Cádiz also gave rise to cantinas, the principal form of which was the alegría. Tangos and tientos sprang up in the great Andalucian ports of Cádiz, Málaga and Sevilla, and were to have a wide-ranging impact on Afroamerican music. In Jerez and Utrera they evolved into bulerías, and these spread all over Low Andalucia, generating local varieties. The jaleos emerged in Triana from the festive interpretation of corridos and soleares, transported to Extremadura. From there, it was easy to reach Triana, a neighborhood in Seville with a long tradition of corridos, where the form was transformed into soleá. Their origin is believed to be in Ronda, a town in High Andalucia but close to Low Andalucia and very interrelated with it. The guitar accompaniment lent them a beat or rhythm that made them danceable. The 4 or 3 verse romances lead to the primitive tonás, the caña and polo, which share the same meter and melody, but have different renditions. Stylizing of the romance (a combination of different flamenco lyrics and styles) and string sheets gave rise to the corrido (ballad).
A driving force behind this process was Antonio Chacón, who developed refined forms of malagueñas, granaínas and cantes mineros. In the period of the café cantante, a venue where these forms were performed, some of the songs separated from the dances and took on a freer beat, allowing the singers to display their art. The Linares Taranta evolved into the minera de la Unión, cartagenera and levantica. This is where tarantos and tarantas evolved. Likewise, thousands of Andalucian farmers emigrated to mining towns in Murcia, especially those from the eastern part of the region.
This, in turn, resulted in numerous fandangos with personal touches in the XX century. Due to the spread of sevillanas in Low Andalucia, the fandango slowly lost its distinct character as dance music, which allowed cantaores to exhibit their skills more freely. The same process gave rise to fandangos de Lucena, zánganos de Puente Genil, malagueñas primitivas, rondeñas, jaberas, jabegotes, verdiales, chacarrá, granaína, taranto and taranta. Its name gave rise to a style referred to as abandolao. In High Andalucia and its adjacent regions, fandangos were accompanied by the mandolin, which followed a regular beat for dancers. The term cante refers to the “action or effect of singing any Andalucian song,” defining cante flamenco as Gypsy-like Andalucian singing” and cante jondo as “the most genuine Andalucian singing, expressing profound feelings.” The singer of cante flamenco is called cantaor (flamenco singer) as opposed to cantante (singer), the intervocalic sound being dropped, as is characteristic of the Andalusian dialect.įandango, which in the XVII century was the most popular form of singing and dancing all over Spain, generated local and regional variants, particularly in the province of Huelva.
Manuel de Falla believed cante jondo to be the older form of chanting, whereas cante flamenco was the modern version.
According to García Matos and Hipólito Rossy, not all flamenco cante is cante jondo. However, Máximo José Kahn alleges that the term jondo comes from the Hebrew term jom-tob or yom-tob, and is rooted in synagogue chanting. The Andalucian dialect characteristically aspirates the h, which derives from the root of words beginning with an initial f. Cante jondo: According to the dictionary published by the Real Academia Española (Spanish Royal Academy), the cante jondo is “the most genuine form of Andalucian song, expressing deep feelings.” The dictionary notes as equivalent terms both cante jondo and cante hondo, which supports the premise that the term jondo is a form of the word hondo (deep).