‘Caballero’
by Daniel Casares, track by track
Silvia Calado. Madrid, November 2007
Back
to the interview with Daniel Casares
“It’s going to be taken as
the first single off the album. As it’s title indicates,
I toy a little bit with other musical styles such as bossa
nova, with samba patterns in the drums in certain parts
of the song. But without ever losing the flamenco sound.
If I played the harp or the clarinet, it’d sound
flamenco because I’m a flamenco; I can’t deny
it. But I do like to flirt with other stuff, without showing
a lack of respect to that other stuff nor much less so
to flamenco. I wouldn’t think of it”.
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Daniel Casares
(Foto Daniel Muñoz) |
“I was incredibly lucky that the
company, Universal, offered me Pitingo on vocals. I was
delighted. He’s a guy who’s also at the stage
of searching. We’d never coincided. But at the studio
we discovered that we’re at the same point and we
have the same tastes. He was really good for my album;
he’s in harmony with what’s there”.
Although what he sings here is really
flamenco...
“When we’d finished recording,
and we loved how it turned out, I told him jokingly that
he’s taken it to my ground... The truth is that
we had a really good time together at the studio and he
did it really well, the way he knows how to do it”.
| ‘New York Feelings’
(rumba) |
Do you try to capture the city’s
character?
“Yeah, but with one particularity,
since it happens to me every time I go away, especially
in New York, where I spend long periods. You’re
influenced there by all the new things, but I feel even
more flamenco. Even when I play, I seek flamenco sounds
more. Here you’re seeking more harmonies and new
things, and recalling things there more. At least in my
case, I want to recover a little, remember. I could have
done a jazzier ‘New York Feelings’, which
would be the most logical thing. But they’re feelings
I had in New York. And I felt really flamenco.
Daniel Casares (Photo
Daniel Muñoz) |
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“The guajira is a style I like.
I love round-trip cantes. I think maestro Valderrama instilled
that in me. They’re styles with really rich harmony,
which interesting things can be done in. You can modulate
in many other places. And it has a really happy nature
in the rhythmics and tonality. Collaborating on this song
is a musician from Málaga, Oliver Sierra, who plays
the Cuban tres, an instrument which goes really well with
this kind of style; it gives it a touch really characteristic
of its place of origin”.
It isn’t being recorded much
lately...
“Son de la Frontera has done stuff
with those styles... I think it’s important to recover
styles which are there and that are lovely. For example,
we’re doing a production now for José Cruz,
who is one of the cantaores who’s on my album, and
we’re recovering the canastera by Paco de Lucía
and Camarón. A lot of cante albums are recorded
nowadays and that’s a legacy which is there. And
a different canastera can be done. That search has to
be made. We have to do tangos, rumbas and bulerías,
but an album has ten or twelve songs and there’s
an option for many things. They’re not all singles”.
It also happens with lyrics that
the same ones are always repeated and there are a great
many which haven’t been recorded since 1930...
“Of course. And there are people
who are writing really well, people who aren’t dedicated
to music, but rather to literature. And we could mutually
benefit from one another. If a musician uses that work,
he’s spreading it. And at the same time, the musician
is being enriched with something new which can moreover
be applied to a style in disuse. There are really interesting
things that we have to start doing. At least, not to do
more of the same”.
But flamenco isn’t an art form
with a lot of collaboration...
“We have to re-think that. We have
to be more willing to collaborate and to be able to train
more and better, benefiting from one another. We mustn’t
limit ourselves or tie ourselves down. Art is something
ethereal which has to fly, which we all have to breathe”.
Some decades ago Sabicas and Mario
Escudero played together in the United States...
“And nowadays we scratch at each
other. Who has the best dossier? The best photo? Sometimes,
we’re guilty of confusing music with sports”.
By the way, who are the lyrics by?
“Some of them are mine. And for
example, those of the bulería, the ones in the
choruses, are by a great friend of mine, Diego Guerrero.
He isn’t dedicated to that, but he writes his lyrics,
he’s a really well-prepared guy. Those of ‘New
York Feelings’ are by José Marín,
the guitarist who comes with me”.
“I have a lot of affection more
than for the song, for the title. I played it for a good
friend of mine, Carlos, who’s also an artist and
lives in the castle of Castellar. A bohemian, a charming
guy. It starts off with a really jazzy part... And he
told me: “These fandangos aren’t from Huelva
or anything, they’re from the world (‘del
mundo’)”. That’s what they’re
going to be called, I answered. This fandango has a particularity
and it’s that within all the harmonic mess that
I wanted to do to give it another air, in the middle there’s
a set of lyrics from a folk fandango, but with accompaniment
with a different type of harmony. I wanted the fandango’s
trademark to be there. Sometimes we’re guilty of
being too simplistic. We say this is a fandango because
it’s in three time, but other things can be in three
time. I wanted a fandango with folk lyrics which would
be automatically recognized”.
Is that emphasis right which is made
for it to sound flamenco?
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Daniel Casares
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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“We’re flamencos. That cante,
however, has accompaniment totally different from the
traditional one. In reality, the fact of keeping up sounding
flamenco shouldn’t be an obligation which you have
to be worried about, but rather it has to come out naturally.
If you’re a flamenco you have to sound flamenco.
If you perform a work by Mozart on guitar, it’s
going to sound like flamenco somewhere. ‘El concierto
de Aranjuez’ can’t sound the same by Paco
de Lucía as by Andrés Segovia. Sounding
flamenco can’t be an imposition. If we’re
flamencos, we’re going to sound like flamencos”.
But is it hard to do new things playing
by flamenco’s rulebook?
“I don’t see it so hard;
I think it’s a question of preparation both within
flamenco and informing yourself on other types of music.
Different kinds of music are related and they’re
not exempt from blending and enriching one another. It
is true that it’s bold to say that I mix flamenco
and jazz. To be able to say that you mix flamenco with
any other type of music, you have to lead two lives. One
life to understand flamenco really well and another to
understand jazz really well or whatever music it is. And
as far as I know, we don’t lead two lives”.
There are exceptional cases of double
lives such as that of Jorge Pardo...
“Fortunately, we’re using
them and we’ll keep on drawing on what those monsters
did. The best thing they have is that they created a style
of their own. If Jorge Pardo has to play within a jazz
context, he doesn’t grab his jazz toolbox. And when
he has to play in a flamenco context, he doesn’t
grab his flamenco toolbox. He’s created a style
of his own which is apt for both things, for Brazilian
music... or if he plays classical. There’s a musician’s
personality. That’s where we all have to be, creating
our own style, our own way of expressing ourselves and
for it to be adaptable. And that’s really hard;
many times I myself don’t even recognize myself”.
There are a lot of influences in
your guitar. Who are your references? You’re usually
compared to Vicente Amigo...
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| "Even
today, what Ramón Montoya did so many years
ago still seems really modern to me" |
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“Ha ha ha. Obviously,
for any guitarist in my generation, of course, the mirror
is Paco. Anyone here who says he hasn’t listened
to Paco is lying. Of course, there’s Manolo Sanlúcar,
Vicente Amigo, maestro Rafael Riqueni, who to me is...,
Niño Ricardo, Ramón Montoya, Sabicas...
Even today, what Ramón Montoya did so many years
ago still seems really modern to me. That says a lot about
his work. Obviously, the best way to learn is by listening
to others and drawing on them. Many times when people
size something up, they tend to make the mistake of comparing.
I don’t know if it’s because people aren’t
knowledgeable and it’s a way of balancing things.
But it makes me livid that, like they’ve done, I’m
compared to Paco or they say that I’m his successor.
My God, I can’t stand that to be said! It’s
a lack of respect towards them. I’m frequently a
victim of those types of comments”.
With regards to people saying that I’m
like Vicente... Vicente has created a very personal style
which is his own; nobody’s going to take that away
from him. But Vicente helped us, just like Paco or just
like Manolo Sanlúcar with ‘Tauromagia’...,
opening guitar’s harmony up a little bit more. And
he started to use other kinds of scales, tonalities, harmonic
development, with a texture that is sweeter, smoother,
prettier, competing a little with Paco’s seriousness,
flamencura and ‘savagery’, or with Manolo
Sanlúcar’s elegance or Gerardo Núñez’s
technique.
Automatically, as soon as one of us does
a chord which opens up the harmony a little or we use
a technique that’s a little more savage, you’re
copying Vicente or you’re copying Paco. And they’re
the same tools for everybody. I can also use the same
chord which Vicente uses. That chord doesn’t belong
to Vicente; he’s known how to use it really well
and you have to be grateful to him for giving us the chance
to see that that harmonic development or that chord can
also be used to be more complete. That doesn’t mean
that I want to seem like Vicente; not at all. If words
had owners, then we wouldn’t be able to talk”.
“El Limonar is the neighborhood
in Málaga where I was born. I didn’t have
a malagueña composed or intended for my album.
I had a soleá which I recorded. And listening to
it a few days later, I didn’t like it. I told Manolo
Toro, who’s produced the album with me, that we
were going to take it off. He told me I was crazy, that
the song was great. That was on a Thursday and I promised
to come back on Monday with a malagueña. I said
a malagueña just as easily as I might have said
something else. And I closed myself up in my room and
it came out. I’m really happy; I like it a lot.
I think it’s the prelude to the type of score I’m
going to do from now on; that stuff which is a little
more relaxed, more intimate”.
That piece is with guitar, but on
the album there’s a lot of instrumentation...
“Yeah, we wanted to do a production
which was a little different, like American productions,
in the laboratory sense. Treat ourselves to sticking in
a little detail at a moment in a song which might not
even be heard because it’s low in the mix, but it
embellishes the whole and there’s a reason for everything.
It’s good for flamenco to go into those dynamics.
Now there are a lot of flamenco albums with guitar, box
drum and clapping. I think flamenco has to be taken a
little to that point of big productions, since there are
really good musicians. For example, the tangos ‘Sureño’
is eight minutes long and if there was only guitar, box
drum and clapping, you end up fed up with flamenco. If
you work on it in the production, you stick in other sounds,
some electronic loops, a mandola, some African choruses,
some changes in tone... Why not? I think if those elements
are there, you have to use them”.
| ‘La niña de
la C/Ángel’ (alegrías) |
“They’re alegrías
dedicated to my mother. My mother was a pretty girl who
used to live on Calle Ángel de La Línea.
All her suitors there used to call her that. And it goes
por alegrías, which is a style she loves”.
“It’s a song which, if you
just pay attention to the guitar, is really flamenco with
typical, usual alzapúas (thumb technique) of the
tangos which used to be played and which are played nowadays
at tablaos. But it’s accompanied with a modern production.
And I think there’s the play a little bit of the
fusion with flamenco which is more flamenco, although
it’s just at instants, with accompaniment made from
the mechanisms we have. Doing new things or not is racking
your brain with the harmony, the way we all do, adding
strange chords. That’s going to sound strange and
modern for sure. But I also think the flamenco stuff can
be highlighted and made to sound modern. That’s
what I say... I don’t know”.
Now then, you guitarists aren’t
bored...
“We’re a little neurotic.
Ha ha ha”.
| ‘Mi canastera’
(soleá por bulerías) |
“Personally, I like it quite well
because of the direction it’s gone in. At first,
we weren’t very sure of the production layout. We
started to see what would happen, to add things, I even
eliminated falsetas... It was a song which evolved while
it was being recorded. Here a musician collaborates, cellist
Nicasio Moreno, and with him at the end of the song we
take the soleá por bulerías to an entirely
different ground. I also stuck in a mandola... which is
when I have the most fun, when I stick in mandolas, clapping,
jaleos. When you’re stressed with the guitar, you
really enjoy yourself with some jaleos, olé, oléééé”.
“It’s a tribute to my father,
who hasn’t passed away. It was simply a question
of justice because he’s always kept an eye on me,
but without ever meddling in my life as an artist. My
parents have never gotten involved to such an extent that
it’s affected me for better or for worse. They’ve
kept an eye on my career, but they’ve never wanted
to be in the limelight. If they’ve been given seats
in the front row, they’ve sat in the last row. They’ve
never gone around as an artist’s parents, and I
know a few. And the only thing they do is harm their own
children. No parent wants to hurt his own child, but the
side effect in those cases is usually negative. I have
to be grateful to both my mother and my father, each of
whom I dedicate a song to, for how they’ve handled
my life and theirs. ‘Caballero’ is a guitar
taranta, although I improvised the end at the studio...
It turned out strange as far as tonalities go, but I like
it; I surprised myself a little”.
It’s interesting that the studio
is also part of the creation...
“Manolo Toro, who is the one who’s
produced the album with me, has been a real discovery.
I think without him, the album ‘Caballero’
would be a different record, with the same songs, with
the same titles, but sounding differently. At the production
level, he’s a musician who’s really well prepared
and at the technical level, he’s a great technician.
He’s made a lot of things easier for me. And the
most important thing is that he’s been totally involved
in the album. It wasn’t just about hiring the studio;
he’s taken the album as his own. All that comes
out in the sound afterwards”.
Coinciding with the release of ‘Caballero’,
something exceptional is happening in your career; the
collaboration with Cecilia Bartoli...
“It’s all been thanks to
Universal. She’s put on the album ‘María’
that song ‘Yo que soy contrabandista’ which
has a little bit of guitar and she does it live. In fact,
on the album it’s recorded with an orchestra and
live, she and I do it alone, which is quite a responsibility...
and mind-bending. And I’m not saying it to be polite,
but if she’s great as an artist, you can’t
even imagine as a person... she’s unique. She’s
pure energy.
The score is really old and it reveals
what flamenco might have been in that period which there
are so few traces of...
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| "The
fact of keeping up sounding flamenco shouldn’t
be an obligation" |
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It’s like a preview. I flipped
out when I was sent the song which, by the way, was two
or three days before doing it live at the Palau de la
Música in Barcelona. She gave me the freedom to
do what I wanted. I add a really free, improvised guitar
intro... and it doesn’t matter if it lasts half
an hour, because she loves flamenco. When I listened to
it, it really surprised me a lot and also because it comes
from the classical world, which is very closed, very cultured.
I was surprised and I was glad to know that there were
people in that period who already had flamenco inside
and in that way. And Cecilia Bartoli lives flamenco with
unbelievable energy and positiveness. That’s the
last song in her show and I can assure you that for the
two hours of the concert she’s looking forward to
that song coming up. And we’re already talking about
future projects. Within two years, something together
might come out. Amazing.
The piece has a bulería, malagueña
feeling... What do you think of it musically?
Yeah, it would be like a ‘malagueña-ized’
bulería, you could say. It has 3x8 time, it starts
off with typical malagueña harmony, then it shifts
abruptly por bulerías. It comes from something
really mellow and suddenly, it goes into incredible energy.
And the turns she does with her voice are very malagueña-like,
even in the harmony it has, between malagueña and
fandango, it’s something old-time. And then the
bulería comes in with that energy she has and everything
comes upwards in a surprising way. I’ve already
taken it to my ground, to my way; she’s given me
every freedom in the world and she wants me to take it
even further to my ground. I always do it with respect,
but she’s the first one to encourage me to do so.
It’s a step forward for flamenco...
We can donate flamenco to other kinds
of music, but to flamenco... why not? We’re working
on sharing.
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