Daniel Casares, flamenco guitarist. Interview

“I’ve always felt like a concert guitarist”

Silvia Calado. Madrid, November 2007
Translation: Joseph Kopec

‘Caballero’ by Daniel Casares, track by track

Daniel Casares has already made as many albums as guitarists twice his age. And the thing is that the Málaga-born guitarist has always been sure that his music had to be recorded and shared. ‘Caballero’ is already his fourth solo album, a record with elaborate production which he comments on track by track in this conversation, between memories of his early days, thoughts on today’s flamenco and such present realities as his collaboration with opera diva Cecilia Bartoli.

Daniel Casares

How did it all start?

There’s no flamenco past in my family, but like a good Andalusian family, it’s always listened to flamenco. I always liked guitar. As an anecdote I can comment that as a boy I used to play the guitar with my mother’s broomstick. Then when I heard flamenco, it poisoned me; it drove me crazy. My first contact was the typical thing, with classes at the town’s cultural center. That’s where my story began.

And curiously in Estepona, a flamenco generation coincides...

There are five of us guitarists in Estepona, where there’s no tradition of artists. Now there’s Rocío Bazán, but there didn’t use to be any cantaores either. Fortunately there are now some of us, all working, each with his own thing and we’re doing well. Some time ago we did ‘A la guitarra, Estepona’, a promotional collective album by Town Hall which I didn’t record expressly for, but rather I included two songs off my first album, ‘Duende flamenco’.

You’re uncommonly active making records. You’ve already recorded four albums.

	Daniel Casares (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

Yeah, the truth is that I’ve been really restless in that sense. I’ve always had the need to show it when I composed something, for better or for worse. Now I look back and there are things I wouldn’t do, things I’m not satisfied with. But it was my moment and I enjoyed it. I was excited about it and that enjoyment was all mine; no one can take that away from me.

And at the same time, you’ve been gaining experience live, even accompanying maestros like Juan Valderrama...

That was really lucky for me, something really big, a gift from God. And I took advantage of it as best I could in the artistic sense. I practically lived with him; he became a family tie. I remember those mornings when I would get up and he was still in his dressing gown and would ask me to play a little for him por soleá, he explained what the cantes were like to me and what stuff was like. There were two or three years of genuine learning for me; correct, exhaustive and fundamental. I matured there.

Curiously, Juan Valderrama’s recognition as a cantaor came quite later, didn’t it?

And I think the last living proof he left of what a great cantaor he was indeed was the live show ‘Don Juan’, in which he delves still further into flamenco after all the movements he had with the copla. I play on that album with Luis Calderito. It was recorded in La Unión. To me it’s a lesson in flamenco. Every cantaor who’s getting started or even who’s active should bear in mind that album as something important to learn from. It’s complete, well-rounded.

And at the same time, were you developing your solo career?

I’ve always felt like a concert guitarist; I can’t deny it. At the same time, I really like cante, I really like baile, and I’ve played for singing and for dancing. At first, as an amateur at the peñas. But all of my preparation was with the aim of doing concerts, of developing my technique to the max, of training and performing what I wanted to say with greater development. I haven’t found myself in the bind of having to choose. It’s simply been a feeling which was awake inside me from the very beginning.

It’s usually said that experience in accompaniment is necessary. However, that was denied by Juan Habichuela in an interview...

It’s important to know because even in your concerts, the style is to have your group with a touch of cante. At any rate, when it doesn’t have the presence of cante, guitar has the need to sing by itself. I think you have to know cante. And in the rhythm section, the same with baile. I think it might not be a “must”, but it’s necessary.

Daniel Casares (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

Standing out in your biography is the Award for Extraordinary Performance in Concert by the Association of Latin Entertainment Critics of New York, when you weren’t very well known here in Spain...

I’ve been going to New York for five straight years now. And from the very beginning some strange things happened to me. I did a concert and the next day, when I was getting ready to come back to Spain, I received notification at the hotel that I’d been nominated for the award. Imagine my surprise because I didn’t even know that there were people at the concert from that association who were there with that assignment. I did my concert my way. The next year, they gave me the award; I did another concert on that occasion. Afterwards the tango and flamenco musical was carried out at the Thalia Theater... Everything in New York has been unexpected like that. I owe a lot of learning to it, since I’ve bumped into great musicians there who I’ve drawn on. And I’ve found myself in the bind of having to direct many of them, such as pianist Octavio Brunetti or bandoneon player Raúl Jaurena, who’s just won a Latin Grammy. I had to mature by leaps and bounds at all levels. And New York gave me that chance.

Do you get another perspective with regards to flamenco in New York?

Yeah, perhaps. You get another perspective with regards to everything. That’s a multicultural city where there are new things on every corner. And there’s everything. Musically, just imagine... Cuban musicians, jazz players, flamencos, classical, Hindu. There’s a bit of everything, and good. There’s a bit at every level, but minimum quality is demanded for you to undertake work there or develop your music. If you trip up that’s good and you learn from it.

And the rest of the interview takes place intertwined with the subjects of each of the ten tracks that make up ‘Caballero’, in a pleasant conversation which goes back and forth...

See ‘Caballero’, track by track