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Interview with Diego Amador,
multi-instrumentalist:
"There's no such thing as flamenco piano"
Silvia Calado Olivo. Madrid, July 2003
Translation: Gary Cook
Photos: Daniel Muñoz
Diego Amador
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How did the idea of making 'Piano jondo' come about?
It was Mario Pacheco, the director of the Nuevos Medios label, who first came
up with the idea. And I'd wanted to record a solo piano disc for years, to set
the record straight after the first one. Back then I wanted to record a piano
album, I didn't want to sing or anything, but Ricardo Pachón, the producer,
insisted. And I ended up singing… but not what I wanted to sing. I sang songs
and all that; I wasn't happy with the result. Firstly because I didn't record
the vocal tracks I would've liked - I mean when I do sing I want it to be the
stuff I do nowadays: flamenco. And second because I had to record the piano tracks
using a keyboard and, well, they're there for posterity, nothing more. It's been
a thorn in my side ever since - I had to settle the score.
Later I recorded 'El aire de lo puro' and that's when Mario told me I should
record a solo piano disc. He spoke to me about Bill Evans's producers and I said
that if they liked my stuff I was all theirs. I gave a concert at Jamboree in
Barcelona for the Fantasy Records people, I played to about ten of them, with
my nephew accompanying me on cajón. They were so pleased with it that they
asked Mario to get to work as soon as possible and record what they'd heard. I
was delighted - at last I got my chance. In the end I got to record the piano
album I wanted. It basically contains the tracks from the first album with new
arrangements. The repertoire is more complete because the years have passed, and
little by little you learn more, you open your mind to new things, it happens
to everyone.
Is the piano the instrument you feel most comfortable with, even though
you play many others?
Me? The instrument I like most is the guitar. I'm a born guitarist. The first
thing I listened to at home was guitar and cante flamenco. And that's what
I like best. I became familiar with the piano while I was a youngster too; I used
to listen to the records my brothers played me like Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock...
And that's where I got the bug and started playing piano, but not flamenco piano
- I never even thought about that. I wanted to play jazz. In those days I used
to try out every style I heard, even rumba - anything I could get my hands on,
anything that was playing around that time.
But in the end you steered the instrument round toward flamenco...
Getting started with jazz was tough at first. You had to do the simplest stuff
first and the stuff you'd listened to over and over. There was a period when I
was totally into jazz, I'd listen to loads of jazz stuff - I mean I never lost
touch with flamenco, but I'd say I listened even more to jazz. These days I'm
back to flamenco, but wiser, and with a better-trained ear - I can listen to things
I couldn't get to grips with when I was younger. I'm more into vocals now though.
The next disc is going to be cante. Now that I've settled the score with the piano…
but who knows - I might even record an album on the bass… [laughs] and maybe
another one on mandolin…
How do you see the piano as applied to flamenco?
I see the piano just as I see the guitar, I mean modern flamenco guitar, Paco
de Lucía or Tomate,
for example. That's why the piano's so difficult. Sometimes I see people who play
really well, but when they come to play flamenco I can hear them sort of trying
to imitate an old-fashioned guitar sound - that's not what flamenco piano was
meant for... To start with you have to play flamenco guitar, have the sound of
the guitar in the back of your mind and besides that, well… there's a whole
load of stuff.
So it's no good imitating vocal melodies then…
If you imitate cante on piano it sounds pretentious. I like the piano
to sound tough, keeping the pace, marking time, with cierres just like you would
on guitar. I'm a guitarist underneath... In the studio I lay down the guitar track
and it sometimes sounds good. As far as flamenco is concerned, I approach the
piano like I approach the guitar. In terms of jazz I approach the piano like the
great jazz pianists: Bill Evans, Monk, Hancock, that kind of rhythm, that vibe.
Everything in its right place, it's as simple as that. The piano is something
I'm always arguing about, I don't like to say it, but I just can't stand it when
people say that certain things are flamenco. It's like what happens with the so-called
flamenquitos, they play any old rumba, stick in a spot of flamenco wailing,
and hey presto: they call it flamenco!
If we don't maintain some kind of respect for tradition, who knows where we'll
end up. For me flamenco is something sacred. Over here they pick up an Indian
tabla and start playing anyhow, whereas in India they say a prayer before playing.
I use tablas, but as a backdrop. Generally speaking people play too much, it's
better to play less but to put more feeling into what you play. With Tomate's
group we never rehearsed. He'd call and ask you to play one day; we'd turn up
for the sound check, go over a few things, and then get down to work. Sometimes
we'd make mistakes, but there were always magical moments. Even so, I'm in favor
of rehearsing myself.
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Diego Amador
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You have a lot of influences, wouldn't you say? I can spot Juan Tizol's
'Caravan'...
Try as you might, if you're familiar with jazz then those influences inevitably
slip through, even if you're playing a flamenco piece. I don't mix jazz with flamenco,
I introduce jazz where it goes well. Flamenco is and always will be flamenco.
The idea of fusion isn't really one I'm happy with, although I have to say I've
tried it myself. We've all done it, and my brothers [Rafael and Raimundo Amador,
Pata
Negra] were one of the first, I'd say. That's what got me experimenting
with fusion, but if you listen hard, if you listen to a flamenco falseta
or a vocal track of mine, it'll always be flamenco. If you listen to a jazz track
of mine then what you'll hear is jazz. You'll never hear flamenco and jazz together
in the same phrase, there might be a hint of one in the other but never to a point
where they clash. Anyway, the piano is much less well-understood than the guitar,
and in flamenco people find it hard to understand the difference between flamenco
and jazz.
And what set you on the voyage back from fusion?
There are legendary figures in the world of jazz; I'd leave it to them. I'm
sticking to what I know best, and that's flamenco, it's what's all around me.
And they're the best conditions for learning. I feel like I know about all kinds
of stuff, but flamenco is closest to my heart, I understand it better and it helps
me express myself better.
So as a music lover, what do you listen to?
The flamenco music I listen to these days is mostly old stuff, Juan Talega,
Mojama, La
Niña de los Peines, Antonio Chacón... all the old stuff, where
you can find every palo there is, and for each of those styles you can
find shining examples. And afterwards I always cleanse myself with what I call
the filter, looking for that attention to detail, that sense of rhythm... with
Camarón,
Paco [de Lucía], Tomate... modern-day figures. And as for jazz I
still listen to older stuff, to Weather Report records, Jaco Pastorius, Miles
Davis, Charlie Parker. And sometimes I put on albums by Carles Benavent, Jorge
Pardo...
So you don't have to travel too far to find ideas, inspiration and knowledge.
I think it's all been done already, there's nothing left to be invented. In
my opinion you have to make the best you can of what's around, but putting your
own vibe into it, your own style.
Do you think flamenco piano is on the up? Which way do you see things going?
I'll give you my opinion. I don't see the piano as a flamenco instrument, you
know? I mean that flamenco is a quality of the one who's playing… whether
they're playing piano, a tin can, whatever. If the artist's flamenco, it'll come
out flamenco. You might know all the chords and all the scales, but if you aren't
a flamenco artist it's never gonna sound like flamenco... especially if you don't
play guitar. There's no such thing as flamenco piano, there's the guy who plays
flamenco on piano, but to do that you have to play flamenco guitar. I feel strongly
about it, and maybe my opinion could prove a little offensive to some, but what
people refer to as flamenco piano is something that never appealed to me, I saw
it as more like traditional Andalusian music, like coplas. The young guys
around today… that's Andalusian music, you can't call it flamenco. Even less
so if you play the piano like old-fashioned guitar. There were people around who
played beautifully, like Sabicas,
but the guitar's come on since then. Playing piano like Paco de Lucía plays
guitar is what I was after, and that's what I did, nobody had copied the rasgueado
clawing technique on piano like that. It bothers me when someone is referred to
as a flamenco pianist because they learnt a flamenco chord or scale. That isn't
flamenco. There are people out there who don't know what I'm doing or that I was
the first to play rasgueado on piano, nobody ever played a falseta por derecho
por bulerías. I don't like to blow my own trumpet but that's how it
is. It's like the guitar and it has to come out sounding natural.
There are certain things you can learn, but then you've got cante flamenco,
that sorts the men from the boys. The Japanese can play, can dance, but singing
could never be exported… it's something very gitano. I mean I'm not a racist,
but you have to feel that way. You have to have lived flamenco. You have to be
both things: you have to be flamenco, to study and to immerse yourself in that
music; and you have to be a gypsy to have experienced that way of life, to have
that way of feeling flamenco music deep inside. There are artists who aren't gypsies
and who do a great job, but there's the crunch, they can't really do cante and
do it well.
And what if Paco de Lucía had been a cantaor?
He probably wouldn't be a genius.
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