Paco de Lucia Nueva Integral 27of27

The Paco de Lucía Sextet is a flamenco music sextet, formed by renowned guitarist Paco de Lucía and other musicians. The band has released three albums. In 1990 Paco de Lucia released Zyryab, an album made with his sextet and also featuring jazz pianist Chick Corea.

Two years after they recorded Friday Night in San Francisco, John McLaughlin, Al di Meola and Paco de Lucía reunited for another set of acoustic guitar trios, Passion, Grace and Fire, If this can be considered a guitar "battle" (some of the playing is ferocious and these speed demons do not let up too often), then the result is a three-way tie. This guitar summit lives up to its title.

Fabulous guitar in name and fabulous guitar in sound; along with a carefully selected repertoire, which shows off a refined panorama of the Flamenco toque offering an intelligent variety of genres for this his first full length album as a solo artist. The titles of the tracks selected show his great connection to the land, offering us a selection of the fundamental styles of the Flamenco geography: ‘Triana’, ‘Cádiz’, ‘Punta Umbría’, ‘Jerez’, ‘La Unión’, ‘La Caleta’ and ‘El Tajo’. Recorded when Paco was just 19, in addition to the use of the Flamenco techniques of the time (reverb, echo, etc.), here there is a superb sense of the compass of Flamenco, a fabulous right hand technique (thumb, alzapua, strumming), dizzying picados and perfect legato of the left hand.

Recorded in 1973, this album signified a leap in the popularity of Paco de Lucía. With this recording, a new cycle of his career began. The Algeciran found himself at a level of technical and stylistic perfection never previously reached by any Flamenco artist. As much in creative as interpretative terms the level of maturity of the young guitarist brought to fruition an astonishing array of means of expression. Paco de Lucía achieved international as well as national recognition with the release of this album, owing greatly to the popularity of the rumba ‘Entre Dos Aguas’, which was only added at the last minute because only seven tracks had been recorded for the album up to that point.

Since Almoraima (1976) Paco had not recorded an album which we could call authentically Flamenco. Not like his early recordings, which centred on classic guitar toques as played in concert. On Siroco, he abandons for the moment the sound of The Sextet to mark out in eight pieces the new vanguard of Flamenco creation. A record for lovers of good music, a mature and worthy work.

Loose and spontaneous, this (mainly) live album is a meeting of three of the greatest guitarists in the world for an acoustic summit the likes of which the guitar-playing community rarely sees. Broken up into three duo and two trio performances, Friday Night in San Francisco catches all three players at the peaks of their quite formidable powers.

When Paco de Lucía made the groundbreaking Almoraima, he was just 28 years old. Already established as a prodigious talent, he used to opportunity to expand the possibilities of the flamenco music he loved so much. It wasn't so much the addition of bass and congas (he'd employed them before) as his entire rethinking of what constituted flamenco. The title cut, which opened the album, emphasized the Moorish influence, not only in the presence of the lute-like oud, but in its melody, which borrows from Arab maqams, or modes. "Rio Ancho" transports the rhumba rhythm to Brazil, melding it to a feel taken from bossa nova, which makes it all the more sinuous and sensual.

A showcase of Paco De Lucia’s mesmerising Montreux Jazz Festival live performances between 1984 to 2012. The audio has Expertly restored and remastered in superlative HD audio; The Montreux Years is released on superior audiophile heavy weight vinyl, MQA quality CD and in HD digital. The Montreux Years is released as part of a brand new Montreux Jazz Festival and BMG collection series “The Montreux Years”. The collections will uncover legendary performances by the world’s most iconic artists alongside rare and never-before-released recordings from the festival’s rich 57-year history, remastered in superlative audio.

The beloved, historic & previously unreleased recording by the famous Guitar Trio: Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin & Paco De Lucia – ‘Saturday Night in San Francisco’ will be released on July 1st, 2022.