Paseo De Gracia [Import]

Vicente Amigo | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 14, 2009)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Sony Bmg Europe
• ASIN: B002AOUJYG
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,709 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #98 in Music > Imports > Latin Music

Editorial Reviews

AMIGO VICENTE PASEO DE GRACIA

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit disappointing, September 13, 2009

By 

TD - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paseo De Gracia (Audio CD)

If you enjoy easy-listening flamenco you will love this. Technically it is also superb--Vicente Amigo's fingerwork is simply stunning. The playing is beautifully precise with incredible range from an almost whispering softness to thundering rasgueados. There are practically no other flamenco guitarrists who can manage to make a guitar sound like that. Having said that, I find many of the melodies rather kitsch and too commercial. The best tracks are the one with Estrella Morente, where the singing keeps the guitar grounded in a more profound kind of playing, and the one with Enrique too (who sings with a beautiful low voice), except for the rather jarring chorus.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, October 5, 2009

By 

Daniel Volovets (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paseo De Gracia (Audio CD)

After the excellent "Un Momento En El Sonido", which was a brilliantly tasteful combination of tradition and innovation, "Paseo de Gracia" falls flat. After I listened to the album for the first time, I proclaimed that it was Vicente's best. Then, I realized that most of the tracks were cleverly disguised rumbas... there are some other palos, such as bulerias and tangos, but all the tracks come off as extremely derivative, especially the one with Estrella Morente. Vicente is one of the best guitarists out there, period -- "Paseo de Gracia" is not one of his best efforts. I read in a couple of interviews that Vicente wasn't wild about recording a "pop flamenco" record, and I can tell... the tunes on this album are, for the most part, lifeless. I sincerely hope he will return to what made his music so great -- a mix of flamenco tradition and new melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic ideas from outside the flamenco realm.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent, July 19, 2009

By 

L. K. Coleman (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paseo De Gracia (Audio CD)

This album is absolutely stunning, a masterpiece. Not only is Vicente's complete mastery of the guitar on display here, but so also are his stellar compositional skills and his unfailing ear for arrangement - all backed up by an all-star cast of singers and percussionists who round-out this tour de force. For example, in "Autorretrato" ("self-portrait") there are some passages in the middle that are lightening fast, but of such technical brilliance that every single note is not only clear but freighted with emotional purpose - all framed by extremely flamenco voices that just soar. And as if that isn't enough, the lyrics are also as beautiful as the music - and Vicente wrote them all.

So rather than further trying to describe how incredible this album is, I will instead repeat Vicente's own response to an interviewer's string of questions seeking to get him to describe one of his previous albums: "It would be so much easier if you just bought the album and listened to it." Advice as perfect as his playing.