Jesús Torres, flamenco guitarist. Interview

“I think ignorance causes a lot of boldness
in flamenco nowadays”

Silvia Calado. Madrid, March 2008

‘Viento del Norte’, track by track, by Jesús Torres

The batas de cola couldn’t keep on hiding him. Following an extensive career accompanying baile, guitarist Jesús Torres reveals his music. Although he says he has just made it because his memory fails him, ‘Viento del Norte’ is much more than a mnemonic exercise. The album is the result of a coherent selection, reorientation and development of pieces originally intended to be danced. Now asking to be heard is that music urged on by the movements of Antonio Gades, Mario Maya, Isabel Bayón, Rafaela Carrasco..., forged in a thousand tocaor battles, inspired by the migratory route which took him from south to north and from north to south... with a bird’s intuition.

Jesús Torres (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

How does the album ‘Viento del Norte’ come about?

For some time now, I’ve been assigned pieces, especially for baile. Set up such-and-such a number for me, I want to do a taranto, I want to do a soleá. And the latest jobs weren’t simply bailes, but well-rounded musical scores; they had a sense of beginning and end. I also have a bad memory; I forget my own music. So much so that sometimes I can hardly recover it for the life of me. And I had to do something, at least, to record it. Otherwise, as soon as you play the music it’s in the air and you don’t get it back. More than anything, out of a need to display what I do: this is my world. It isn’t focused as an album to sell. I don’t think anything of myself; I’m somebody who makes a living at this and I think it’s a bit of a pity that not even I can get my stuff back. It was simply a matter of redoing all that work I’d done in baile and other scores I had tucked away; making the effort to compile them and treat them in a more musical sense, without bearing in mind baile. It comes out of that sense, not out of any other aspiration. I had a little money saved, friends who gave me a hand... well then, I’m going to do it.

What was the work like adapting the baile scores?

They were assignments by people I was working with. When setting up a baile, I then try for it to be coherent. I don’t stick in a falseta which sounds like I don’t know what and then join it with another, until I make a sequence of falsetas. When I do something for baile I try for it to be musically coherent, and in reference to what’s being danced; visually coherent. That’s always helped me for it to have a circular sense, for it to have a beginning, development and conclusion, like a story. Removing the baile, there are always things you have to restructure because they don’t make sense if you don’t see it. It’s the same in essence, but since it’s just for listening to, you can’t work on it the same way as if it’s just for baile. Each song had to be taken, redone and given another sense.

What do toque for baile and solo toque demand?

When you play for dancing, apart from the fact that the music is mine and it’s filled with what I feel and what I decide at the musical level or the gut level, it’s really influenced by what I see. What comes out is always mine, but a type of communication is set forth depending on what I have in front of me: you tell me and I answer you. I don’t do a baile with my eyes closed. There’s an interaction. And when it’s simply music, I’m just myself, with the sensation that I want to give it. Apart from the fact that I make myself visual pictures, since music also has something visual; it isn’t just listening. To me, it’s pictures. I imagine a visual line with a sense. At the origin, they’re the same, since I understand that it always has to be coherent. Afterwards, with the one dancing it’s a dialogue and when I’m alone it’s what I want to explain and my vision of the music coming out of me. I also think about the one listening; it has to be balanced. I can’t shut myself up inside. Without prostituting yourself in any sense, you have to put yourself on the side of the one listening to you. I do something, I record it and afterwards I sit down and listen; I can’t be deep inside of me because you don’t have vision. Isabel Bayón helped me out a lot because I give her everything I do, since she has the ability to put herself on the outside. And I see that she’s right. She’s a ‘partenaire’ who helps me, who gives me another vision.

Jesús Torres (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

Does a point of legibility need to be found in the music?

I think it’s fine that you’re this and that this is what comes out of you, but what you offer is for listening to. Of course you can be as obtuse as you like, but I’d like for the one listening to imagine it as he wants to, but for him to understand what I’m trying to say. Or for him to interpret it however he wants to, but for him to be able to interpret it, not for him to come up empty.

How was the recording process carried out?

It wasn’t too hard. I recorded the guitar in Madrid at Arcadio Marín’s studio. He doesn’t have it at a professional level; he and a few friends simply record there. And I had a place which is important to me, where I was really mellow. To me it’s fundamental for both the person helping you with the controls and the place to keep you at ease. In that respect, I had the help of Arcadio, who’s someone really dear to me and who’s always helped me a lot. And then in Seville at the studio Arcángel and Juan Carlos Romero had, I recorded vocals, some odds and ends on guitar and percussions. It was also really comfortable to work there. All the ones helping me on the album have been people I get along with; everything’s flowed really well.

Jesús Torres (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

What criteria had priority when choosing the repertoire?

The first thing was for it to be a coherent album; for it to have a common axis, for it to make sense. That translates into the music one makes being what one is. In my case, I didn’t have to make many efforts when ruling out songs because they didn’t have much to do with the whole. Each one is different, but they have a minimum common axis. The selection was really natural. The only hard thing came when distributing them within the album, for them to project different sensations. Isabel also helped me with that. Let’s see what I’d like to listen to first, then I’d like to come down a little bit and relax, then give me...

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