Carlos Montoya
Encyclopedia
Flamenco
Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
guitarist and a founder of the modern-day popular Flamenco style of music.Allmusic biography
His unique style and successful career, despite all odds, have left a great legacy for modern day Flamenco. It is because of his pioneering work in popular Flamenco music that have allowed other great modern groups such as the Gipsy Kings
Gipsy Kings
The Gipsy Kings are a group of musicians from Arles and Montpellier, who perform in Spanish with an Andalucían accent. Although group members were born in France, their parents were mostly gitanos, Spanish Romani people who fled Catalonia during the 1930s Spanish Civil War. Chico Bouchikhi is of...
to take hold in all parts of the world. A few of his video recordings can still be found on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
.
Biography
Carlos Montoya was born in MadridMadrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, into a Romani family, on December 13, 1903. As the nephew of renowned flamenco guitarist Ramón Montoya
Ramón Montoya
Ramón Montoya , Flamenco guitarist and composer.Born into a family of Gitano cattle traders, Ramón Montoya used earnings from working in the trade to buy his first guitar...
he seemed to have been born to play Flamenco
Flamenco
Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
, but it was his uncle who would be his biggest obstacle, as he refused to teach Carlos the tricks of the trade. He began studying the guitar with his mother and a neighboring barber, Pepe el Barbero, a.k.a. Pepe the Barber. By the time he was 14 years old he was accompanying dancers and singers in the cafes of Madrid, Spain.
In the 1920s and 1930s he performed extensively in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
with the likes of La Teresina. The outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
brought him to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
where he began his most successful days as a musician, and frequently toured with the dancer La Argentina
La Argentina
Antonia Mercé y Luque , stage name La Argentina, was a dancer known for her creation of the neoclassical style of Spanish dance as a theatrical art...
. Settling in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
(circa 1941), he began touring on his own, bringing his fiery style to concert halls, universities, and orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
s. During this period he made a few recordings for several major and independent labels including RCA Victor, Everest
Everest Records
Everest Records was a stereophonic record label based in Bayside, Long Island started by Harry D. Belock and Bert Whyte in May 1958. It was devoted mainly to classical music.-History:...
and Folkways
Folkways
Folkways can refer to:*Folkways —theory by the sociologist William Graham Sumner.*Folkways Records—a record label founded by Moe Asch....
.
Montoya toured year round but always returned to his homeland, Spain, to spend the Christmas holidays with his family.
His style was not particularly appreciated by serious flamenco students, who considered it less brilliant than many others, including that of Montoya's uncle Ramón. Carlos's own favorite flamenco guitarist, it was reported by Zern, was the obscure Currito de la Geroma. That he was unpopular among aficionados owes largely to the fact that Montoya learned in a non-traditional way and that he abandoned the compás which has evolved within flamenco over hundreds of years. Many of his works do not even keep perfect tempo, increasing and decreasing in speed almost whimsically. He was admired for the speed of his picados and undoubtedly found popularity on the international stage as a result of this technically impressive pace. However, Montoya's playing is often criticized by flamenco traditionalists for having more flash than musical substance. He was known to play with a capo
Capo
A capo is a device used on the neck of a stringed instrument to shorten the playable length of the strings, hence raising the pitch. It is frequently used on guitars, mandolins, and banjos. G.B...
on the 3rd fret and on really loose strings. It is suspected he tuned down and then compensated with the capo
Capo
A capo is a device used on the neck of a stringed instrument to shorten the playable length of the strings, hence raising the pitch. It is frequently used on guitars, mandolins, and banjos. G.B...
to increase his ability to apply picado.
Montoya died on March 3, 1993 at the age of 89 of heart failure in the tiny Long Island, New York town of Wainscott, New York
Wainscott, New York
Wainscott is a census-designated place that roughly corresponds to the hamlet with the same name in the town of East Hampton in Suffolk County, New York on the South Fork of Long Island. As of the United States 2000 Census, the CDP population was 628...
.
Discography
| Year | Album Title | |
|---|---|---|
| 1950 | Spanish Guitar Solos |
|
| 1957 | Flamenco Guitar |
|
| 1960 | In Living Stereo |
|
| 1961 | Malaguena |
|
| 1963 | Flamenco Antiguo |
|
| 1967 | The Artistry Of | |
| 1996 | Flamenco! |
|
| 2004 | Guitar & Flamenco |
External links
- Some photos of LP covers (Oviatt Library Digital Collections)