Bamberas
Origin and history
The bamberas come from Andalusian folklore and originated at carnival festivities, where they were sung to the swaying rhythm of swings set up for the occasion, a popular custom that gave the cante its own name: “bambear” means to sway. That link to a festive, communal tradition, originally outside the professional world of cante, marked its primitive character, simple and close to the Andalusian popular songbook.
As happens with other flamenco-adapted folklore styles, the bamberas moved from the popular songbook into the flamenco repertoire through the recovery and interpretive work of cantaores who knew how to see in these traditional melodies material fit to be reworked with the language of cante jondo, giving them a more defined compás and structure.
It was Niña de los Peines who brought this style into flamenco, giving it the rhythm of an elongated soleá that lent it its own shape and compás, thereby fixing the version by which the bamberas are known today and ensuring their continuity within the 20th-century flamenco repertoire.
Musical characteristics and compás
Musically, the bamberas rest on an elongated soleá compás, which gives them an unhurried pulse and a swaying cadence that recalls, precisely, the back-and-forth of the swing from which they took their popular origin. It is a cante with compás, though of a relaxed gait, closer in spirit to the copla than to the purely deep cantes.
Its melody retains an easygoing, luminous air, proper to its festive, carnival origin, and it is usually accompanied by a guitar that underlines that characteristic rhythmic sway without overloading the instrumental phrasing.
Representative cantaores and performers
The central figure in the flamenco history of this style is Niña de los Peines, whose version proved decisive in fixing the form in which the bamberas have come down to us. Beyond this foundational contribution, it is a cante cultivated by a limited number of performers, more present in recordings devoted to flamenco-adapted folklore than in the usual repertoire of cante recitals.
Relationship with other palos
The bamberas belong to the group of flamenco-adapted Andalusian folklore cantes, alongside other styles of popular root reworked by flamenco. By their compás, they are directly related to soleá, from which they take the elongated rhythmic base that sustains them, placing them within the orbit of the great family of cantes por soleá that runs through much of the Andalusian flamenco repertoire.