It has always struck me that the flamencoAnd especially flamenco guitarists, look down so unfavorably upon the interpretation of other artists' repertoires. The absurd prescription that all guitarists should be pure composers prevents, for example, anyone from daring to play a repertoire of Paco de Lucía o Manolo Sanlucaras if it were easy or uninteresting. Only exceptionally, when the person being honored has been dead for a long time and has entered the pantheon of what we might call classics, is this liberty permitted.
Nino Ricardo He's been in the afterlife for 54 years now, and at the pinnacle of the canon for many more, so a review of his work seems timely and even desirable. And that's precisely what the man from Triana is doing. Joselito Acedo has offered in the current edition of Nìmes FestivalHe was accompanied by his father, José, the person who first placed a guitar in his hands and the role model he still sees himself in every day. Nor should we overlook the fact that José trained with the maestro. Rojaswhich undoubtedly helped him to decipher some of the secrets of Ricardo's touch.
With the enigmatic and Moorish notes of the Gypsy Arabesque The concert kicked off in a packed auditorium Odeon Theatershowing a confident, serene Joselito Acedo enjoying the way his fingers moved along the fretboard. He then invited his father to join him on stage to enhance the experience with the fandangos. Huelva Marshes and some virtuosic bulerías. The sound wasn't the best, partly due to an unnecessarily high volume in a theater with good acoustics, and partly due to the difficulty of blending the sounds of the two guitars a bit more. But this was compensated for by the palpable chemistry between father and son, both focused but smiling frequently, spellbound—they first and foremost—by Niño Ricardo's music.
"Joselito and José, José and Joselito, made the music of a Sevillian fly high, a music that remains there beyond fashions and anniversaries, because it lives forever in the hearts of music lovers."
It often happens with great masters that we risk taking them for granted. That's why a show like this seems so important to me, inviting us to reread that music, to listen to it with today's ears, and to enjoy it from this different perspective. It is here that Ricardo's music reveals itself as restless, delightfully playful, and impervious to boredom. It's not just that his prodigious technique allowed him to do things that others couldn't, and that so many still can't; there's something more: a very determined will to fill the score with wonderful colors and impressions, with an absolute modernity. Although he wasn't alone in this endeavor, Ricardo takes the flamenco guitar out of its self-absorption, encouraging it to leave the cage of the mere performer and soar through the skies of creation, propelled by that formidable engine that is the falseta.
Even in the palos More solemn, the soleá, the seguiriya that Joselito played alone, there is that desire to sing with the six strings and bring light to the darkness. The farruca Almoradí The song they performed together, with hints of Guajira and Colombian music, gave way to the serenade. I remember Sevillewhich gives the show its title. And since the audience was eager for more, and it wasn't a matter of improvising with the bar set where it was, they performed a triumphant encore with bulerías.
We know we must be wary of flags, because almost every flag is stained with blood, but if we must raise one, let it be the flag of art, which shelters everyone under its shade. Joselito and José, José and Joselito, made the music of a Sevillian fly high, a music that remains there beyond trends and anniversaries, because it lives forever in the hearts of music lovers.
Credits
I remember Seville. 50 years without Niño Ricardo, by José Acedo and Joselito Acedo
Festival Flamenco from Nîmes 2026
Odeon Theatre of Nìmes
February 16th 2026
José Acedo and Joselito Acedo, guitars
