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I don’t fastidiously follow contemporary flamenco music, but I do appreciate the intensity of the ongoing debate about authenticity within the form. I understand and respect the drive to move any traditional form of music forward, but ever since the ascent of the great Paco de Lucia, guitar players have pushed and pulled flamenco in some aesthetically questionable directions. If I never hear another player delivering the sort of facile, noodly, and unctuous solos that Al DiMeola made famous on these shores, the quality of my life would unquestionably improve.
Trumpeter Jerry Gonzalez, once one of the hottest salsa bandleaders in New York and a pioneer of the new flamenco-jazz, also turns up here, as does a Cuban rhythm section featuring wildly flexible drummer Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez and bassist Alain Perez. They help Buika cover a lot of terrain. Even when pianist Jose Reinoso quotes a bit of Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” on “A Mi Manera” he doesn’t tip his hat in any particular direction. Rather, the music feels utterly at home at the intersection of flamenco, jazz, and son.
