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Paco de Luc\u00eda, who was born into a musical family and grew up to become one of the world\u2019s greatest guitarists, mastering flamenco music and finding new audiences by blending it with jazz and other genres, died on Wednesday in Mexico. He was 66. His death was confirmed by a municipal official in Mr. de Luc\u00eda\u2019s native city, Algeciras, on the coast of southern Spain. <\/p>\n
Gaspar Armando Garc\u00eda Torres, the Quintana Roo state attorney general, told Mexico\u2019s Enfoque Radio that Mr. de Luc\u00eda had had a heart attack while on vacation at the Caribbean resort town of Playa del Carmen and died in a hospital, The Associated Press reported.<\/p>\n
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Mr. de Luc\u00eda established himself as a leading flamenco artist in the 1960s and \u201970s, notably after forming a partnership with Camar\u00f3n de la Isla, a singer who is widely considered to have revived and revolutionized flamenco in Spain. The duo released more than 10 records, both of classical flamenco and a fusion of rock and pop. Camar\u00f3n de la Isla died in 1992.<\/p>\n
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With the backing of bongo players and an electric bass, Mr. de Luc\u00eda produced one of Spain\u2019s most familiar tunes, a rumba called \u201cEntre Dos Aguas\u201d<\/a> (Between Two Waters), which was part of an album released in 1973, in the final years of the Franco dictatorship.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Mr. de Luc\u00eda was renowned for \u201cthe intensity of his concentration\u201d and for the way he had \u201cpushed flamenco\u2019s traditional roots both backward and forward,\u201d Ben Ratliff wrote in The New York Times in 2004 in a review of a de Luc\u00eda performance, with singers and a rhythm section, at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Mr. de Luc\u00eda\u2019s virtuosity was grounded in age-old flamenco techniques: hard-edge strumming, breakneck runs with every note sharply articulated, a touch that could be feathery or imperious, suspenseful phrasing and, most of all, a volatile sense of dynamics and drama.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n He opened flamenco\u2019s traditional boundaries to rhythms, harmonies and instruments from the wider world. Even when he was playing a tango, using jazz chords or backed by an electric bass, his music remained unmistakably and authoritatively flamenco.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n