Remembering Pedro Bacán

I met Jill Snow in Minneapolis this April after I came back from Sevilla Spain.  Jill has her family members living in Minneapolis and was visiting them.  She is from Colorado but moved to Europe.  She was married to one of my favorite flamenco guitarists from Lebrija, Pedro Bacán, who died in an unfortunate car accident at the age of 46 in 1997.  

Pedro Bacán, guitarist from Lebrija

Jill and I became friends through the flamenco community in Sevilla when I was living there.  We had mutual friends and I started to see her in flamenco fiestas.  Jill first arrived in Morón de la Frontera in the 60’s when the Father of Morón-style guitar Diego del Gastor was still alive.  Jill was indeed with Diego in a bar just before he died one morning in 1973.  She told me that when Diego was alive, Morón was full of good fiestas almost every day and night, either with him or his nephews.  It was a golden age of fiestas in major flamenco towns such as Sevilla, Utrera, Lebrija, Morón and Jerez.  In such an environment many of the great singers and guitarists were born.   She is one of many foreigners from the U.S. or Japan who witnessed the most raw form of flamenco by living in these places.  She met Pedro in 1973 in an all-night fiesta after the renowned flamenco festival Reunión de Cante Jondo in Puebla de Cazalla.  They got married in 1979.  Jill resides in Sevilla and enjoys spending time with her baby granddaughter.  I am always surprised to find how small the world of flamenco is knowing each other in every place of the world.  This time again it is quite an interesting coincidence that we both have connections to Sevilla and Minneapolis though we are from other places.  

We talked about her husband Pedro Bacán’s guitar and his background.  He started to play guitar when he was 15 years old.  It is not an early age to start to become a professional flamenco guitarist.  He is from the prestigious flamenco gypsy families, los Pinini y los Peñas, from Lebrija and Utrera and his cousins were El Lebrijano, Pedro Peña, La Fernanda y Bernarda, Miguel Funi, el Turronero, and Pepa de Benito; his father was a knowledgeable non-professional singer.  He was inspired to play guitar listening to his cousin Pedro Peña who was the first professional guitarist from Lebrija.  Since youth Pedro Bacán had extensive accompanying experience with the greatest singers in his family mentioned above.



Los Pinini family’s fiesta

Later in his career he started to develop his own musical style.  He composed numerous falsetas and guitar solos.  Jill said that she does not hear many younger-generation guitarists playing Pedro’s style which was very intricate and difficult, plus it was his own music.  Apart from many other recordings, Pedro gathered numerous singers together in a country house for a 4-album recording  called “Noches Gitanas en Lebrija”.  He wanted to document some of the unknown singers and cante (singing) from Lebrija, and Pepa de Benito from Utrera, and  included styles of gitanos del campo (country gypsies) of Lebrija which carry the very distinctive slow compás (rhythm) in Bulerías.  She also noted that apart from gitanos de campos, in Lebrija, there are also artesanos, which Pedro’s families are called, and they carry different compás and cante styles from those of gitanos de campos.  


Music from the album “Noches Ginatas en Lebrija”

One interesting thing about flamenco is that there are different styles, developed in each town and even in different family “dynasties” and are expressed in their family and community gatherings, not only the style of cante but also their distinct feelings of compás.  I did not notice it until I lived in Seville and started listening a lot and noticing how different they are depending on where they are from.  Flamenco is a way of life expressed in music, Jill says.  She described the compás por Bulerías of Lebrija as “funky”.  It is definitely slower and the beat is more accentuated than those of Jerez or Morón.  It is almost relaxing with the slower swing.  Pedro Bacán’s guitar had two characteristics: his musical originality and being a guitarist from Lebrija embedded in this unique and personal style of compás.  Flamenco is so rich in its diversity.  The more I know, the more humble I become and eager to learn those new discoveries to enjoy and love the music in a deeper way.  Thanks to Jill for introducing me to some new perspectives with her expertise as a noble aficionada for decades and generously sharing her stories as the wife of the great guitarist.