I don't if it is out on the internet - but Lorca's lecture in Cuba on his interpretation of "duende" is in the appendix of Ben Bellit's Grove Press edition of "Poet in New York."
In my early twenties starting out, that essay and Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" went right to the heart. As did William Carlos William's "The Desert Music." More so.
I think I will go put on some Eric Dolpy.
Stephen V
http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
--- On Tue, 4/7/09, Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Duende, etc.
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Tuesday, April 7, 2009, 1:52 PM
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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