Flamenco Vision 
Juan Martín : Musica Alhambra (SP,1996)***°
Juan Martín is an experienced flamenco guitarist performer. For this project he assembled an Arab Andalusian music group with Juan Martín, flamenco guitar, Abdul Salam Kheir, oud and vocals, Chris Karan, tabla, Rony Barrak, darbuka, and Stephen Dummer, clarinet and soprano sax.
The Moroccan moors invaded Spain in 711 and ruled Spain for nearly 8 centuries until 1492. Of course lots of influence in music from the Arab world was developed in Spain and had even more free expressions further north, in free minded places in France and even a bit in Flanders and Germany and beyond. The oud was one of the main instruments widely spread in the same direction. I do not agree with the mention of the Hindu influence in flamenco dance as being directly brought from gypsies as if there’s a preserved over the years connection from the Indian Kathak dancing into the movements of flamenco, because early flamenco had no dancing and was even without guitar or oud until the moor influence and later influences started to interact with the so called flamenco origins. What is called early flamenco had more an essence of a specific kind of rhythm feeling with singing, which is in essence even very comparable with for instance Korean Soponye. These kinds of essence combined further with all kinds of different other influences and style ideas over the years. Also the improvisations and combinations of oud and singing of both east and west had its own evolutions and accidental combinations (it was also not particularely a Muslim meets Christian evolution, like the booklet says with the illustration, because Christianity itself didn't have much of the freedom of expression which these musical highlighting years had ; and a part of the more Roman-Christian-free society was a much more liberated part of society for some years than we used to remember in history books, from before total religion domination. Another influence which is mentioned is that from the Sephardic or Moroccan Jews, because this was one of the few influences which we know well because it has been preserved in some kind of sense over all these years, even when Inquisition days really shot down all further developments and caused also the domination of a more Orthodox version of regulations in thinking towards a more closed-up and preserved vision to society for the Jewish community, as well as a more once-centred back-to-Roman based cultural foundation in the rest of Western society, with a few folk preservations of German and Celtic influences over the years only....
The first highlight of the CD is a tango rhythm based flamenco fusion composition by Juan Martín himself, called “The Passion of the lament”. The rhythm is done on tabla, but the guitar has, like flamenco often does, a very strong driven lead too. The singing is partly Moorish, partly Arab-Andalusian styled. Stephen Dummer plays the soprano sax. The second track, "Lamma Bada Ytethana" is a known Andalusian 14th century somewhat melancholic traditional, sung with Arab voice, accompanied by oud and acoustic guitar. Very light and pleasant is the rumba rhythm based flamenco instrumental "La Feria" by Juan Martin on flute, soprano sax/clarinet, tabla and acoustic guitars. This is followed by "5 Sephardic songs". From these "La Rosa Enflorence" followed by "Ven Querida ven Amada" played on flamenco guitar and clarinet have a recognisable Sephardic hopeless sad mood. The interpretation on flamenco guitar of "Adio Querida" and "Ya Viene el Cativo"and perhaps "Yo me Enamoré de un aire" still give these traditionals a very personal and renewed touch. "Zourouni" is a slightly melancholic Arab traditional with Arab vocals with flamenco accompanied by guitar, clarinets and tabla. A light and pleasant interpretation is from the Arab traditional “El Bint al Shalabiya” on tabla and flamenco guitar. Another real favourite of mine is "The Evocation (from Damascus to Cordova)", with rhythms in between Arab, Indian and Andalusian on the Arab darbuka and the Indian tabla, and with a flamenco guitar with oud duet. This is followed by a fine Arab-flamenco improvisation dialogue with repetition between the oud player and guitarist, called "Taranta-Hijas". In a way this reminds me of comparable dialogues between voice and tabla in Indian music, but here it is with melodies, played on both instruments with its own specific flavour. Great closer is "La Frontera" (= "the frontier of Al Andalus"), another Juan Martin composition in a fine crossover Arabo-flamenco style, with most earlier instruments bringing together and each seperate its own flavour into a perfect mix (especially the darbuka with the tabla, and the guitar with the clarinet).
