Leonard Cohen, Lorca, rock and flamenco

In 1996 Enrique Morente, one of flamenco's greatest singers, recorded an album that combined his love of flamenco, the songs of Leonard Cohen and the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca (specifically here "Poet in New York").  Cohen, himself, had been inspired on numerous occasions by these surreal poems of Lorca.  Morente took all of these influences, combined them with contemporary flamenco and hard rock, courtesy of Lagartija Nick a band from his hometown, Granada.  The result was the album "Omega". 

There has never been anything quite like "Omega".  A more seamless blending and reshaping of such disparate influences is hard to imagine and it is a testiment to Morente's towering aritstry that he has created the greatest flamenco fusion album of all time..

Ciudad sin sueño (City Without Sleep) takes the poetry of Lorca and sets in in an original composition by Morente and the band Lagartija Nick.  (I'm not a fan of the video (which is a fan vid and not associated with Morente), but this was the only way to post the music, which IS brilliant.)

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiGLqhatgoo Pequeño vals vienés (Little Viennese Wattz) takes Leonard Cohen's melody and goes back to the original words of Lorca.  I include first the version by Morente, and then a version of Cohen so you can get a sense of how a flamenco sensibility transforms this song.  The distinctive piercing quality of the flamenco voice is apparent here.  At first Morente sings in his "natural" range.  At the 1:06 mark he shifts register into his "flamenco" range and the emotional intensity of the song increases exponentionally.  The way male flamenco singers force their voice into the top of their range and compress it is part of the secret of flamenco's power; the sense of a coiled spring that is holding explosive power under tight reign, but that might explode at any minute, is key.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev1JteDTE6Y Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xrRZz6_7tk Finally, a relatively straight cover of Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan" with the lyrics adapted to Spanish.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOUL80lm0dw