Ketama
Stress Free
by David Oancia Prieto

Fortuny 45, a hyper-plush club in a reconverted palace just off the Castellana, Madrid's Broadway, is the setting for Ketama's round of press interviews for Toma Ketama!. Both Juan and Antonio Carmona stride into the luxurious surroundings talking on their cell phones. Relaxed after a light lunchtime workout, the duo seems oblivious to the expectation surrounding their new album. Since De Aki a Ketama, which sold a whopping 600,000 copies in Spain alone, and Konfusion's more than respectable double platinum status, the Madrid-based combo saw Navajita Plateá, another bunch of flamenco-fusion upstarts from Cadiz, achieve widespread success with a much rootsier sound on Desde Mi Azotea. Any worry on anybody's part was unfounded as the trio's first disc in three years debuted at number one in the Spanish Top 40 and went platinum in less than a month.

"We've never felt any pressure," said Juan Carmona, one of the guitarists, casually. "We've always done what we wanted, what we've liked. We've never tried to be commercial like some other groups. We have never thought in terms of sales, only in terms of doing what we think is good music."

"This reminds me of our beginnings," piped in vocalist Antonio. "In 1982 we took our first demo, the same kind of stuff we're doing now, to a record company, and they said it would never sell. They told us that if we were to sing coplas (traditional Spanish pop music) that we'd easily get to number one. We told them to sing it themselves, that we were fighting for our music, and we weren't going to sing something that isn't us."

This confidence is part of the easygoing grace of being born with flamenco's golden spoon lodged firmly in their mouths. Both Carmonas belong to the third generation of Los Habichuelas de Granada, a family renowned for furnishing some of the style's best guitarists: from their world-renowned father, Juan Habichuela, to their equally famous uncle, Pepe Habichuela. But what Ketama did with what their family taught them has been a double-edged sword. On the plus side, they have created something that cuts across all the boundaries existing in Spanish society and has traveled the world over (they even have tapas bars in Houston and Osaka named after them). But, on the down side, the flamenco purists have been disparaging of them for leading the music down the supposed path of ruin.

"At the beginning of our career, the flamenco-holics were really critical of us," added Antonio. "Because there weren't any groups who used to fuse flamenco, they would say that we couldn't make this music because we came from such an important family. They would come along to our shows, take notes about, and deeply criticize what kinds of cante (singing styles) I was doing. But these people have only read about the music in books. Flamenco isn't about books, you don't read about flamenco, you live it in here," he said, slapping his chest.

The group has experienced more than its share of hard knocks during their 17-year, 12-album career. After riding the wave of the euphoric transition to democracy during the 80s, when they arguably recorded some of their best albums, Jose Soto "Sorderita" left to pursue a solo career. Additionally, their cousin, Ray Heredia, a founding member of the group, died of a heroin overdose days before the release of his first solo disc, Quien No Corre, Vuela. "I couldn't believe it when Ray died," said Juan, with a shocked look on his face. "But think about 1985's nuevo flamenco generation – Ray, Pata Negra, Joselito, and us – the only ones who have survived are us and ex-Pata Negra guitarist Raimundo Amador."

If there are ghosts running through Toma Ketama!, they are of Heredia and another much lauded, sorely missed drug casualty, this time from Sevilla: Antonio Flores. The aforementioned Gypsy princes, who pioneered the whole idea of flamenco fusion, are major musical figures in Spain, and Ketama's raison d'être lies deep within their musical ideas. The disc, even though it lacks the open tributes found in other young flamenco musicians' records, is replete with their essence. "I have three musical gurus in my life," said Antonio. "Ray Heredia, Antonio Flores, and Camarón de la Isla. I grew up with Ray, and Antonio was a close friend of mine. They were real go-getters, very outspoken, and I was a little more conservative. But everything I know about music comes from them."

Quite probably as a result, Toma Ketama! is a disc of flamenco-inspired pop – with a capital "P." They have the same relation to the Andalusian style that Steely Dan had with jazz; they draw from an art music source, sand off the edges, and fix the elements within a decidedly catchy framework. Produced by Cachorro Lopez, an Argentinean producer of some repute, the disc is also highlighted by the stellar cast of guest appearances. Gypsy hotshots, like guitarist Pepe Habichuela and original member Jose Soto, help highlight their roots and inject a certain note of respectability.

Further down the line, the grandi ose presence of one of Brazil's leading lights, Caetano Veloso, also makes himself felt on the wonderful "Kanela y Menta." "He's such a good vocalist, he scares you," said Antonio enthusiastically. "It was like Paco de Lucía said once: 'You have to see Caetano just with a guitar, he's as good as any one of us.' " Veloso's contribution underlines their love of Lusophone music, something they have fooled around with on previous occasions (they have covered Djavan's "Fleur-de-Lys," worked with Rio's Banda Eva, and on last year's great compilation, Onda Sonora: Red Hot & Lisbon, they hooked up with a samba percussion outfit and Djavan again on a "Dukeles" re-write). Yet, on this album, they fully investigate the idea of fusing Brazil's harmonic code with flamenco, shading the new sound with slight Arabic tones and instrumentation, and welding it to prominent salsa-fied grooves.

The resulting concoction, which has been radio fodder in Spain and Latin America for the last few months, should not be called pure flamenco. Yet, though one can miss the style's emotional fireworks, Ketama are an accurate example of today's nuevo flamenco; they replace attack with taste, a distinctly southern European notion of internationalism, and wrap it all up with a pleasant, stress-free ambiance. "We needed to go back to our roots to renew ourselves," said Juan. "We always have to, otherwise we would die. However, in order to do something new, we have to look at today's music. The catch-22 is that, if we want to do something truly globally original, we have to fuse it with flamenco. That is how we have always and will always continue to work."