Jesús de Rosario, guitarist. Flamenco interview

“The most important thing to me is knowing how
to share music with my fellow guitarists”

Silvia Calado. Madrid, November 2005
Translation: Joseph Kopec

There is already an outstanding pupil. As its first fruit, ‘La Nueva Escuela de la Guitarra Flamenca’ (‘The New School of Flamenco Guitar’) puts forth the début album by Jesús de Rosario. The Madrilenian guitarist, after creating so many minutes of music for baile, felt the need to see his own music materialize. And he has recorded it with the support of Gerardo Núñez and collaborators of the likes of Tomatito, Sara Baras and Antonio Carmona. ‘Sin tanto’ includes music ripened between hotel rooms, the recording studio and the neighborhood of Cañorroto, a place where guitarists still get together to share their restlessness.

Jesús de Rosario (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

How did you realize the time had come to bring out your music after composing for so many others?

The truth is that, personally, I needed to make an album. I'm lucky enough to have been playing since I was a little boy; I was already playing the guitar when I was four or five years old. My father -El Entri- the poor guy has suffered a great deal for me and has come down hard on me to study. And you start picking things up, you start playing with artists... The album was a necessity on my part.

How did you compose ‘Sin tanto’?

I started creating by listening to Rafael Riqueni, Manolo Sanlúcar, Sabicas... my father is crazy about him. He was the first one he listened to and he's fascinated by his way of playing the guitar. And that's what I listened to when I was a little boy. Afterwards you go with leading figures and you're in a dressing room and you get an idea, a flourish, you pick up the guitar and it comes to your hands.

The recording was done at Gerardo Núñez's studio...

I already had three or four songs recorded as a sort of pre-demo. But a guitarist would see me and ask me when I was going to record. Another one would see me and say the same thing. I've been tortured for at least four years. And the thing is that I really didn't have the time. I was really tied up with the music for Sara Baras, with ‘Juana la Loca’, as musical director with compositions which were eventually released on a CD. And I finally said: that's it. Talking to Carmen Cortés, she told me that Gerardo Núñez had set up a studio at home where the guitar sounded really good. I went there, talked to Gerardo and he began to see what I was like. At the studio, we guitarists are a real drag; we chew over a couple of notes a dozen times. And he told me not to complicate things, to get straight to the point. The first thing you do is what you should use... because if you record two tracks here and two there, in the end you don't even know what you want. I listened to him a little at the beginning and then... a lot of things came out for me at the studio. I didn't go to record with the songs already put together, but with a structure and then we edited them. And they've turned out to be really nice songs.

What styles did you play?

On solo guitar there's a minera and a rondeña. I also played two rumbas; one of them with Paquete, who was really good to me. And it's a rumba we've dedicated to Manzanita because he was like a brother to my father. He lived at my grandmother's house for nearly two years; he was part of the family. I heard the news of his death when I was working in Costa Rica with Antonio Canales and I swear I cried for over an hour. It really had an impact on me. I picked up my guitar, and right there in the room, a phrase came out which is the one I've left in the rumba. I went to Paquete's studio and I ended up really happy with it. The other rumba is with lyrics by Juan Antonio Salazar, sung by Saúl Quirós and Miguel de la Tolea. Juan Antonio also sings; I seized a little piece of him there, because he gives his songs a personal touch. Everyone's sung his songs, but nobody's heard his voice. And there it is on the album.

	Jesús de Rosario (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

There are bulerías, aren't there?

I did three bulerías. There have to be bulerías. So people can have fun on clapping.

The Cañorroto trademark must be very present...

The truth is that we have a way of playing that quickly gives us away. We're not hidden-away guitarists. I go to my Uncle Ramón Jiménez's house, to El Viejín's house or to David Cerreduela's house and I tell them listen to this, what do you think? And they give me advice; this is good, not that, try it like this, how nice. And we're like that at everybody's house all day long. Now when I go home, El Viejín might come over.

That's like in the neighborhood of Santiago in Jerez, isn't it?

We're all in the neighborhood. Five or six of us guitarists live within about fifty meters of each other. Each is working out there with the leading figures, but we always see each other around the neighborhood. And we show each other things. And I think the most important thing is knowing how to share my music with my fellow guitarists. Because before, as my father used to tell me, guitarists would hide from the rest so that they wouldn't take their flourishes. How unbelievable. When sharing is so great.

Getting back to the bulerías...

I played one of them with Tomatito. I was lucky to have him play and Antonio Carmona on percussion, who are the two strongest banners for the bulería. I thought about it at the studio because Lucky Losada suggested it to me. He told me yes, but if there weren't a lot of staccatos or a lot of scales because he knows the Cañorroto accent lies in the staccatos, the speeds, the really fast scales. And as it was, he recorded... and he did a scale faster than me! He told me he'd stuck in a short little scale in the middle. The truth is that I really enjoyed myself at the studio with them.

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