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José Antonio Galicia, a flamenco with drumsticks

"If I choose well, flamenco seems like
the most beautiful music to me"

S.C.O. Madrid, September 2003

What was your first contact with flamenco like?

I began by playing another kind of music, more or less hard rock. Then you start meeting musicians and discover people and different formulas of music. I started getting more into the world of bossa nova and jazz and, of course, inevitably, if you were in the jazz world, the flamenco world comes to you by itself, it guides itself alone and you have to see it.

	José Antonio Galicia

It's curious that jazz opened the way, isn't it?

Yes, and the thing is that they're like very parallel kinds of music, similar and with a lot of things in common; that's why they attract each other. And that was the beginning, more or less. You need at least five years to track down a kind of music, I mean, there are long periods of musical coexistence. I've known flamenco for a long time, since before beginning to play with the group Dolores... And that's at least thirty years.

And do you recall what attracted you about flamenco back then?

The music in itself, because then all the folklore thing the jazz world or the flamenco world has, because they're highly similar in everything, you start to like it little by little. All the dresses with a train, the castanets, the hats, the horses and all those things are like more random, but afterwards you begin to realize that's what that music has produced. You take part in it, too, and you put on the hat... just like everyone else. And you do clapping... which you think is so easy and it turns out to be too much; you have to take care in everything you do. Respect makes it hard for you to get down and do it.

What musical similarities between jazz and flamenco would you point out?

First, I think there are some very clear structures in the case of jazz which measure certain times, which have a harmony and which you have to improvise on. That is where a world of communication appears. The same in the case of flamenco, there's another structure, the harmony and a series of styles, the different musical themes, and each one has a different harmony and a rhythmical formula; that is, which closes, leaving the rhythm in a specific place... There is a series of established formulas and they are also improvised on. On doing so, new things appear. And basically that's the similarity, in structure and in result.

What planes do you situate either music on? Do you draw up borders between them?

I don't have this thing all worked out so far. And people like my music for that very reason. When I have it all worked out they might not like it so much...

You've developed the flamenco side of your music together with la crème de la crème of cante. There are collaborations which are milestones such as 'La leyenda del tiempo' ('The Legend of Time') by Camarón.

That was the period which brought me the closest to the world of flamenco. With the group Dolores first we met Paco de Lucía, who we did a series of records with and then the tours... which I didn't go on because the drums were a problem. Rubem did, with the congas, the box drum and so on, but at that time I was really hooked on the drums and didn't want to play anything else. Paco loved it but it was impossible, above all due to the sound equipment, because the guitar had to be heard. Equipment was needed which still didn't exist. So as sorry as I could be, I couldn't go on the tours with them. I did the recordings, though; Paco always called me for that. Next we met Camarón and with him it was just the opposite; what was needed there was a really loud drummer and so I had complete freedom.

We did a good tour with Camarón all summer long with I don't know how many performances... That's where you could see that the thing worked very well. Normally, it was in bullrings. I don't know, it was like too much. With Camarón we got more tuned into the flamenco universe because, although there's a bit of everything in 'La leyenda del tiempo', it had many serious styles. Besides, we used to go to see him sing with the solo guitar, through seguiriyas, through soleá... and then you realized that you're getting more and more involved in the world of flamenco, that you like it and that you don't want anything else, because it's the best there is. Last night I spent hours listening to Cifuentes' program on Radio 3; it plays music which is pure jazz; my room was oozing with jazz. Even so, if I choose well, flamenco seems like the most beautiful music to me.

José Antonio Galicia

Do you think it's what can give the most identity to what Spanish musicians can offer?

Of course.

And besides Camarón?

Of the other people I've collaborated with, Enrique Morente, for example, was another discovery because his flamenco is so free, very jazzy; it's another completely different concept. Within the fact that he sings soleá, seguiriyas, tarantos... he turns the styles into another world; that's why it's so much fun to play with him. I recently played for him in the Canaries and it was a real pleasure. Just listening to him, how he resolves everything, how he puts everything in its place, how he guides it...

Maybe, at that time, you taught each other...

I think so, I think we were exchanging all the while. With Jorge Pardo and Carles Benavent we can't forget jazz. We finish a flamenco tour and we go and play at a club. There's been a constant exchange there, in which each musician has developed in his own way.

Jorge Pardo says you were the first musician he met.

Oh yeah, he was thirteen years old when I met him, he had just bought a flute. A real delight... Then groups came out such as Dolores, Macaco and other groups that didn't last long. They were great groups because, since we felt like playing so much, we spent all day rehearsing just to go well-prepared and, of course, it always sounded good.

Carmen Linares has been another key colleague, hasn't she?

There's a record there with songs by García Lorca which is really good because Carmen Linares found the right balance between pure flamenco and music which is a little freer, which she really needed. It's really nice to see how starting with certain works an artist, shall we say, let's their hair down. Carmen has grown, just like Enrique Morente. What she's doing now with Gerardo Núñez and these people is wonderful. Her voice keeps getting better and better and she's a better and better person. She's a lady who knows how to take advantage of everything; not only does she evolve in her singing, but she's got better and better style. She calls me up and if I tell her that I'm not well, she calls someone else. If I tell her I'm going to try, she's delighted to have me. The last time, not long ago, I hadn't played for four months and I was a little nervous; I thought I wouldn't make it, but I felt really good and that boosts you up. She's a woman who gives you a lot of opportunities.

You've also put your accompaniment at the service of baile.

I've worked with bailaores such as Juan Ramírez, Antonio Canales... I would point out one thing that was really good and was called 'Los cinco bailaores' ('The Five Bailaores') at the tablao Zambra. That was an incredible battle. Imagine Joaquín Cortés, Antonio Canales, El Grilo, Adrián Galia and Joaquín Ruiz and all of them twenty-something, with legs of marble seeing who could out-step the rest. And if you weren't strong playing percussion they would laugh at you, so you had to give the sensation that you were laughing at them. It was a very good experience; all the flamencos came to see it every night.

(Suddenly more memories come to mind and he adds that) I also accompanied El Indio Gitano (The Gypsy Indian), who recently died of cancer because he didn't want to have a tracheotomy done on him. If they do that to a great cantaor, he'll never sing again in all his life. And he gave up living longer to go on singing. He lasted a month. He made a really good album with Gerardo Núñez, who he did a lot of things with... By the way, I worked with Gerardo on 'Flamencos en Nueva York', an album which sounded very jazzy, with some very beautiful songs. He's played in my group; we went around on tour when he was still very flamenco. He started to open up a bit more with our group. Right now he's one of the most open ones around, one of the ones I like most. Afterwards, he's always played with his wife, Carmen Cortés, and I've also done all the things they've put together with ballet.

And speaking of baile... You've been asked to do compositions on more than one occasion for some show or another.

Yes, I've composed for the New Flamenco Ballet, for Rafael Amargo... the last experience was with Teresa Nieto; it turned out to be very good because I did it by myself, singing and playing. That's a good example of what I do, which is neither flamenco nor jazz, but free music.

What characterizes those works?

The only time I've done something that was really free was the thing with Teresa Nieto, but the rest are things that they have you do. They come to you with the thing already wrapped in a package. "Look, Gali, you have to compose something that fits here". They give you a series of notes which condition the composition a lot, since they have to dance flamenco up there and you have to bear it in mind to be able to write a correct, coherent composition. Most of the time it's made-to-order. A different thing is music for films, because it's something more ethereal. In baile you have to measure the beats, the turns they're going to take, rehearse with them, break something you've composed because, though it's very nice, it doesn't fit with what they have in mind... However, with music for theater or films there's more freedom to express yourself.

And to close the circle, you've been carrying out a project of your own for years...

Yes, at the same time I was doing all those things we've talked about, I had my group with Pedro Sarmiento and Luis Escribano, working little, but whenever there's been a chance for a gala they've always been crazy about coming; they like it a lot. It's a very free thing musically, but you also have to yield to an idea, which is none other than that of being heard a lot, being very considerate to the person you have playing next to you. And I've changed very few people in that group; they've been really happy playing with me for twenty-some years. Now is when I'm putting together stranger groups. I might come out alone on percussion, with two cellos... but the pianist and the contrabassist have been with me since way back.

Next the guitarists... All the guitarists have been in my group at one point or another: Gerardo, Riqueni, Cañizares... And all of them are very happy to have done so. Later on it was noticeable because in the groups they've put together elsewhere, you sense a tiny bit of my stuff has remained. Things rub off somehow... Music is contagious; that's why it's very good to go and see people play, go to festivals, eat it all up. Then you go and rehearse and something suddenly comes out of you that you've seen some guy do, some detail that you liked or you might not even have realized. That's far from plagiarism; it's natural, necessary contagiousness. Flamencos have no complex about that; just the opposite, they ask you to do it for them again.

We've done a lot of festivals with the group. And we were at a very good moment now, but I've had this disease for four years and it doesn't let me go at the speed we were doing, which was very interesting in the pace of working, in the interior communication... It's when you don't want to stop and right then is when I get this thing. I had to have a lung operation and now... In this latest relapse I've been a little down, I thought I wouldn't come out of it, but you never know, we might be able to pick up that pace again, we'll see. When I'm positive things go better for me and I don't get so ill, but if I get depressed, if I get negative, I could die fast.

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