Camaron De La Isla: The Voice Of Flamenco : NPR

Camaron De La Isla: The Voice Of Flamenco : NPR

Flamenco vocalist Camaron de la Isla is on that short list. He re-energized a centuries-old tradition, leading flamenco into the 20th century and beyond.

Flamenco singing is one of life's deeper musical mysteries. We hear traces of Africa by way of the Moors; you can also hear bits of Punjabi singing; there are Persian, Arabic and even Jewish cultures in the DNA of flamenco.

Camaron de la Isla not only understood it, but he also lived it. His family was gitano — Spanish for gypsy or Roma. He was born Ramon Monge Cruz, and his nickname reflected his small size and unusual light skin: Camaron de la Isla — "small white shrimp from the island."

"The great master of micro-intervals was Camaron. He was known for afinacion, which means the ability to be perfectly on pitch but not necesarily on the notes of a Western scale. Flamenco music uses microtonal intervals all the time, and nobody cut them closer and did them more precisely technically than this young artist," Zern explains.

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/03/132450621/camaron-de-la-isla-the-voice-of-flamenco