Forgotten Sounds of Flamenco

In the world of flamenco research, sometimes we resort to what we call "cajones de sastre," which are sentences that serve to conclude the research on a specific topic instead of investigating it further. In this episode, we review some of the most commonly used "catch-all drawers" and listen to some very unknown 19th-century flamenco music.

As a result of the arrival of the guajira to Spain from Cuban lands, and due to the rapid popularity it had throughout the country, new models of guajiras began to emerge, and some of them were very popular, among them the so-called "Guajiras vida mía," which were all the rage at the beginning of the last century. In this episode, we discuss what these guajiras were like and if they had any precedent in Cuba. You can listen to some musical samples of this type of guajiras.

The "Alegrías de Cádiz" is nowadays one of the most famous flamenco songs, dances, and guitar playing in flamenco recitals and concerts, but did you know how long this palo has been known by that name? In this episode, we talk about the early days of alegrías, and we listen to some musical samples of old alegrías and music that may have been related to them.

One of the intriguing puzzles in flamenco history is the sudden appearance of the soleá in the mid-nineteenth century. A decade and a half ago, Lénica Reyes and José Miguel Hernández Jaramillo conducted research that unearthed enough clues to propose a hypothesis about the formation of the soleá. The results, which were unveiled at a conference in 2010, are yet to be published. In this episode, we delve into these groundbreaking findings that highlight the direct correlation between the soleá and a song that was imported from Mexican lands: The petenera.

In the world of flamencology, some theories about the beginnings of the flamenco concert guitar contrast with recent research. In this episode, we analyze what these differences consist of, and we will see if we can really consider that there was a flamenco concert guitar in the 19th century, listening to some musical samples from that period.