Spanish Strummers

A small army of Manhattan's Latins turned out to see Carmen Amaya, famed Spanish gypsy dancer at the Roxy Theater last week. But a very critical segment of that army really went to hear one of her numerous assistants, a coppery, curly-haired Spaniard who strummed a guitar. When he twanged and thrummed at the climaxes of a malaguena or a bulenia, the little group of strum-pots practically rose up and cried "Ole!" The man they were applauding was Sabicas, most famous of present day flamenco guitar players.

Flamenco v. Classical. When a Spaniard speaks of flamenco music, he means a kind of inspired strumming and wailing, rich in Moorish overtones, which bears about the same relation to the comparatively sedate folk music of Spain that New Orleans jive does to the prim fiddling of U.S. hillbillies. Few performers are equally good at both flamenco and "classical" music.

The Heifetz of the guitar is a stooped, bespectacled, mop-haired Spaniard named Andres Segovia, who has, almost singlehanded, raised the guitar to the status of a concert instrument. A graduate of Spain's Granada Musical Institute, Segovia plays intricate Bach fugues and Handel gavottes with an agility and subtlety that has astounded critics. Segovia never deigns to play flamenco music.

The Spanish guitar also has an Andre Kostelanetz. He is Vicente Gomez, a slick-haired, 40-year-old Spaniard who combines the intricate technique of the classical guitar player with a serviceable flair for flamenco improvisation. Like most artists who play both ends against the middle, Gomez has been a great financial success. Drafted last year, he now makes $50 a month at Camp Shanks, N.Y.

He Who Likes Beans. The Benny Goodman of the Spanish guitar is unquestionably Sabicas. Like most authentic popular musicians, 27-year-old Sabicas never had any formal training, never learned to read a note of music. Blind beggars on the streets of his native Pamplona, Spain, taught him flamenco.

Son of a gypsy guitar player, Sabicas started playing a half-size guitar when he was 5. He was christened Augustin Castellon after his father. But a childhood passion for lima beans earned him the nickname Sabicas, which, in the dialect of Pamplona gypsies, means "the little one who likes beans." Famed for his unusual ability to play the guitar with one hand, Sabicas soon became the favorite accompanist of flamenco singers and dancers all over Spain. Nowadays, on evenings when he is not working, easy-going Sabicas--who looks like a Spanish Tom Dewey--is usually to be found in a 52nd Street Spanish restaurant named El Flamenco, strumming his guitar for love at the merest hint of an ole.

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