Antonio Malena, Cantaor. Interview

“You have to feel the music. I even get emotional singing the carefree lyric of a bulería”

Silvia Calado. Jerez, April 2005

Antonio Malena is a cantaor with strong feelings. Firmly dedicated to preserving the type of singing passed down to him from older generations, he abhors compromise, insincerity and even the albums he recorded claiming that they were “commercial, by obligation”. He feels he’s at the point where he can record an album that “truly reflects the way he feels”, although his career as a solo performer will never take over his accompaniment work, in which he feels wholly fulfilled: “I don’t want to stop singing for baile”. Despite this, he also takes on the production and artistic direction of shows, as is the case with ‘Jerez Puro’. The production, which won the Premio del Publico award at the 2005 Festival de Jerez, brought the city’s audiences face-to-face with one of their most established cantaores once again. Not everyone could hold back the tears watching him sing por seguiriyas as true as ever… at nine years of age.

	Antonio Malena (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

Where did the idea for Jerez Puro come from?

María del Mar Moreno and I discussed how we could possibly produce a show about Jerez-style flamenco the way we felt and interpreted it. And it was nice working on it - the fact that the people in Jerez Puro are the same ones who usually work alongside her makes us such a close-knit team. It wasn’t difficult to get a group together either because there are artists by the truckload here in Jerez, most of them good, renowned. We approached this project with the aim of everyone coming away from the show satisfied.

How would you define the content of the show?

The term ‘pure’ doesn’t necessarily mean purity. We just wanted to recover the classic style of dancing, singing and guitar. The purity I try to convey in this show is based on the one I learned from the bailaores and cantaores of yesteryear. The cantiña that María has done comes from La Macarrona and those old-time dancers. This isn’t to say that they are purer than eight minute long cantiñas. And we also attempt to recover the cante, without doing anything commercial. All the vintage singers are there: Antonio Chacón’s malagueña, Manuel Torre’s taranto, Pinini’s cantiñas... we sought them all out. And more so in the cante than in the baile.

It was striking to see you singing a seguiriya at only nine years of age in the videoclip from ‘Rito y geografía del cante’ screened during the show. What was the process of learning cante like for you?

It actually came very naturally. I come from a family of cantaores. On my mother’s side, the Malenas come from Los Negros de Ronda. I was raised singing. I would sing on the doorstep of my house and my mother would tell my father that I was going to be a singer. As well as that, I grew up in San Mateo, the oldest neighborhood of Jerez where a lot of singers were also born and raised. My father was born in calle Nueva. I’ve met a lot of singers from around here. I used to take Tío Borrico back to his house in a taxi from where he worked when he wasn’t so good, I liked Manuel Jero a lot, and it was the same with Tía Juana la del Pipa. And I’d sing to Diego Margara when I was just a child, Terremoto...They were the ones who raised me.

How did you get on the circuit and become professional?

I had a job just like anyone else. I worked in construction, painting, delivering newspapers. By the age of ten, though, I already worked at Terraza Tempul, a movie theater in Jerez. And I had been on Manuel Morao’s ‘Jueves Flamencos’, where I sang as Luis Moneo played the guitar at the feria. The first show I did singing for a dancer was with Ana Parrilla in Córdoba. Her brother, Juan Parilla, spoke with my parents to see if they could take me to Córdoba. I would have been sixteen or seventeen at that point. Then Juan Parrilla took me to Madrid to the Venta del Gato and it was there that I sang for some time with Las Grecas, with Faíco, Sernita, Terremoto…The first day I did a song por tientos. Then from Madrid to Barcelona, to the Tablao de Carmen. From there on I didn’t stop working on the tablao circuit, when incredible artists such as La Quica, Pastora Vega, Faíco, Ramírez, Pansequito and El Indio Gitano were beginning to shine. That year was without a doubt the best of my artistic years, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

Antonio Malena at Peña Terremoto de Jerez (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

And you returned to Jerez?

They hired me at Zambra, but I didn’t like it. There were many young girls in the dance troupe … at least fourteen. I went back to Jerez but shortly after I got a call from Barcelona where I ended up working alongside Angelita Vargas, and with La Tolea. After a year I decided that I no longer wanted to work in tablaos. Not so much because I felt I was prepared to leave them behind and move on, but because I was sick and tired of the scene and the problems that come with it. Things had changed and the magic had been lost. Even the waiters and presenters used to have talent, like the one from the Venta del Gato whose name was Paula. I continued to sing for dancers, which is what I like best. No matter how well-trained I might be, or how well things turn out for me, I don’t want to stop singing for baile.

Even if they do say it ruins cantaores…

Antonio Malena (Foto: Daniel Muñoz)

That’s not true, as long as the cantaor understands the rules and knows his stuff. I must have done twenty or thirty solo shows. And my performances aren’t normal: I’m not too sure why but they always have fourteen palos or styles. I feel great singing alone, ‘alante’, but I don’t want to make it my priority. I’m a background singer and that’s the way I want to end my career.

Why’s that?

It’s not really for economic reasons. I believe that a cantaor who enjoys his line of work has to like singing in the background better. Up front you have to stick strictly to the material you have to perform, whereas if you’re accompanying you can play around with the cante.

To do that, don’t you need a bailaor willing to participate in the game?

Of course. But I’m talking about the bailaoras of my liking, those who let me sing, those with whom I can sing a seguiriya not to dance to, but to listen to… and for her to dance the seguiriya to be listened to, which is the hardest thing of all. I’ve yet to see a bailaora, with the exception of María del Mar Moreno, who can adapt to what the seguiriya really is. I’ve never heard anyone singing a seguiriya from Los Puertos, or Tomás el Nitri, with a bailaora who can dance to it. That’s very difficult. Not only now but in the past as well, when they danced the seguiriya much faster in order to get the movements right. I like the bailaora to dance to the tempo of the seguiriya, with force, a lot of force… and that’s very difficult.

Why is the seguiriya so important to you?

	"If you can sing seguiriyas, martinetes, tonás… I think you can sing pretty much everything"

If you can sing seguiriyas these days, I believe you can sing anything. I can sing anything and this is essential because I work for dancers. You don’t necessarily have to sing first and foremost seguiriyas but if you can sing seguiriyas, martinetes, tonás… I think you can sing pretty much everything. I feel capable of singing all of that. It’s not that its one of the things I most like doing, but its what I feel the most. Because of the life, the sadness and the pain it contains. They say that the soleá is the mother of all cantes, but I don’t agree. There is no such thing as a mother or father of cantes, each person feels it differently. And in my case it’s the seguiriya. It’s what makes me cry because I truly live through it. The soleá as well, and even tientos. I get very worked up, I mean you have to feel the music. I even get emotional singing the carefree lyric of a bulería.

Are you particular about the lyrics you sing?

It depends on the time and place. Depending on how you see the people and depending on who the bailaor is. In Maria’s case she adapts to it and feels it and therefore makes me feel it and makes me like myself when I sing. My mother told me as a child that I had to listen to myself sing because if I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to like myself. This is very true. There are people who scream out a song without even listening to themselves. Just singing for the sake of singing. Cantes are very sensitive and you have to take care of them. You should sing as if you were walking tiptoe on top of a cloud. Because when its time to fight, that’s what other cantes are for. The soleá has a macho edge, there you can fight. As for the seguiriya, when you come to the cambio and the pace shifts, then too. You can’t scream and shout all the time.

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