In early 2014, Paco de Lucía succumbed to a heart attack while on a family vacation in Mexico. The story goes that the Spanish master guitarist and architect of the nuevo flamenco on the beach was playing around with his grandchildren until he became unwell. The posthumously released Canción Andaluza (his first studio album in ten years) shows how vital and inspired he still was and how much he
… is already missed in the music world. Canción Andaluza (Andalusian song) is a tribute to the copla or the Spanish popular song culture as it was spread by the tonadillera Marifé de Triana, who died in 2013. This resulted in an album full of sultry swinging songs and instrumentals, accompanied not only by palmas (clapping hands) but also by South American percussion. Among others Estrella Morente and Oscar d ' León are responsible for the vocals, but it is De Lucia who leads. With his sparkling and virtuoso playing and warm sound, in which jazz and classical music can also be heard, he confirms once more that without him flamenco would have sounded decidedly different in the twenty-first century. (MR)more
