In my twenties, I made a promise to myself I would visit Spain before turning 30 years old. Therefore, at the age of 29, I set out for Andalucia. I was looking for the literary experience I had read about for so many years in the books of Washington Irving, James Mitchner and Federico García Lorca. I headed for the hotbeds of flamenco all of my heroes seemed to be from: Sevilla, Jerez and Cádiz. I searched high and low throughout the streets and bars only to end up in the cold and impersonal tourist flamenco tablao. I soon learned you can’t just blow into town and expect to have a profound flamenco experience by simply asking folks where the good stuff is. So, leaving Andalucia a bit dejected, I soon found out a lot of great flamenco artist move to the bigger cities of Madrid and Barcelona to make a living. I did manage to see some amazing things there. Since my return to the states, I have become more and more involved in the world of flamenco and ultimately opened my own flamenco school. I also direct a small flamenco cuadro in Kansas City that performs at least twice a week. There aren’t many flamenco singers or “cantaors” in my neck of the woods, therefore it’s something that I’ve always craved. I’m a big fan of the flamenco singing tradition, and it had always been a “before I die” dream of mine to simply sit next to a real flamenco singer, in Andalucia, and accompany a soleá. This past July, I obtained this dream within just a few hours of arriving in the wonderful flamenco town La Puebla de Cazalla.

“La Puebla”, as the locals call it, is a flamenco aficionado's dream. I had no idea flamenco could be a lifestyle of an entire populace. I only met a handful of people that were somewhat indifferent to this art form. Most people seemed to breathe it and need it like oxygen in the air. La Puebla is definitely a singing town. Whether it is little children playing, old men sitting around in the plazas or even people working in the olive groves, they all sing in a most natural way. A mother calling her children sounds very flamenco to me. The sheer volume of the speaking voice makes it perfectly logical that this is one of the birth-places of flamenco singing.

La Puebla was formally the northern-most frontier of the Moorish territory of Spain, and the ruins of a Moorish castle can still be seen atop a hill. When the reconquest came about, these inhabitants either left or converted to Christianity and stayed. These people are the “Moroscas”, which I gathered was a slightly derogatory term used by the neighboring Christian towns of Marchena and Morón de la Frontera. The principle component of flamenco in La Puebla is that of the Andaluz. I met no large gypsy flamenco dynasties here, just the descendants of a Moorish population that excelled in the singing of tonas, siguirilla, and soleá. The last two winners of the Festival International del Cante de las Minas ,Raúl Montesinos and Manuel González (Rubito hijo), are from La Puebla de Cazalla. Other flamenco giants from this town include Dolores Jiménez Alcántara (La Niña de la Puebla), José Menese, Miguel Vargas and Diego Clavel. Need I say more? I visited this town in July after Antonio Andrade, a guitarist from La Puebla, invited two of my friends and I to attend the first annual flamenco Concorso in La Puebla for flamenco dance and guitar. My friends already knew Andrade quite well from his extensive work in the states. These two self-professed flamenco addicts -Jerry Lubensky and Frank Hoffman, were my good friends and students at my flamenco school. Frank brought along his wonderful wife, Sandy, and Jerry brought his beautiful, now fiancé, Belin Campo.

From the very beginning, we were spoiled beyond our wildest expectations. We were received at the airport in Málaga by a Mercedes sent by the ayuntamiento (city municipality). The courses were given each day inside an extraordinarily beautiful olive hacienda just outside town. This is also where the mythic Cante Jondo festival takes place which is now in its 38th year. Antonio Andrade was an incomparable host. He spent much of his time introducing us to all of the important people and sites La Puebla had to offer. Thanks to Antonio, within a week I made many friends and had my own little social routine. That gave me a fair amount of independence to study flamenco how I always wanted to - from the people. The day we arrived in La Puebla, Antonio immediately took us to the flamenco nerve center of the town -Bar Central. It is owned and operated by the king of flamenco aficionados -Fernando, who is also a very good singer. This place operates as an authentic museum of the genre in which conversations about flamenco singing are daily events. They also serve the best carne frita in the world. After this I was taken to the Thursday night “Reunión” of flamenco aficionados in a small community center where guitarists and singers meet and practice their craft. There was no commercialism, alcohol or even talking for that matter. This was obviously a very serious pastime for all involved. Here skill and virtuoso abilities were secondary to feeling and intention. After about two hours of this, I simply had to get my guitar. I played with them that night and every Thursday night thereafter. The first guitarist I met that night, José Frances, was a construction worker and the town accompanist for cante. We kept each other up for quite a while that night, trading buleria falsetas at another popular flamenco bar, “ Zeppelin” (after Led Zeppelin). We were later joined by Andrade, as we drank and ate tapas in the night air in front of the bar until 5:30 am. This is more or less how every night in La Puebla played itself out. Soon after, we would awake with strong coffee at 9 am for our guitar lessons. Finally, a town with my kind of lifestyle! We made up for the lack of sleep with the time-honored siesta during the hottest hours of the day.

Although there are many flamenco concoursos in Spain that have been going on for much longer, I recommend that anyone considering such an undertaking consider the concourso available in La Puebla de Cazalla. I have no doubt I received a most personal experience and was given very challenging material and a tremendous amount of personal time with Andrade. Due to the fact this was the first concourso of its kind in La Puebla, there were only about eight guitarists and five dancers. However, the quality of instruction was very high. I’ve heard horror stories from people that attended larger concoursos. Stories of people being herded with forty other students into a very impersonal situation with a very famous teacher, only to receive very little in the way of learning. The people from the ayuntamiento that organized the concourso were unbelievably accommodating and kind. I've never experienced such treatment anywhere else. I felt more like an important foreign diplomat than a guy coming over for some guitar lessons. They threw a few great parties for us, as well. The real beauty of the concourso was that, if wanted, I could always supplement my course work by simply stepping out into the streets of the town. I was always playing with other local guitarists and singers. I also made some really great friends that I know I’ll have for the rest of my life. Antonio and the helpful souls from the ayuntamiento made sure I had the opportunities to move about this great cultural environment as if it were my own. I’m definitely going back next year.

The Concourso is held at the same time as the Cante Jondo festival (admission included in the price of the course). The festival was founded in 1967 by the artist Moreno Galván and José Menese. This is by far the most artistic and aesthetically pleasing environment for flamenco I’ve ever been to or imagined. Every effort was made to give an air of flamenco art to this event. They even had a man whose soul job was to cut up rosemary and thyme, then spread it over the brick in the courtyard, the day before the festival, to give it the right “flamenco” aroma. Rosemary was also bundled around the stage to aromatically cradle the performers. Read a review here. We also took many day trips in a rented car to corresponding festivals in Córdoba, Lebrija and Sanlúcar (I highly recommend driving in Andalucia). However, we would always return slightly homesick to our beloved Puebla de Cazalla. Our ongoing mantra was “This alone was worth the trip here!” or “Surely it can’t get better than this!” Fortunately for us, it always did.