More on Fès in my next post!

Dancers display Adela's latest creation to the rhythm of the tanguillo

Tonight at the Peña Los Cernicalos, calle Sancho Vizcaino 25, locals and foreigners alike were treated to a very interesting show which hopefully will become an annual event.  Local flamenco dress designer Adela Olmos, with the collaboration of a number of foreign dance students representing Mexico, Brasil, Spain, France, Italy and Japan, staged a unique fashion show to highlight her creations.  Counting on the assistance of local talents such as Domingo Rubichi and El Bizco de los Camarones, these ladies graced the stage of Los Cernicalos to the tune of the tanguillo, alegrias, soleares, and siguiriyas, sporting Adela’s lovely hand made flamenco fashions.  As someone quite ignorant of the fashion world, but firmly entrenched in the flamenco, I found the idea to be original and highly creative, carried off with a great measure of class both on the part of the foreigners who were obviously trying their best to impress a large local crowd (and not easy to do in such a discriminating place such as Jerez) as well as the local musicians, who accompanied this unusual choreography with great skill.  I’m not one to embrace unorthodox flamenco experiments lightly, but I found the evening a refreshing change from the standard peña format and a wonderful opportunity for some of these women who have been studying in Jerez for years and yet do not often get the opportunity to perform in public with skilled musicians.  Enhorabuena chicas, y enhorabuena Adela!

Peña Los Cernicalos saw the presentation of interesting dress designs sported by talented foreign dance students

Flash forward an hour at the mechanic shop who delivered the bad news: my flat tire which could not be patched would need to be replaced, and not stocking that brand anymore meant needing to purchase two tires of the same brand to be able to pass my upcoming ITV inspection…plus new brake pads and a refill of brake fluid on the car meant I was going to be out several hundred euros.

What’s a guy to do then but amble over to my favorite tapas bar in this part of Jerez and get a drink?  I took some consolation that I could wait things out by taking refuge at the Asador de Burgos, just off the N-IV highway in front of the Leroy Merlin. Things started looking a little better with a glass of Ribera del Duero, Páramo de Guzmán (2006 Roble) a lovely red with good bouquet and smooth in the mouth thanks to oak-ageing. Bingo!

The Asador de Burgos is a quaint family run restaurant, in a very residential part of town.  Perhaps not one’s first choice if you’re in Jerez for a short visit, but it makes a great stop if you have a car and are on your way towards Cadiz or Seville. As its name suggests, they feature dishes from the Burgos region of Spain, so this means in addition to iberian meats and cheeses, house specialties such as roasted lamb and roasted suckling pig (they even have a meat cooler visible in the tapas bar area proudly displaying their cuts).  As appetising as it sounded they are really more dishes to be shared and for when you have the time for a long and liesurely lunch. So, going solo this afternoon, I had a look at their tapas selection, which changes on a regular basis.

Despite the nasty weather there are signs all around that spring is imminent, and I saw one particularly appetising tapa

Alcachofas en salsa con jamon iberico

that reminded me one of my favourite vegetables is about to come back into its own: the artichoke.  The tapa was called “alcachofa en salsa con jamón ibérico“…or artichoke in sauce with iberian ham..delicately flavoured with the sauce and the ham perfectly accompanying the artichoke taste, which can be bitter at times, perfectly washed down with the Ribera del Duero which at this point began opening up nicely. Yum.

A number of the other tapas looked quite appealing, but I decided to follow up the artichoke with “pollo relleno en salsa“, a chicken breast rolled and stuffed with cheese and jam, in a delicate sauce that was so delicious I asked for more bread!  So although my day started out with bad weather and untimely car repairs, my tapas and wine were going down well enough to make me forget my worries.  Just as I was finishing up, a text arrived to my mobile informing me that the car was ready to be picked up from the mechanics.  The Asador de Burgos is well worth a visit for lunch or dinner, being open every day except for Sunday nights (Tel. 956 31 42 86) at 9 euros for the two well sized tapas and a glass of wine, I found it to be reasonable, particularly given that the tapas on offer are in general a cut above other places around Jerez.  Don’t forget to try their asparagus croquettes!

Orange blossoms, or "Azahar"

Stepping outside, I was pleased to see the rain had stopped.  In the distance, looking out towards the Sierra of Cadiz, gray clouds were carrying their cargo further north.  Looking around me I noticed something I had missed earlier-among the orange trees planted along the sidewalk, I spied the beginnings of orange blossom buds, and even found one or two who had decided to open themselves and release their perfume, that delicate scent which is the stuff of poetry.  The Spaniards call these flowers azahar, a word taken directly from their muslim forebearers who so valued the delicate fragance of the blossom (in Morocco orange blossom is still harvested en masse to produce wonderful orange-blossom water as a scent to sprinkle on oneself or to add to deserts, mint tea, etc.) that in their palaces and courtyards throughout Al-Andalus they planted countless trees.  Spring in Andalucia for me will always be tied to the intoxicating smell of this flower in the air.  Whatever life may throw your way, be it nasty weather, or unexpected car repairs….Spring, and with it hope, will find a way to arrive!

A flamenco performance from some years ago, with the recently deceased Fernando Terremoto, in the old peña Tio José de Paula

This evening, my destination was the Peña Tio José de Paula on calle Merced, the city’s most accesible flamenco peña in Barrio Santiago.  Peña Tio José de Paula used to be a tiny, claustrophobic, but packed with duende kind of place that oozed charm.  Some of the best flamenco I’ve ever seen has been in this peña, and part of its history shares my history as I grew in the flamenco world…I’ll always remember the flamenco cante course taught there every November, under the guidance of José Vargas “El Mono de Jerez” or the cante of Fernando “Terremoto” (son), two legendary artists who sadly were taken away at an early age.

The cante course still takes place every year and superb artists grace a new stage and a new building, right next door to the old one.  I suppose it was time for some updating, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the new Tio José de Paula.

My visiting this evening was to see a curious group, referred to as “Las Mujeres de la Peña Tio José de Paula”, performing as part of the “de peña en peña” series of late night concerts during the festival.  A group of ladies of advanced age and yet still very young at heart, none of whom were professional musicians or singers or dancers and yet who had something  everyone in the room that night could learn from with their lively cante and baile, assisted by the guitar of Domingo Rubichi.  Many of these ladies are mothers, sisters, or other relatives of some of the best known talent to come out of the gypsy neighborhood of Santiago.  They belong to a generation raised before there were flamenco peñas in Jerez, and flamenco was something that took place in a fiesta, or the private patio of a family’s home, but never as a paid public spectacle.

One of the "mujeres" of the group of the Tio José de Paula Peña

The ladies have been performing as a group for some years now, and this certainly wasn’t the first time I saw them so I wasn’t expecting to be blown away…and for the most part, I wasn’t.  However, their sense of compass and style could not help but have me tapping along to the rhythm…and that’s the thing about these “mujeres”….they’re not re-inventing the wheel.  They are  showing you that when you’ve been born and lived your entire life within this music…you don’t have to.

Crisp, perfectly synchopated clapping rhythms joined with the elegant and simple falsetas of Rubichi provided a solid base with which each of these 10 women took their turn to sing a letra (verse) or do a ‘pataita por bulerias’, the colloquial term for dancing a short number in the bulerias style.  Simple, and yet loaded with compas that even seasoned foreigners find difficult to follow at first.

Watching them reminded me of something an old guitar teacher of mine said once.  “Musicians have it all wrong.  The hard stuff is easy.  It’s the easy stuff that’s hard to do, and do right.”

The next peña performance is tomorrow night, at the Peña la Buleria here in Barrio San Miguel, at 1 a.m.

P.S. I started noticing parked vans and the added cameras in recent peña performances, and tonight learned about “CanalFlamencotv”, an initiative by Onda Jerez Television to provide Flamenco oriented conent on their website, which began last year.  They will be adding clips from most Festival events throughout the week, and are a source for finding videos on flamenco happening in Jerez throughout the year.  Or you can pinch here for some slightly less professional images.

Macarena Ramirez at the Peña Alconchel

Beginning at 1 in the morning, Macarena Ramirez performed at the Tertulia Flamena Pepe Alconchel in the Pago San José neighborhood of Jerez.  She’s a young and up and coming dancer who, among other things, had a role as a young Lola Flores in the 2007 Spanish film, “Lola”.  You can see a short clip of her “Farruca” here.

Her baile was accompanied by cantaor David Carpio (who also performed last Friday in the Peña La Buleria), and the toque of Pascual de Lorca.  It was a fairly subdued atmosphere, with the requisite mix of foreigners and locals, but the fact that tomorrow is a work (or in the case of festival attendees, school) day, there wasn’t quite the crowd one would expect.

Bar Colmao on calle Arcos, the hot spot in Jerez for late night Flamenco

I left a little ahead of everyone else and decided I’d try to swing by El Colmao and see if there were any Farruquito sightings to be had (he performed tonight at Teatro Villamarta).  El Colmao is the bar on calle Arcos run by Carlos Grilo (yes, bailaor Joaquin Grilo‘s brother) which over the years has become THE place to go for late-night Festival juergas.  Anyway, no such luck.  And what with many more days of Festival to go, I decided to pack it in early (2 a.m.).

This news brings shock and concern for me, for as some of you may know, I am of Chilean heritage and the majority of my family, including my mother, are there dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake.  It has been an agonizing 24 hours anxious to receive news until finally, my mother was able to call earlier today to report that although they’ve been given the scare of their lives, she and my family are ok and are trying to get back to normal, dealing with power outages, lines for basic goods, interrupted water/electricity services and damaged homes.

What has been interesting on the other hand for me has been following the coverage of the quake in Chile.  We are firmly in a new age of information, as social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter have become abuzz with information, disinformation, questions, and comments…to the point to where news sources are often quoting reports they’ve received on these networks from “people on the ground”, a potentially dangerous or revolutionary precedent depending on how you want to look at the source: professional journalism supplanted by heresay and unsubstantiated reports, or unfiltered coverage without the pressure of government offices to present the “official story”.

Amid this confusing flood of information-among other things on the on-line chilean station that I’ve been streaming all day is a column updated every few seconds with numerous people’s live comments, people desperately asking if anyone has seen their loved ones, people reporting the latest on the ground, etc.-comes the disturbing news that curfew has been declared for the cities of Concepcion and Constitucion due to the apparently massive sacking of stores and supermarkets as chaos is quickly taking over.  The military has been called in to support the local police who have been swamped by masses of people, some desperate, some eager to take advantage of the confusion.

It’s not my intention to make my blog a political commentary, but I will note this: I’m disgusted on two levels, one for the lack of solidarity and basic decency of some Chileans who, in this time of crisis, are taking advantage of the opportunity to steal and horde.  This plays right into the hands of the upper classes of the country who have often maintained that, given to their own devices, the “rotos” of the country (roto meaning literally “broken”, a pejorative term to refer to the lower class in Chile) behave in such a way…the image of Chile being broadcast is indeed suffering as a result.

But I am equally disgusted with the vast inequalities that are obvious to anyone visiting Chile, between the upper and lower classes.  It has long been so and was one of the key issues that president Salvador Allende tried to address during his presidency in the early 70s and for which he was deposed by the military junta under General Agusto Pinochet during the coup d’état on September 11, 1973.  Despite the return to democracy in the 1990s it is this situation of inequality and lack of opportunities and services for Chile’s disadvantaged, the majority of the country I might add, which engenders situations such as the current looting and general anarchy.  Enough said.

As the death toll as tripled throughout the course of the day, going from 200 to now over 700 confirmed dead, with many more feared missing, the dimensions of this tragedy are still taking shape.  I send my love and concern for my family and for all the Chilean people who are in anguish over this latest tragedy.

One of the many intense moments captured by Miguel Angel Gonzalez

For those of you living outside la peninsula iberica, the rains have been so constant over the last several months that the Guadalete river has flooded the plains on the outskirts of town…twice, even making national news because of the severity of the flooding.

So when I saw this evening that the rain was letting up, I thought it a good time to go for a stroll downtown.  And I had a destination, Teatro Villamarta, where at 20:00 this evening a photo exhibit on the Festival de Flamenco was being inaugurated.   A selection of photographs taken by Diario de Jerez‘s photographer Miguel Angel Gonzalez covering the Festival over the years now occupies a special place, the entrance hall of the theatre, for all festival attendees to see, until the 14th of March.  Although the collection is rather small the images captured in Gonzalez’s lens are nonetheless striking, including images of local talents Joaquin Grilo (who was in attendance for the inauguration), Maria del Mar Moreno, or Angelita Gomez during some of their finest performances for Jerez’s most international flamenco event.

My upstairs neighbor, Oxford artist and flamenco dancer Amarita Vargas (the current resident at the Riad) showed up to my surprise and together we helped empty the barrel of fino from the Gonzalez Byass bodega that had been brought in  just for the occassion (this being Jerez after all) with the expert hands of a venenciador (a pourer of

No inaugural event in Jerez would be complete without a venenciador displaying his pouring skills

sherry, using a long wand with a narrow cup at the end called a venencia).

We also were fortunate enough to run into Ana Mari Lopez, Jerez’s prized flamenco dance teacher (classes take place down the street from my house at the Peña Los Cernicalos), and over another glass of fino chatted about this year’s edition of the festival.  As usual, Ana Mari will be teaching classes at capacity, given the large number of festival attendees who also seek out her brilliant dance lessons.

As the crowd at Villamarta began to thin out, Amarita suggested another exhibit which was taking place across town, this time the paintings of Diana Gallardo.  She was inaugurating her exhibit dedicated to Jerez’s most famous daughter, Lola Flores,  which runs until the 14th of March in the Sala Compañia (Plaza Compañia).  The paintings are lovely and this young artist manages in several occassions to capture the dark beauty of “La Faraona” as she was known.  The leaflet being passed out at the exhibition begins in Lola Flores’ own words, as told to Juan Ignacia Garcia-Garzon from “Biografias Vivas

Amarita and Ana Mari Lopez, at Villamarta

ABC”:

“I was born on the 21 of January 250 centuries ago in Jerez de la Frontera.  My mother gave birth to me in a room of our house, number 45 on Calle Sol.  Very close to the Yedra Chapel and next to the ‘Christ of the Expiration’, I was born on a Sunday at 12 sharp in the morning.  Downstairs, my father had a bar which was called “La Fe de Pedro Flores” and there were customers who had an accordion, while I was being born they played the “Royal March”.  Here, in this neighborhood [San Miguel] the soul of art began to awaken in me.  Here I heard the best voices singing solea, siguiriyas, fandangos and bulerias, and that rhythm from here, from Jerez, which is found no where else, a special rhythm.  You can’t learn it, that you carry in your blood, in your genes…”

What made the exhibition all the more fun was the obvious flamenco atmosphere in the Sala Compañia…many of the attendees were local gypsies, Gallardo herself being from the nearby neighborhood of Santiago.  While admiring the paintings I spotted two women who were clapping flamenco

Diana Gallardo's paintings on Lola are on display until the 14th of March at the Sala Compañia

rhthyms to the wonderment of a small child who was in his father’s arms….here in Jerez, the rhythms of flamenco are introduced at a very early age!

And of course, it would have been rude not to accept a glass of Solera 1847, a cream sherry from the Gonzalez Byass bodega.

In all, a very pleasant evening, and a fine runner up to the festivities that will begin on Friday, February 26, with the performance by the Ballet Flamenco de Andalucia, beginning at 21:00 in Teatro Villamarta.

One of my best summers ever was taking José Manuel back to my native Colorado to play gigs.  That trip began disastrously when on our third day in Denver, someone broke into our car and stole the two Valeriano Bernal guitars we had brought for our performances (luckily, the thieves figured the cajón was worthless and left it in the trunk).  With the help of some wonderful people in the Boulder area, particularly the brilliant and versatile musician Steve Mullins (who put together an excellent 9 track recording of José Manuel and I for free), we were able to get guitars rushed to us from Valeriano’s studio in Algodonales and performed in the Denver-Boulder area over the next two months.

The rest of that summer is a story for another time, however towards the end of our stay we did see our performances cut short by the terrible tragedy of 9/11.  Overnight our aspirations to continue returning to the States to perform regularly disappeared and José Manuel and I packed it up for Jerez, leaving a country that I knew from that day had changed forever.

José Manuel is the son of Pepe Alconchel, a well known flamenco singer from Arcos de la Frontera with a flamenco peña dedicated in his name in the Pago San José in Jerez.  He began playing guitar at the age of 9 under the tutelage of Manuel Lozano “El Carbonero” and José Luis Balao. He later studied with Gerardo Nuñez and Manolo Sanlucar.

José Manuel’s career has taken him performing with top artists in the flamenco scene to China, Venezuela, Switzerland, the UK, USA, France, as well as performing all over Andalucia’s flamenco peñas, often accompanying his father who went on to win numerous prizes and awards for cante.

José Manuel is currently in Tenerife, but is getting the itch to travel again.  I’m with him there!  For worldwide bookings, contact info@houseinjerez.com