We go to Spain for today's Global Hit. It features music that some would say is stereotypical of Spain. But the way this flamenco is played -- and the instrument it's played on -- is far from expected. The World's Marco Werman has more.
In recent years, flamenco has been sampled, deconstructed, and re-constructed on turntables, electric guitars and with a drum and bass rhythm section.
Still, many of the musicians who have moved flamenco into the new century say things like "there is no such thing as flamenco piano."
Then along comes self-taught musician Diego Amador who plays flamenco piano. And suddenly, he changes perceptions about flamenco again.
If Diego Amador is changing perceptions about flamenco, it's mostly because his own relationship with flamenco has been constantly evolving. He was born into a respected Roma musical family in Seville.
The Spanish Roma -- or gypsies -- essentially hold the birthright to flamenco performance.
It's not as if they're the only ones who can play flamenco. But it helps your flamenco creed if you're a gypsy. By the time he was eleven, Amador revealed a precociously mature flamenco vocal style. And he was mastering piano, guitar and percussion at the same time.
His older brothers founded the influential flamenco-rock band Pata Negra. Diego followed them, taking the flamenco percussion into rock.
And then he drifted off into jazz: he still had flamenco in his back pocket, but he was listening constantly to pianists like Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett.
Keith Jarrett's dynamism is especially evident on Diego Amador's solo piano album, Piano Jondo. Amador's CD title "Piano Jondo" has a double meaning. For flamenco singers, "cante jondo" means deep singing. It refers to the full gamut of voicing in flamenco, from the softest and raspiest whisper, to an vocal explosion of emotions.
Diego Amador transposes that idea to the piano. He says he's a guitarist first. But really any instrument works with flamenco according to Amador. It depends who's playing it. As he commented once: it could be a guitar, a piano, or even a tin can.
Almost as if he's making a point to the purists, Amador's parting note on his CD Piano Jondo is from a non-flamenco repertoire. It does give a nod to another musical wunderkind, the late jazz bassist Jaco Pastorious. Diego Amador brings Continuum back home. He rethinks it as a very slow tango.
For The World, I'm Marco Werman.
