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Interview with José
Antonio Galicia, percussionist and composer:
"My music is neither flamenco nor jazz,
but free music"
Silvia Calado Olivo. Madrid, September 2003
Photos: Daniel Muñoz
| Cancer overcomes José Antonio Galicia.
The Madrilenian percussionist and composer died in Ibiza on the night of September
28th, 2003 at the age of 54, after four years of struggle with the disease. Flamenco-world.com
offers, as a sort of obituary, the musician's very words, included in an interview
held just a few weeks ago. Soon to be published is the photo gallery of the tribute
paid to him by his fellow jazz and flamenco artists on September 2nd, 2003 at
Madrid's Cuartel del Conde Duque, an evening of encounters and musical comradeship
which turned out to be his farewell. |
He has the worst of enemies against him, but wields a weapon to fight it:
a vital optimism mainly nourished by music. José
Antonio Galicia is a key part of flamenco's evolution in the last thirty years,
one of those 'others' who, more than heterodox, declare themselves free. Camarón,
Paco de Lucía, Enrique Morente, Carmen Linares, Jorge Pardo, Gerardo Núñez...
the top ranks of flamenco have had the luxury of guiding themselves to the beat
marked by his drums, his tablas, his derbuka, his timpani, his cabassas... and
enjoying his presence. In the meantime, he has composed for baile, for films and
has led (and leads) one of the groups that has most influenced current flamenco
groups. The serious illness he has suffered over the last few years has tried
to hinder the incessant creative career of the Madrilenian percussionist. However,
Gali never surrenders.
José Antonio Galicia
A flamenco
with drumsticks
"If I choose well, flamenco seems like the most beautiful music to me"
About
percussion
"You don't have to beat so often, just once in the right spot"
magazine@flamenco-world.com
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