We meet Rafael Cortés in the back rooms of Café Roma in Gelsenkirchen, where smoking is still allowed and the 83-year-old Sicilian owner serves a well-known espresso.

Uwe Ebbinghaus

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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Mr. Cortés, what does Olé mean?

The word is oddly misspelled with the accent at the back, deviating from the phonetics.

Because it is actually spoken like Óle.

Alternatives would be Ála or Éle.

Olé is actually an expression of admiration.

You call him out when something very nice is happening.

It is a sign of astonishment and means something like: "It grabbed me, my God!".

It's a very big compliment when you, as a musician, can tease out an honest Olé.

Classic descriptions in the dictionary are "Hurrah!", "Bravo!", "Keep up the good work!" - the term obviously has many meanings.

There is so much in the term.

Incidentally, I have never been asked in my life what Olé means and I had never thought about it before your question.

From my point of view, Olé originally meant: "How divine!".

This may come as a surprise, but I'm partial to the theory – Spain was occupied by the Moors for almost 800 years, which of course left its mark – that it comes from the Arabic “Allah”.

This word is also still used today in Spain, on the one hand it means: "Yes, then do it", "See how you get along", but it can also substitute Olé.

I believe that the Christians took the word from the Arab Muslims, meaning "Praise the Lord!".

In music, too, there are many similarities between flamenco and Música Andalusí.

There is also no generally binding theory on the origins of flamenco.

In your opinion, how did the music of the Roma, the Gitanos, connect with the Spanish?

My personal opinion - and I'm half Spanish, half Gitano - is that flamenco is 80 percent Gypsy property.

I know you can make a lot of enemies with this theory, but that's my firm belief.

Perhaps the most important flamenco guitarist, Paco de Lucía, a kind of messiah of this style of music, at whose concerts I was allowed to attend, he wasn't a guitarist, mind you, said in every interview when asked about it that he had learned everything from the gypsies.

"My only judges," he said, "are the Gitanos."

Historically, one can argue as follows: In the 15th century, the gypsies in Spain were oppressed, enslaved, and lived mainly in

fraguas

, in forges, worked to earn a living.

At the same time they were very musical and probably expressed their sadness in music while they were working.

Let's take the flamenco style Seguiriya, here there is a measure reminiscent of that of the blacksmith's hammers on the anvil, they were

cantes de fragua

, "songs of the blacksmiths", which I think later, in immediate coexistence, with Spanish folklore were mixed up.