Chivalrous ballads of the gypsy singing of Baja Andalucía

This recording, with the singers Juan de los Reyes Pastor and José Luis Suárez ‘Panete’ and the guitarist Jesús Núñez, is based on the coordinated and documented work of Luis Suárez and was recorded and produced by Eduardo Paniagua. It presents and analyses an exceptional repertoire of romances from Andalusian gypsy families from Cadiz and Seville.

Poetics and tradition of the gypsy ballads of Lower Andalusia. Luis Suárez Ávila. Culturas Populares 2006 (excerpts)

Since researchers like myself have been interested in compiling romances from the oral gypsy tradition of Lower Andalusia, styles of flamenco singing such as corridos, corridas and carrerillas have come to be known as romances, even by the cantaores themselves. And it is true: they are romances, many of them with a long and ancient tradition.

The nature of the anthology of romances in the Gypsy Ballads makes its compilation and processing especially difficult. On the one hand, the repertoire is extremely rich, rare and unusual, and in some cases, cryptic, which makes its identification and compilation enormously difficult. On the other hand, in addition to knowing the complete versions, a deep knowledge of the oral ballad tradition was essential to be able to detect fragments that, impregnated with tradition, had been integrated into a series of bulerías por soleá or between the lyrics of the tonás, and had evolved into something completely different.

ROSAS Y BRASAS. Guillermo Castro Buendía

Gypsies can sing the same ballad lyrics to different tunes, which means that the tunes have had a life of their own apart from the ballad. Juan de Reyes used to say: ‘It is sung one way or another, depending on how you feel’. The most commonly sung tonadas are those known as ‘Tonada del Puerto’, to use the term coined by Luis Suárez, a variant of a type of martinete very common among flamenco singers.