Interview with Gerardo Núñez, guitarist

"Flamenco guitarists have to make a
concerted effort to earn respect"

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

His relationship with Pro Tools is strictly out of necessity, something he just stumbled across. "I'm not a technical person at all, you know". There's a stark contrast between the black and white print of a fresh-faced Gerardo Núñez accompanying Tío Borrico, and this other Gerardo Núñez fully immersed in the digital era. A quarter of a century has lapsed between the two scenes. He clicks 'play': "I'm gonna show you a rumba with Perico Sambeat and Paolo Fresu... this is where the guitar would come in". He fiddles around with some other controls… "this is a passage from Israel Galván's farruca". We're listening to music in the process of germination, an album in a fetal state. And it's an album on which the guitarist from Jerez insists on a natural creative process, a luxury he can afford given the "solvency" his experience affords him. So you can catch the odd glimpse of outside influences - influences which have crept in to enrich flamenco, even though flamenco influences seldom penetrate into the outside world. And he speaks critically of this situation, just as he speaks critically of the situation which led him to produce the album 'La nueva escuela de la guitarra flamenca' (The new school of flamenco guitar), confronting the difficulties imposed by the socio-political context on flamenco guitarists trying to express themselves.

What projects do you have in the pipeline?

As soon as the youngsters' project was complete ('La nueva escuela de la guitarra flamenca', ACT 2003), I started recording my new album. Apart from the new compositions, I want to revive some songs which were lying around gathering dust, songs like this rumba, and a soleá por bulerías, and that farruca by Israel Galván. They haven't been released, but we have played them live. Some other artists have already contributed to the disc, but even so I want to make a guitar album rather than include lots of instruments. The rumba, for example, was chosen explicitly so I could invite some other artists to play. I don't want this to end up sounding similar to previous projects like 'Jazzpaña' and 'Cruce de Caminos', though there'll be overtones because they're all songs I've written.

	Gerardo Núñez (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

So what about the new material?

It's nothing like the Carmen Linares stuff, the work I did harmonizing the vocals on 'Un ramito de locura'. I don't know how to explain it. For example the things I was playing… there's no one particular style or trend, just my style, my approach to flamenco guitar, it isn't easily classified. It's hard to explain music.

But I'm sure you could identify some influences...

There are influences, sure, we've crossed flamenco with everything we could think of. These days flamenco guitarists play harmonies drawn from any type of music, they've got all kinds of influences.

And do these crosses just come about naturally?

Obviously, yeah. I never tried to do anything with the intention of it sounding like another type of music. I improvise a lot when I'm practicing; I only study my repertoire when I have to go to a concert. Once in a while you come up with a passage, I don't know why, it just comes out of nowhere… you think it's good, you home in on it and you try to memorize it. I don't have a well-established system for songwriting. I'm aware the music I make at times can sound too naïve, but I don't want to forego that natural feeling that comes through in the music, that comes from inside. If the result is really flashy, then so be it. If the result is something really simple, then I know if I build on it, harmonize it and rework it I can make something maybe more intellectual, more worthy.

I try never to lose that sensation of spontaneity. I don't like taking three days fishing around for a bass line; I don't like taking a week to find the right chord. That's why the result is always pretty spontaneous, though listeners might think it's just the opposite, it's been carefully elaborated, is very technical, a virtuoso piece… No, I don't like carefully studied music. I like music to be something that just springs out of nowhere… As for influences, who knows? When you like something it sticks in your unconscious. There are times I've spent days on end wondering how I came up with a certain melody.

What kind of music moves you?

At home we listen to all kinds of stuff these days, in MP3 format - that's great. I put all my albums, even unreleased stuff, onto a CD, then I make a file on the laptop and I save it all. It gives me really easy access to music. What falseta did Paco de Lucía play on that disc? One click and I'm straight there. Depending how the moment takes us we might listen to Compay Segundo... I sample a loop that I love, and it drives everyone nuts. We listen to all the flamenco anthologies. As for jazz there's this beautiful album I'd like to recommend: 'New York Flamenco Reunion' by Marc Miralta, essential for music lovers in general and one of the best Spanish-made jazz recordings of all time. They're all top-notch: Colina, Perico... And since Carmen (his partner, the bailaora and choreographer Carmen Cortés) uses music for her warm-up and stretch classes we listen to all kinds of stuff.

Globalization in the form of technology, is creeping into all kinds of music - and flamenco is no exception. Do you think that has an enriching effect?

Globalization's been around for a while now. For us it began back in the days when we could buy a tape player and listen to other kinds of music. Before that we just had the record player and our Sabicas albums... in those days Paco de Lucía was just starting to get attention, but he still wasn't so successful. And we learned from it, because we're musicians who learned to play by ear. I have to admit sometimes I think I was silly to never have made the effort to study music. I understand music, sure, and I can pick up a score and read it, but at a snail's pace. The American notation system I use to communicate with jazz musicians is something I've picked up as and when I've needed it to be able to play with them. So anyway, jazz albums started to arrive in Spain, and the guitar started to soak up ways and ideas borrowed from all over the world. These days everything's made that much easier, but even back then you could pick up some interesting stuff. Flamenco's a vibrant, dynamic music which absorbs outside influences, and as such flamenco musicians were also greatly influenced by symphonic rock. King Crimson and Robert Fripp drove us wild... In Jerez, though, even though we listened to that music we knew flamenco was our thing.

And I remember back then that flamenco guitarists were outcasts musically. Spanish jazz artists frowned on flamenco guitarists because we didn't know how to read music and we didn't know what we were doing. I've been through that. But then the years passed and we've seen that all those people who looked down on us, who treated us like second-class musicians, they're a dying breed now and they're coming over to our way of thinking. We might've listened to King Crimson or Pink Floyd but we knew where we were, we knew what we were doing and what we really liked, and that was el flamenco de Jerez.

Gerardo Núñez (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

Does it work both ways - does flamenco rub off on other types of music?

Not much. I think flamenco's been influenced a whole lot more than it's influenced other genres. The most jazz musicians have managed is to use the twelve types of bulería rhythm, or to use the Spanish or flamenco scales and do what they can with them. It's like in an American movie when they say "España", "música flamenca" and out come a bunch of Mexicans. There's the odd musician who's been more deeply influenced. Jazz musicians are the ones who've taken the greatest interest, and what they want is to play por bulerías, and they learn the time signature, but to make flamenco music you have to sit down and learn to listen. Knowing how to play guitar accompaniment is essential. A musician can really think of himself as a flamenco musician when he's at a fiesta with his drums or his bass, and he can blend into the mêlée. And if they play bulerías, then bulerías it is, and if they play a toná then OK - toná. That's one thing, but using those twelve compases por bulerías like Chick Corea is another, that's not flamenco... I mean, of course, everyone can pick out the bits they like, but it hasn't had a great influence... You go back and listen to Paquito D'Rivera and those guys and what they're doing is giving things a Spanish flavor, that's all. You hear the word "flamenco" and suddenly Chick Corea's 'Spain' starts playing. Just because you can dance to it doesn't make it flamenco...

How is the music you make evolving?

I can see a big difference between my first releases and those I'm making nowadays. Physically there's also a big difference because before I had a quiff and I used to spend two hours combing it... The difference is that at the outset, since there's no strict school for guitarists, we play and we have to write songs, both at the same time; you could say the music I made was more basic, simpler, but it was also more spontaneous. Now, after all these years of playing with loads of different people, of practicing and all that, you could say it's got more depth to it… or more solvency. Musically you're more 'solvent'. Technically speaking your technique deteriorates as the years pass. We kicked ass when we were twenty, we were in peak physical form. I've always tried to let my career follow its natural course, musically speaking and in general. I never try and dream something up to fit in with something else, whatever I come up with that's the way it is and that's the way it stays.

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