Flamenco guitarist de Lucía dazzles at the Kimmel

If people know but one genuine flamenco artist by name, it's probably the universally praised guitarist/composer Paco de Lucía.

As he displayed Tuesday at the Kimmel Center (eight pieces, almost two hours, no intermission), such global renown is justified; the musician, born Francisco Gustavo Sánchez Gómez 64 years ago in the gritty Spanish port of Algeciras, is truly peerless. It was evident soon after he took a seat at center stage for his first concert here in years (he last toured America in 2007).

The master began by himself, acoustic guitar perched on his right thigh, its body over his heart, all 10 fingers soon at play. As on his "Variaciones De Minera," which starts de Lucía's new double-CD, En Vivo ­– Conciertos Live in Spain 2010 (released last week), his left hand dexterously shaped the shifting tonalities of the nuanced number on the fretboard; meanwhile, his famously amazing right hand picked and flicked the strings, sometimes with individual digits firing downward in the rippling flamenco power-strum technique known as rasgueado.

Other fine guitarists, flamenco or otherwise, can play with stirring emotional flair and dizzying technique. Nobody, however, can match the maverick sound that de Lucía has developed over a half-century-plus, ingeniously merging fire and steel to reach the deepest depths of duende, a reference to that sublime, ineffable state of palpable soul that, although bearing a definitively Andalusian gypsy flamenco name, transcends on many levels.

The youngest in a poor yet musical family, de Lucía was revealed early on as a prodigy. His day-laborer father encouraged Paco as he had his estimable brothers, guitarist Ramon de Algeciras and singer Pepe. Living the flamenco life, the guitarist improved constantly and eventually revolutionized the genre, especially via his intense, historically creative collaboration of 1968-77 with revered singer Camarón de La Isla. (Note: Any duo analogies to Camarón and de Lucía must be made carefully. Keeping things theoretical might be best: Imagine a prolonged dream pairing of, say, the singularly soulful Janis Joplin and the incomparable, innovative Jimi Hendrix, before years of hard living claimed Joplin, as it did Camarón in 1992.) As represented Tuesday, de Lucía has explored utilizing percussion, bass, even harmonica.

Among the seven men who joined de Lucía onstage Tuesday, the celebrated singer Duquende evoked Camarón in some of his explosive, wildly emotive cracked-voice wails. Young dancer Farruco stunned with staccato footwork and macho poise. And de Lucía's promising nephew, Antonio Sánchez, impressed when trading incendiary guitar runs during the inevitable closer, a fluid variation on de Lucía's rumba-fied, ever-exquisite 1973 classic, "Entre Dos Aguas."