Flamenco ...All You Wanted to Know Book

Emma Martínez is a professional classical guitarist. She is also half Spanish by birth, bilingual, and has an extensive knowledge of Flamenco such as few anglophones can achieve. Since her other virtues include the ability to write clearly and interestingly, the result is a very worthwhile book. Although one might imagine it to cover the same ground as Donn Pohren's seminal The Art of Flamenco, in fact there is very little overlap; although the underlying facts are obviously the same, the approach is quite different (Donn's being much more personal). In addition, Ms. Martínez deals far more extensively with modern Flamenco than does Pohren. So none who buy both books will feel they have needless duplication.

Consonant with the title, the chapter headings take the form of Frequently Asked Questions: "What is Flamenco?", "Who invented Flamenco?", and so forth. The depth of knowledge displayed is very considerable, but the book is never dry or pedantic; one always gets the sense of the writer as someone involved in Flamenco, rather than an academic researcher. I certainly learned quite a lot, and I've been following Flamenco for over forty years.

For back matter, there is a Glossary, a Bibliography and a list of Recommended Listening (but no index).

On the debit side, there are some rather curious (although mostly trivial) errors: for instance, the legendary singer Manuel Torre is usually (but not consistently) referred to as Manuel Torres. This is a common mistake even in Spain, for in Andalusian Spanish the two names are homophones; but his legal name was Manuel de Soto Loreto, and he was given the nickname Torre (tower) because of his height. Even stranger is the information that the Beatle who introduced the sitar to the West was John Lennon (!).

And although the cover features a first-rate photograph of Paco de Lucía, it is the only photograph in the book, which contributes to a rather drab layout.

By and large, though, this is an excellent introduction to Flamenco for anyone interested, and a fine contribution to the literature in general.