Jorge Pardo blickt mit seinem 65. Geburtstag auf genauso viele Jahre voller Frische, Innovationen, Brüchen und Synthesen zurück. Er wird immer kühner und zeitgemäßer und widersetzt sich der Fokussierung auf eine einzige Richtung. Es ist erstaunlich, wie seine Musik, die verschiedene musikalische Sprachen und Genres wie elektronische Musik, Fusion, Flamenco mit all seinen Stilen zu einer gemeinsamen Sprache vereint, unterschiedliche Zuhörer aus unterschiedlichen Räumen und Generationen zu faszinieren vermag. Man kann mit Sicherheit sagen, dass es zwei Haupt-Stilrichtungen gibt, die er zu synthetisieren und zu vereinen vermag wie den Dutt, der manchmal sein Haar zusammenbindet: Jazz und Flamenco.
Trance Sketches ist nicht nur das neueste Album eines zeitlosen ehemaligen Lehrers, der mit Größen wie Paco de Lucia, Chick Corea und Carles Benavent (u.a.) gespielt hat, sondern auch ein gefühlvolles und energiegeladenes zeitgenössisches Album. Es basiert auf dem Dokumentarfilm Trance (Emilio Belmonte, 2021), einem Film, in dem Emilio Belmonte und sein Team den Flötisten und Saxophonisten bei seinen Reisen durch Spanien und der ganzen Welt begleitet, auf denen er Musiker wie Chick Corea, Niño Josele, Duquende, Ana Morales und viele andere trifft. Das Album ist sozusagen der Soundtrack seiner Biographie. Im Dokumentarfilm und auf dem Album erlebt man einen ehrlichen Jorge, bei dem Musik und Leben ein und dasselbe sind, es gibt keine vorgefertigten Charaktere, die sich zu sehr voneinander unterscheiden, es gibt keine Alter-Egos. Es ist immer er, mit all seinen Facetten, mit oder ohne Flöte oder Saxophon, in einer Strandbar oder in einem großen Theater, und so ist auch seine Musik.
TRANCE SKETCHES
TRANCE LANDSCAPE
Following Jorge Pardo’s musical footsteps requir
es having an open mind about styles and
genres as well as having a remarkable level of trust in humanity. As you may already know, he
fluctuates between flamenco and jazz, although in recent times, he has also introduced
elements of electronic music as well as musicians from different latitudes that can be
appreciated in the film “Trance”, the documentary about Jorge Pardo directed by Emilio
Belmonte which is the origin of this album.
At the beginning of the eighties, we thought that Jorge could enter to that jazz university that
were Art Blakey’s “Messengers”. We witnessed how a Russian man (Valery Ponomarev) was
replaced by a guy on a suit and tie named Wynton Marsalis. Back then, us “the young critics”
bet that Wynton wouldn’t last long on the job, we got that right, and we got everything else
wrong.
Jorge was starting to travel around the world with Paco de Lucía, for whom they made a
documentary entitled “The Search”. The reader would think that by adding those experiences
we could obtain conclusive results; the topic isn’t about mathematics, not at the moment.
The musicians which Jorge plays with have two characteristics: they’re his friends and they live
in excellence; some do not know each other at the beginning of the song, but by the end they
seem “compadres” (best buddies). There is yet another factor that we find on the notes
written by the musician himself:
“At the end of the concerts I can only say that it was a miracle... that’s how I describe
these very open sessions, with a high dose of improvisation that manages to finish well
meanwhile being able to fly through unknown places.”
Perhaps the miracle is in the way of looking at art and life as he exposes in “Trance”, and that
lead us to an endless adventure. So several of us -Jorge Pardo’s followers- accompany him to
Flamenco and there could find several exciting worlds. On the one hand, the world of tradition
and classical “Cante”; and on the other hand, a world of revolutionaries such as Paco de Lucía,
who amazes in all latitudes.
The flamenco world, which deeply admires Paco “The Guitarist”, would welcome musicians
who came from other genres and played rare instruments as a whim, and it took several
decades to recognize their careers. Meanwhile, Jorge and the musicians of his generation
forged friendships around the world with superlative musicians who approached his way of
seeing flamenco combining respect and audacity. That is the key to these sessions, when
planning the filming of the documentary “Trance”, concluding that it had to be recorded in
New York.
BROOKLYN ROAD
Jorge Pardo and his soul mate Gil Goldstein, have recently edited “Brooklyn Sessions”
(Karonte), a Jazz record containing standards from the 40s and 50s. Gil lives in Brooklyn where
he plans some sessions with Jorge for his documentary. It’s not something planned with his
scores and a closed group of musicians. The film crew doesn’t know what or who they are
going to film. That is where Jorge exhibits good karma to look for “duende” (heightened state
of emotion, expression and authenticity) or “trances”. Music worth listening to:
- “The proposal was to shoot a sequence in New York with some of my closest
colleagues there. Most of them are great musicians and in great demand, and the
conditions were difficult to bring them together to make a good Jam. So I decided to
let things happen with the confidence that, if I had aimed the arrow correctly,
interesting things would happen. What we call misfortune, or stroke of luck, which
can be contradictory, creates the foundation, so what sometimes you feel as a
misfortune is the basis for a good stroke of luck”
BROOKLYN, WE HAVE A PROBLEM
There is an old expression in Spanish that defines “living on the wire” as a permanent exercise
of balance, something that is amazing for those who like to have both feet firmly on the
ground. There are musicians who enjoy that feeling of permanent search, the history of
classical jazz is full of them, and so it is for flamenco, although probably for generations, living
on the wire, was synonymous with inventing everyday what could “fall into the pot.”
We learn with Jorge the verb “asolapar” which means: “to install, settle or place a slab or tile
on another so that part of it can be covered to protect from the rain”. Following the simile,
Jorge “asolapa” (overlaps and settles) with other musicians to create an interesting Jam:
- “That’s how I got to New York, with a certain pressure of having a team of seven people that came from Paris to film, who asked me every fifteen minutes if I knew
anything about Gil, about the musicians, or about what pieces we were going to play...
- Anyway, the whole team arrived in Brooklyn at night to meet Gil Goldstein for dinner to
see how it was the situation.
- I have to say that Gil is my buddy, my brother, and with that I’m saying it all.
- And it’s so true that sometimes, brothers are abused, so I addressed my first problem
with him, which was that we didn’t have a bass player for next morning’s session.
- I had called several of my colleagues but they were all tied up out of town. With the
tranquility of someone that has an ace up his sleeve, Gil told me: “No problem, I know
the best and nicest guy in Brooklyn!”.
The goblins are again with Jorge Pardo who remembers his discovery and good fortune in
terms of Matt:
- ¡And It was true!
- ¡Matt Garrison!
- Late that night we went to his Club in Brooklyn. Matt, Matt, son of the mythical Jimmy
Garrison who spent so many years with Coltrane, Elvin and McCoy...
-
- Right there we greeted each other and he accepted the proposal to record the next
morning, and it was already dawn... As he told me, he knew my music for years and
had good friends in Spain.
TALENT COUNT AND CONNECTIONS
When music comes first, the theory of evolution of species is not the most important thing to
clear the way to study the development of Coltrane’s ways of improvisation from “Kind of
blue” to “A love supreme”, for example. Then you listen to Matt Garrison on this album to
discover that, Matt and Carles Benavent have solved some of the dilemmas of contemporary
jazz in a similar way.
Matt grew up under the wing of Jack DeJohnette, who in the eighties provided us with several
bands that were the modern jazz alternative to Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.
- Matt has gone further than his father, Jorge conveys, who leaves us with a pending
question in the history of jazz; if Coltrane squeezed the sonic possibilities of the tenor
saxophone, then the theory of evolution has been transferred to the rest of the
instruments.
Mark Guiliana is the drummer who amazes here and now, they say that he mixes the wisdoms
of Art Blakey and Elvin Jones added to the basis of a rapper. Furthermore, he also recorded
with David Bowie “Black Star”, Bowie’s last album.
-
- I met Guiliana in a session at Cafe Berlin in Madrid. I don’t pay much attention to
YouTube, so I didn’t know that he was a star.
-
In that session he told me that when he was a teenager, he got the album from the trio
“Concert in Seville” the first one we did with Carles (Benavent) and Tino (Di Geraldo) and
that for a while he had listened to that recording nonstop.
Jorge Pardo’s ability to share/influence musicians from all over the world challenges the
history of modern jazz, but what about the history of flamenco? For flamencos, in general,
Jorge is a “Maestro”. It is true that some have taken decades to understand him. But flamenco
is like that, the mentalities walk slower than musicians.
These details are of little interest to Jorge, who lives the music up to the minute. “The present
is what interests me” without giving it any further thought.
- That’s what the documentary reveals, that almost everything is casual and that all these
variables come into play. I wasn’t thinking about making a record of all this. The
confinement is to be blamed. I listened to the sessions and I said, this is not bad; and in
the next track, I though here you could do this, there you lack some of that, and I could
add this other thing. So the listener is both in the recording studio and watching the
movie”.
TRANCE SKETCHES
The history of jazz has been told, written and filmed countless times. Still to be added is the
chapter dedicated to all the new and traditional music that has emerged around Jazz and
Flamenco and which most of its protagonists have not tried to define, delimit or regulate.
What is clear is that Jorge has poured out his passion for flamenco in every step he has taken
around the world and there are several generations of musicians who have felt inspired.
PAISAJES EN CUARENTENA
So one gets the feeling that Jorge is exploring a new kind of recording that solves the dilemma
between recording all at once or using all the resources that a studio has to offer. For the first
time in many years Jorge has had many nights ahead of him without a concert, without going
in search of what he has been experiencing for so many years.
In the moments of reflection and calm, he listens again to the Brooklyn sessions and then this
album appears. And so he calls that guitarist to do that introduction with "Seguiriyas” and
that's how he completes this album that you have in your hands.
The guitarist of the first two compositions "La línea 1 + 2" is Rycardo Moreno from Lebrija,
blessed glory (and bilingual) in terms of flamenco and jazz, for the acoustic and the electric.
Melón Jiménez introduces "Tientations", then leads like figurative painters who turn to
abstraction. Juanito Pascual was born in Minneapolis and is a flamenco musician who shares
strings with Colombian harpist Edmar Castaneda, another prodigy who stars in "Otro Sueño"
with the cajón of Guillermo Barrón and the synthesizers of Jesús Pardo, who reminds us that
all this began with the experiments of the group "Dolores" when we were all very young.
Jesús reappears in "Rara Belleza" where the guitar is played by Paco Soto, born in Murcia and
raised in Tangier, for the singing of Ganavya, a New Yorker of Tamil origin (India), and the
singing of Bego Salazar who, after passing through Las Migas, begins to shoot his electronic
project "Salazar" with Xavi Lloses.
- I guess you think: "you have no idea how flamencos you can be".
- You are the owner of your words and your concepts, Jorge tells me on the phone to
fondle my ear, after a while he makes it clear to me:
- Nooo, it's not true. When I convinced them to participate in this madness, it was
because they love flamenco. The idea was to have American jazz musicians playing
Spanish music linked to flamenco and offer them a gift.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
New York is the city of jazz and probably one of the future cities of flamenco. One of the
greatest and best experiences a human being can have is to participate in the morning sessions
for children and teenagers of the Flamenco Festival in the City Center, the same place where
Leonard Bernstein filmed his unforgettable television programs.
In New York they love the history of flamenco and that's when you remember Cecil Taylor
taking part in the tribute to Carmen Amaya, where the pianist declared that he felt abducted
by the spirit of Carmen whom he met in the late fifties and who had a decisive influence on his
style. Perhaps it was the night of the meeting between Carmen Amaya and Nina Simone at the
Village Vanguard, which was confirmed by the head of the New York club and of which we
have no description, only the fire in the eyes of both women.
"Trance Sketches" opens up another door in Jorge Pardo's long journey and you think again
that "you couldn't imagine how flamenco one can be in Brooklyn". Although you can't quite
trust this feeling, you look out to the sea, let yourself be carried away by the light and ask for a
serving of prawns. That's when you realize you're far from home.
José Manuel Gómez Gufi
“Tribulations of a flamenco dj”
1LA LÍNEA 1 07:09
Musik: Jorge PardoISRC: ES773-21-02240
2LA LÍNEA 2 02:11
Musik: Jorge PardoISRC: ES773-21-02241
3TIENTACIONES 06:34
Musik: Jorge PardoISRC: ES773-21-02242
4OTRO SUEÑO 12:43
Musik: Jorge PardoISRC: ES773-21-02243
5RARA BELLEZA 14:35
Musik: Jorge PardoISRC: ES773-21-02244
6ZAPATITO11:38
Musik: Jorge PardoISRC: ES773-21-02245
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