Echegaray, flamenco fusion group. Interview.

"Echegaray is a sound that's descended
from flamenco, but it's wide open"

Silvia Calado Olivo. Madrid, December 2003
Translation: Gary Cook

The backrooms of flamenco are still a hotbed of fusion creativity. In the same way the backing group at Los Canasteros tablao broke away to form Ketama, something's been cooking up behind the scenes at Joaquín Cortés and Antonio Canales's shows over the last seven years, and that something is Echegaray. The group, founded by percussionists from both companies, related to the Porrina dynasty, aims to reach a new audience outside of the traditional flamenco following. And to do so they have "a new sound", drawing on all sorts: "from rock to hip-hop, taking in everything in between", executed with plenty of rhythm, sung with a hint of irony and protest. Tara tok tok tok tok tok. Chaka tataka tata tock.

	Echegaray

The story of Echegaray can be traced back to a Joaquín Cortés U.S. tour seven years ago. Bandolero, one of the band members, recalls that in New York the bailaor "asked Ramón Porrina and me to come up with a percussion intro. We prepared a three or four minute thing, it came out pretty cool. We worked together a lot, so we already had stuff more or less worked out." They liked the result so much that they decided to take things a step further. "Wanna start a group? And from that moment on, we started getting together on the tours, adding to what we had, pulling in new people: Piraña, who back then was 'el niño'; El Morito, who was always around; Joselín, who writes songs and wanted in; with José Antonio Carmona too... Things started to take shape with the six of us, and off we went."

The group soon started to get requests here and there to spice up recordings. Vicente Amigo used them on the rumba 'Tatá' on 'Ciudad de las ideas'; Montse Cortés on the tangos 'Azul' taken from 'Alabanza'; Ketama on plenty of "bits and pieces"; Pepe Habichuela on his 'Yerbagüena' album... And on stage Echegaray have worked not only with many of flamenco's big names, but also big names from the world of international rock-pop like Lenny Kravitz or Ricky Martin. Bandolero comments that they feel very fortunate to have had all these breaks. He admits that "having a name that's familiar, or being a friend or relative of someone who's made it, is really a great help. I have to thank my lucky stars I'm a musician and I found myself where I am! I mean how many people are out there trying to make it happen, young guys who play amazingly well and don't have any kind of backing. Someone's gotta help them."

The precursor to the group's studio début is 'Directo desde Casa Patas', a live album featuring, among others, Ramón el Portugués, Guadiana, Potito, La Barbería del Sur, Montoyita, and Antonio Carbonell. "The idea for the disc was ours. Every time we played live, since we didn't have a very large repertoire before, we had to fill an hour or ninety minutes, and we had to invent stuff. So we drummed up tracks for our guests to sing over. And one day we got together with Guadiana, uncle Ramón, El Potito, El Paquete and two dancers. And the guys were there who later paid for the disc, from Generaciones Music, an independent label. And it turned out well, I think it's an entertaining disc, everyone's open to everything."

And the name? It comes from the writer José Echegaray (1832-1916), a 'madrileño' who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904, but who was also a politician and one of nineteenth century theater's leading exponents, whose plays such as 'La esposa del vengador' and 'Mancha que limpia' were highly successful. But they stumbled upon him indirectly, through the street in central Madrid which bears his name, a favorite stomping ground for the group's members. Bandolero comments that "back then when we were with the group we did everything in New York or Australia, and Ramón - in a moment of madness, I put it down to the jet-lag - came up with a funny name: The 42nd Street Gypsies. And then it came to me: Echegaray Street Band. A bit grittier, it sounded all right."

Bandolero (Photos: Daniel Muñoz)

And the fact of the matter is that we're talking about one of the flamenco hot-spots in the Spanish capital. "We delved a little deeper and we discovered that street is a hotbet of art, literature, bullfighting, theaters, actors, old time cantaores like Manuel Torre, Antonio Chacón, Marchena... Enrique Morente told us there used to be a streetlight in front of Los Gabrieles, and the cantaores would lean against it and spend a good few hours waiting for the owner of some bar to come and ask them to liven up the atmosphere a little. It's a street so full of arts that we've grown to love the name. And it has something to do with what we are too: musicians who love art."

And with this illustrious surname they also baptize their début album, released in Autumn 2003 by the Gran Vía Musical company. As to the contents of the disc, Bandolero warns that: "it isn't flamenco and I don't want to say it is - I mean I don't think it's disrespectful, I hope nobody's that sensitive, but I don't want to try to fool anyone either. Evidently we all have flamenco backgrounds, we work with flamenco musicians, we've played and continue to play accompaniment for dancers, we play with cantaores, with guitarists..." To sum up, "Echegaray is a sound that's descended from flamenco, but it's wide open. It's the result of our assimilating the musical information we've been building up over the years. Being percussionists, we've taken it upon ourselves to learn, I mean we can't limit ourselves to flamenco; you have to mix a little. And that drives you to listen to Brazilian albums, to hip-hop, to salsa..."

Piraña (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

Echegaray is the result of this dabbling. 'Flamencos' they are, no mistake. But Bandolero makes an incision here: "As musicians, when we play flamenco we certainly are young flamencos, the same as people we work with like Poveda or Potito. As a group, though, we aren't. We don't turn our backs on flamenco - it's what we like best, as you can see from several cuts on the album." And he adds: "I can be blown away by discs of other types of music because I like everything from rock right through to classical and everything in between. But listening to a guy sing a soleá with a guitar backing, that's when the earth really moves for me."

And what of the critics when they have the blessing of their family, the Porrina clan. What does Ramón el Portugués think of his son becoming a rapper? Bandolero laughs and replies that he thinks "he finds it funny." He explains, too, why the half dozen members of the group are both percussionists and vocalists. "Being percussionists, our way of singing is through rhythms. We don't have great voices, we can't sing like a flamenco cantaor, nor like a virtuoso pop singer. Julio Iglesias we aren't; Manuel Torre neither. One of us starts singing one day and another joins in... Ramón was first; he got up one morning, picked up his guitar and started singing. Him of all people - if he can do it, why not me? We all do the best we can. Besides, there are so many of us, if we want to make ends meet we can hardly afford to pay backing singers too. Anyway that was all part of the idea: percussion and male 'coros', that wasn't so common on the flamenco circuit."

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