The series of Flamenco Mondays at the Teatro Flamenco Madrid closes out with a memorable evening starring Ingueta Rubio.
There are times when you go to see flamenco and feel you’re stepping through a door to destiny and an unknown dimension. As if you were the star of a science fiction movie where everything is imagined, and at times, idealized.
This was the presentation of what is going to be Ingueta Rubio’s first record, a singer we’ve been hearing in a variety of venues, and who also participates in Pedro Ojesto’s project, Flamenco Jazz Company, (remember that was the group in which Israel Fernández was formed).
The concert was fabulous, and there’s no need to run down song by song the virtues and possibilities of the singer who ended with a recently released single that may be heard more than you’d expect. That’s the reality part. Then there are the flamenco fans who tell you, song by song, what went on, and also those surprised people who went out on a Monday night to experience something important, always remembering the best moments.
One of them says: “You don’t go out on Monday out of custom or habit, nor to see what there is. You go out to make a revolution, to change things. We’ve got the rest of the week to hear the same old stuff”.
That’s where the science fiction begins, when you realize the singer’s father is on-stage keeping rhythm between Pol Vaquero and Pablo Fraile, but he doesn’t even have a microphone, and the thing is, the father is Miguel El Rubio, artistic heir of a vast family who have been appreciated by wise and knowledgeable flamenco fans. At the door, Antonio Benamargo reminds me there’s a lot of talent in the family, and that a few years back that José Luis de Carlos produced a recording with Charo, and Camarón was one of the ones who went to listen and learn from the family.
An hour after the recital was over, art materializes from the intimacy of the family. But the leader, Kilino Jiménez already left, there are no guitars or guitarists, just rhythm and cheering. That’s where the odyssey through time and space begins, here we are wrapping up 2018, and the ceremony takes us back to primitive singing, a voice and some hand-clapping, and the nephew gets started singing to provoke the maestros, and Miguel sings, and the women of the family sing, the mother and the aunt (and boy, can those women sing). The star of the night also gets going, inspired by the family’s celebration. No one brings out their cell phone, no one is recording the moment, no one is going to put it up on the social media. And we’ll continue to hear the grumbling about how flamenco isn’t what it used to be, that people don’t live like they used to and this we’ve been listening to doesn’t exist, where are we headed, etc. etc… And they’ll tell me I’m getting lost in forests full of flamenco spirits and in science fiction movies, and I’ll tell them yes, they’re right, and last night I was there and I heard all kinds of things…and I’ll go see Ingueta and El Rubio every chance I get because I now know where it all comes from.
