Paco de Lucia & Group

A rare appearance at the 1996 Germeringer Jazztage by legendary flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía and his sextet. Some may question the inclusion of flamenco guitar within a jazz festival. However the similarities between flamenco and blues have been well documented: both are the outlet for a poor, disenfranchised minority, with a primitive strength, boundless capabilities for improvisation and a requirement for breathtaking virtuosity -all qualities shown by Paco de Lucía in this performance. However he has additionally long been experimenting with jazz forms (evident even from his inclusion of bass, drums, and saxophone in his sextet), while still retaining the essence of the flamenco tradition. As he himself says, What I have tried to do is have a hand holding onto tradition and the other scratching, digging in other places trying to find new things I canbring into flamenco.