Fasinating Hal! I didn't know Tynan used Duende in this sense, which
is actually Lorca's. I certainly have on occasion. Maybe it's
inevitable in discussing a certain quality of performance.
xA
From Alison's iPhone
On 08/04/2009, at 5:13 AM, Halvard Johnson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> "Bullfighting and jazz are two minor arts with much in common. At the
> beginning
> of the century they were national and special; and both depended on
> collective
> improvisation. In New Orleans, the trumpet, trombone, and clarinet
> improvised
> on a given melody; in Spain, the picador, banderillero, and matador
> improvised
> on the theme of a given fighting bull. Suddenly, in the 1920s, there
> arose
> in both
> countries a revolutionary performer who not only changed the course
> of the
> art
> he was practising but made it for the first time internationally
> renowned.
> In Spain,
> Juan Belmonte, and in America, Louis Armstrong. Outside their
> countries of
> origin, both were predictably reviled as harbingers of fiendish moral
> depravity.
>
> "In the 1930s commercialism takes over. We hear on one side that
> bullfighting
> has been ruined by the mechanical, crowd-pleasing efficiency of
> Domingo
> Ortega; and on the other that jazz has been killed by the popular
> triumphs
> of
> Benny Goodman. The first hints of resurrection appear in 1939; at
> Minton's,
> in Harlem, a nucleus of venturesome musicians inaugurates the modern
> movement
> in jazz; and in Spain, a lean young rebel named Manolete takes the
> *alternativa
> *and
> becomes a full matador. There follows, in both countries, a ferocious
> struggle
> between the supporters of modernism and the adherents to tradition.
> The
> arrival
> of the LP permits a favoured soloist to improvise for fifteen minutes
> without
> interruption; at the same time, bullfighters develop the habit of
> prolonging
> the
> *faena*--the series of passes that precedes the kill--until it
> becomes the
> focal point
> of the spectacle. Traditionalists love teamwork; modernists love
> soloists;
> and
> the battle in both countries remains unresolved for more than a
> decade. An
> armistice is ultimately achieved. In jazz as in bullfighting, there
> arises a
> modern
> classicist, one who combines the best of both worlds. In Spain, his
> name is
> Antonio Ordóñez, the *Número Uno* of living matadors. In America
> it is Miles
> Davis.
>
> "The Spanish have a word, *duende*. It has no exact English
> equivalent, but
> it denotes the quality without which no flamenco singer or
> bullfighter can
> conquer the summit of his art. The ability to transmit a profoundly
> felt
> emotion
> to an audience of strangers with the minimum of fuss and the maximum
> of
> restraint: that is as near as our language can get to the full
> meaning of
> *duende*. Laurence Olivier has it; Maurice Evans does not. Billie
> Holiday
> had
> it, and so did Bessie Smith; but Ella Fitzgerald never reached it.
> It is the
> quality that differentiates Laurette Taylor from Lynn Fontanne, Ernest
> Hemingway from John O'Hara, Tennessee Williams from William Inge.
> Whatever else he may lack, Miles Davis has *duende."*
>
> --Kenneth Tynan, c. 1963
>
>
>
> Hal
>
> "Never underestimate the power of stupid
> people in large groups."
> --George Carlin
>
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> [log in to unmask]
> http://sites.google.com/site/halvardjohnson/Home
> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
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