John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia recorded live in Spain is a spectacle. Paco de Lucia's playing has me thinking of duende. There's a moment on this clip during his first solo when the audience reacts and an electrical current runs through the room for a moment.

What interests me about the idea of duende is its nearly unidentifiable nature. From most definitions comes the idea that one can have duende without technical skill. Federico Garcia Lorca embodied duende because of his mystique and became the most oft quoted personage on the topic. "Thus duende is a power and not a behavior, it is a struggle and not a concept." Even so it's hard to resist thinking of it as a concept for the sake of discussion. The psychological state or mood produced by many of Lorca's poems embody duende in their searching, mysterious quality. It's the record of a life lived in the balance that's interesting, or a note played bent.




Black pony, big moon,
olives in my saddlebag.
Though I know these roads,
I’ll never reach Córdoba.

Through the plains, through wind,
black pony, red moon,
death watching me
from the high towers of Córdoba.

Ay! What a long road.
Ay! What a brave pony.
Ay! Death, you will take me,
on the road to Córdoba.

Córdoba,
distant and alone.