Carlos Montoya; Master Guitarist Popularized the Art of Flamenco

Carlos Montoya, guitarist, composer and arranger who almost single-handedly transformed flamenco from a Spanish folk discipline into an internationally popular art form, has died. He was 89.

Montoya, who lived in Wainscott on New York’s Long Island, died Wednesday of heart failure.

Building on the lead of his uncle, Ramon Montoya Salazar, in the 1930s, Montoya helped bring flamenco guitar from mere accompaniment for dancers and singers onto the solo recital stage. He toured his solo show--many said the same show--for nearly five decades, returning almost annually to Southern California.

Greatly attuned to his audiences, Montoya played traditional folk rhythms, moving easily into American blues and jazz. He remained faithful, no matter what the music, to the Gypsy passion for improvising.

He was particularly known for his left-hand solos, prompting one Los Angeles Times reviewer to write 30 years ago that Montoya’s left hand “moves on the keyboard with accuracy and facility so well there appear to be extra joints in the fingers.”

Carlos Garcia Montoya was born in Madrid on Dec. 13, 1903. His four grandparents were Gypsies. His mother taught him to play the guitar when he was 8, and by 14 he was accompanying cafe singers and dancers. He continued performing while working as a government clerk and serving in the Spanish army.

He later performed with troupes of well-known flamenco artists, including Antonia Merce (known as La Argentina), Vicente Escudero and Encarnacion Lopez (La Argentinita).

Montoya was touring abroad during the Spanish Civil War and was in the United States when World War II began. He married an American in 1940, and later became a U.S. citizen, performing for President Harry S. Truman on the night of his citizenship ceremony.

Based in New York, Montoya began his solo tours in the early 1940s.

In addition to the traditional flamenco dance music, his concerts frequently included a rendition of the Holy Week procession in Seville, in which he reproduced sounds of drums, trumpets and other military band instruments on his guitar.

Although he never learned to read music, Montoya composed and arranged many works. Most notable was the concerto “Suite Flamenca,” which he composed with Julio Esteban and Estela Bringuer and performed with the St. Louis Symphony in 1966.

Montoya is survived by his wife, Sally MacLean, and two sons, Allan of Wainscott and Carlos Jr. of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.