He looks the part: straggly, desert hair and haunted fizzog. He sounds the part: opening dry rhythmic strumming over unchorded strings; acrobatic trills; percussive attack. Flanked on the left by two singers, Kiki Cortinas and Simón Román, and a shadowy dancer, Paloma Fantova, and on the right by second guitarist El Cristi and percussionst Israel Suárez, this flamenco stalwart decked out the Sadler’s Wells stage with the requisite musical equipment.
Tomatito (real name José Fernández Torres) is famous for being Tomatito. His is not a big name outside his frame of reference, though he’s borrowed plenty from outside flamenco – folk, jazz, funk. He’s also borrowed lots from the form’s master, Paco de Lucía, the guitarist who discovered the singer who made Tomatito famous. Camarón de la Isla is perhaps another one of those names not so stellar outside his culture, flamenco song (when able – not comatose with drugs – Camarón was a proponent of its fiercest purity, cante jondo, deep song), but he was assuredly one of the 20th century’s greats, whatever musical idiom you look at. He died in 1992.
As his accompanist in the 1980s, Tomatito, like Camarón a gypsy, made his name. He recorded a fine solo album, Aguadulce, in 2004. His more important discography with Camarón and de Lucía is stocked with classic “new” flamenco. All this was heard at Sadler’s Wells in the middle of its 10th Flamenco Festival, as were calls from the audience to his Camarón past. Tomatito’s musicianship is undoubted, just not very inventive. Tellingly, the show only came alive when Paloma Fantova danced, briefly at the start, then at the end in a clinching, sole-clicking climax which was the evening’s best 10 minutes.
That’s because Tomatito is an accompanist. There have been hundreds such whose names have co-starred with singers and dancers, and he’s one of them. There have been, too, some superb nights of toque (flamenco guitar) at the Wells over the years; but actually, to stage, and state, what lies behind the fuss about all modern flamenco, going back to before anyone had heard of Tomatito (which is not so far back), the festival’s programmers have one thing left to do. Book Paco de Lucía.
Tickets and information on Sadler's Wells 2013 Flamenco Festival