Notes
Dennis Bishop Jones, Black Irish, descended from Spanish sailors who came ashore in Ireland when the Spanish Armada was destroyed in 1588, has flamenco music in his blood. He started off playing rock'n'roll music, inspired by Elvis Presley. In 1964, at age 21, he got his hands on a blonde Mexican flamenco guitar made by Las Casas de guitarras in Paracho, Mexico. It produced such a beautiful sound with so little effort that he was inspired to play flamenco music. These recordings were made with that guitar. By 1966 he was showing his mastery of the flamenco techniques, including a new one of his own -- a continuous roll. On the musical advice that "Any combination of two or more notes is a chord," Dennis has gone into a whole spectrum of combinations of musical notes, with disharmonies emerging into harmonies, more like modern classical music than traditional flamenco. This is improvised music. He is making it up as he goes along, as contrasted to other flamenco players playing well-rehearsed routines. Of course at some times he was inspired, and at other times not so inspired, falling back on stock musical routines. These are the times he was inspired. This isn't the kind of music you can just sit down and play in a studio, on demand. We had to catch on tape the moments he was inspired. Most of those times it was not recorded, and will never be heard again. We needed a $500 tape recorder, but the most we could afford was a $99 tape recorder, and this is the best of what he recorded. When the tape recorder broke, around 1970, the tapes were stored in the crawl space of his house for more than 30 years. This CD is Dennis's early music, from 1966 to 1969. He says it is more creative than his later music. Dennis has lived most of his life in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He was performing professionally in 1968 at The Moors in Provincetown and the Belvedere Lounge in Lexington Park, Maryland.
