Flamenco, pulled toward jazz
Paco de Lucía
Paco de Lucía had already spent years pulling flamenco guitar toward jazz harmony when, in 1974, he topped Spain's charts for twenty-two weeks and went gold, crossing out of flamenco-specialist circles into the mainstream almost overnight. He founded his sextet in 1981, toured the world in an acoustic guitar trio with Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin, and recorded 1990's Zyryab with Chick Corea, working jazz piano into flamenco while keeping the tradition intact underneath. He died in Mexico in 2014, at sixty-six. He is still widely considered the instrument's most important modern voice.
Bombay Café