 Gerardo Núñez “Made in Jerez”
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Text: Estela Zatania GERARDO RETURNS TO JEREZ VICENTE GELO The last recital of acoustic cante in the Festival de Jerez 2012, took place Tuesday evening at the Palacio Villavicencio. The small salon was two-thirds full for the young man from Seville, Vicente Gelo, accompanied on guitar by Tino van der Sman. The discreet singer began with soleá de Cádiz, followed by malagueña de la Trini full of quicksilver melisma and rounded off with an assortment of abandolao cante.
Gelo has a fine flexible voice, particularly apt for these cantes, and which also gave excellent results for some old-style guajiras in the line of Pepe Marchena. In cantiñas played in A-chord position, the singer’s sure footing in the compás revealed his years of experience singing for dance, that essential subject for any flamenco singer. He also applied his embellished delivery to a variety of tangos, from “nayno” styles to Extremadura, Granada, Pastora Pavón, even the novel inclusion of garrotín, which is nothing more than a variation of tangos in major key. He closed with bulerías, not without first “apologizing” for being so bold as to sing bulerías in Jerez, an unfortunate custom of some out-of-town singers which appears to suggest that outside Jerez bulerías is not deeply-rooted in tradition with superb specialists in this branch of cante.
GERARDO NÚÑEZ “Made in Jerez” – Video For some time, the maestro Gerardo Núñez has been affected by a lesion that keeps him from playing at his habitual level. Or so they say. Plenty of guitarists wish they had that same “disability”, because last night the guitarist showed that it’s not about agile fingers or muscle development, but intelligence and artistic sensitivity. The beauty of his music is such that you wonder how pieces of wood with strands of tensed nylon can be made to produce such an exquisite inner landscape as the one drawn by this man.
In this, the only show of the Villamarta portion of the festival’s program focused on guitar, the rondeña he played to open, and which dissolved into bulerías, the unmistakable decisive attack of Gerardo Núñez was on display, although I would have preferred a bit less cajón. The singing team was David Carpio, who sounds better than ever, and Rafael de Utrera, lots of energy between the two. Gerardo also Manuel Valencia as second guitarist, and the dancing of Alfonso Losa, in addition to the regular back-up team of Pablo Martín on upright bass and Ángel Sánchez “Cepillo” on percussion. More bulerías with the whole group, with insistently aggressive harmonies, and the crowd-pleasing percussion and bass solos, just like jazz musicians. Losa’s dancing is full-speed-ahead Farruquito, pulling off the most complex steps with ease, although the overall effect is less artistic than spectacular. A lovely alegrías, vivacious and luminous, featured the singing of Rafael. More cajón and bass solos to precede Núñez alone on guitar which served as prologue for the singers to take turns with martinete. And of course the good ol’ wooden table with everyone sitting round rapping out compás with knuckles for bulería por soleá, which led to Losa’s dancing soleá in which he executed some turns to great effect, while the overly acrobatic choreography again seemed aimed more at impressing people than touching them. The varied show ended with a classic bulerías finale with some dancing, horsing around and role-changing much to the delight of the audience of followers.
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