The Association for Recorded Sound Collections presents the following program from its 2013 ARSC Annual Conference at Marriott Country Club Plaza, Kansas City, Missouri on Saturday May 18, 2013:

CASSETTES AND COMMUNITY: THE LIFE OF MORÓN'S "FIESTA TAPES" presented by Joshua Brown, University of California, Riverside

In this presentation, I examine a unique flamenco tradition from the Andalusian pueblo of Morón de la Frontera that flourished in the mid-twentieth century and remains vibrant today. The architect of this tradition, known as the Morón style, was Diego del Gastor, a humble Gypsy guitarist known as much for his distinct sound as for his unwillingness to perform or record for people outside of his social circles.

Although flamenco is commonly transmitted orally amongst family members, the lineage that developed in Morón in the late 1960s was extraordinary because it proliferated into the hands of international students.

I will look at how an exhaustive set of amateur audio recordings made by several of Diego’s closest students has functioned variously as study material, community currency and a “paradigm of flamenco perfection” (Pachón 2011).

My aim is to demonstrate how the “Morón Fiesta Tapes” not only generate new relationships and conflicts, but also reveal dynamics already existing within the social sphere. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted among members of this flamenco community, I explore how these recordings invigorate, inform and instruct aficionados of the Morón style today.

Videographers: Michael and Leah Biel
Editor: Nathan Georgitis