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INTERVIEW WITH JUAN MAYA 'MAROTE'. Guitarist.

August, 2001. Sacromonte, Granada

Juan Santiago Maya "Marote", (Granada, 1936) defined an era. For many knowledgeable people his name belongs on a short list of the most important flamenco guitarists of all time.

Marote's playing was, and continues to be very stylized, a well-informed mix of modern and traditional touches, sweetly expressive in his original and beautiful granaínas, aggressive in the rhythmic styles, qualities which have led him to accompany a wide range of well-known artists such as dancers Carmen Amaya, Antonio Gades, Manuela Vargas, María Rosa or Luisillo, and singers Fernanda and Bernarda de Utrera, Chocolate, Fosforito, Pansequito, Turronero, Rafael Farina, Bambino, Paquera de Jerez...

The setting couldn't be more dramatic. I climbed the steep, twisting road up Sacromonte and the hustle-bustle of downtown Granada at dusk gradually slipped away until the Alhambra, bathed in the last rays of the sun, dominated everything from the other side of the ravine. A few tourists, map in hand, wandering around the side streets. This is not Disneyland ladies and gentlemen...

For most of the twentieth century Granada was little more than the stepsister of Seville, Jerez, Cádiz and everything else that falls within the boundaries of the famous "golden triangle" which, according to flamencologists, defines the geographical limits of the cradle of flamenco singing. Nevertheless, during the early decades of the century Granada was an emblematic area for flamenco. Dancers such as Argentinita would visit the caves for a time, much like the young foreigners who nowadays fill Madrid's dance schools, to return to Paris months later announcing her new dances "directly from the caves of Sacromonte".

To reach the terrace of the caves owned by Juan Maya's family it is necessary to climb a long, steep exterior stairway. On the first step I glance upwards and there's the grand Marote seated as a king. He immediately gets up and comes nearly bolting down the stairs to receive me. He looks wonderful, in great shape, and his generous smile shines just as brightly as it did thirty-five years ago when he was the idol of an entire generation of young flamenco guitarists.

We settle down in a quiet corner of the terrace with a panoramic view of the Alhambra.

Marote family. Granada (Photo: Estela Zatania)

Juan's cousin, La Salvaora, who runs the caves and sings the traditional wedding dance ('baile de la novia') in the cuadro, is in charge of seeing to the efficient running of the household. She explains that she takes care of twenty to thirty relatives daily: "They have their homes down in the city, but they like to come here to eat, to enjoy the fresh air...". Amidst the noise of children running around, sandwich in hand, women laughing in the kitchen, old men chatting away, there is a young man with a small cell phone glued to his ear taking note of the various groups of tourists that have to be picked up from different parts of the city to be brought to the caves for the zambras or cuadros which are presented every night of the year.

Juan, when I recently asked Manuel Morao to give his opinion about the current state of flamenco guitar-playing, he said it sounded like today's guitarists are talking in Chinese, that perhaps they understand each other, but he can't make head or tail of it.

Morao said that? [he laughs]. Artistically speaking, strictly about guitar, people play better...but as far as accompanying and playing pure flamenco, that's being lost. I'd say more or less the same as Morao, that there are some very good guitarists who can really play, but as far as accompanying a singer or a dancer, coming out on stage and attending to the details, that if you're playing soleá, you play por soleá, if you're playing seguiriya, everyone knows you're playing por seguiriya...nowadays you can't tell what they're playing, and that's the truth. The other day I saw a very good guitarist playing with different tuning on three strings and everyone said "what's this?...what's he playing?" I said it was seguiriya, others said it was soleá...so what could he have been playing?! Why do they have to do that? All the fusion and mixing these days is very worrisome.

It used to be I could listen to a guitarist and say "that's so-and-so!", and I'd be right, because all of us had, within the limits of the flamenco forms, each one had something different, a way of playing. But nowadays all the kids play the same, and they ruin the cante with those chords. Before, you heard falsetas that were flamenco and gypsy-sounding and which were musically inspiring. Now they don't play falsetas any more...they play "pieces"...but what's all this about "pieces"?! First learn to accompany and play in compás! In other words, playing has evolved guitar-wise, but not flamenco-wise...not as far as I'm concerned...

My mother was quite a good dancer, and she was dancing almost until the day she died...in the caves. My father sang, he was a great cantaor, but he never went in for being professional...his name was Marote, and my mother was Pepa la Marota.

Where does this style of playing come from that you and Habichuela developed, a much higher level compared to what had come before?

From right here, it's ours. At least I didn't learn from anyone...no one can say "I taught Marote". I was brought up in the zambra...

And that famous strum of yours...where did that come from? Some people say you saw some Mexicans...

[He laughs]. That's mine...it's not from Mexico or Australia or anywhere else...it's because of my hands...

It's that I'm missing a piece of my finger [he stretches out his hands for me to examine, and sure enough, he's missing the first joint on both little fingers].

My fingers are like this from birth, and my son too! I saw how everyone strummed with four fingers and it sounded full, but since I couldn't, well, I invented that strum...to overcome the defect, know what I mean? And I'm glad to have had that difficulty because at least I've left something that's mine... And all over the world they play that rasgueado...and what's more, it has a name, "Marote's rasgueao".

Juan, when I recently mentioned on an Internet forum that I was going to meet with you for an interview, overnight my mailbox filled up with messages from all over the world, from Japan, to the U.S., to Germany... The flamencos remember you well, and what everyone wants to know is, why does it look like you're retired?

I've never stopped. I've traveled a great deal, you know that, twice around the world and back, and I lived in Madrid for forty years...now I'm happy...I'm used to being here. If something really really good comes along, okay, but to go back to the way it was before, running around crazy, that I don't want...

Whenever anyone mentions Granada and guitar-playing, the name Habichuela comes to mind, but the young people today hardly know who Marote is...

Not me...I'm just taking it easier than before...my parents were very old and I had a house here...

Yes, in '99... I had a bit of bad luck because I didn't realize that on the same day it was the Seville feria, and a lot of people didn't know about the homenaje, but it was good... José Mercé, Ketama, Rancapino, Pansequito, Niña Pastori, Aurora Vargas, La Macanita, Vicente Soto, Mario Maya...lots of people, I can't remember them all....

Are there flamenco fiestas in Granada the way there are in Seville, Jerez...?

There used to be more...artists used to make a living at the inns and all that...

But when there's a wedding or a baptism, is there a fiesta with singing and dancing?

Oh yes, of course!...that's never lost. But in Seville and Jerez they sing more bulerías...here the people like tangos best, but the tangos from here, from Granada. You always hear about the tangos de Badajoz, but no one knows the tangos de Granada, there great and they've hardly been recorded.

Why do you think Granada has less relevance than Seville or Jerez within the world of flamenco?

I think this....well, it's because nowadays everything is manipulated...and Granada's flamenco artists will settle for anything, I don't know, because there are really some very good people here, but when they put a show together they bring in outsiders, for the festivals and all that, and it's a shame.

I have some old records of María la Canastera and Manolo Amaya, and over and over you hear a voice shouting "ole Marote!". You must have been very young back then...

I was about fifteen...that was before I went to Madrid. We all had to go to Madrid to make the recording. I worked in nearly all the caves, but I started out as a dancer... I remember one morning when everyone had gone to the market to shop, and a group of tourists showed up so they had to have their zambra, but there wasn't any guitarist. I knew they kept the guitar in the room there, so I went and got it and played for the zambra. Later on when the boss came he said "how were you able to do the zambra?" and they all said "the kid...it was the kid who played", and the boss said "well from now on he's to be the guitarist!"

Well, everyone was poor, but I think we lived better back then. I lived in the cave. Of course now I've got my house, my Mercedes...but I still keep coming here. Nowadays it's too much, all the running around...

Very good ones! I worked with her and she always said that her grandfather was from Granada...for me that woman was....ever since then everything pales by comparison, I have never in my life seen, nor shall I ever see anyone dance better than that gypsy woman. I remember once when I was playing for her in a theater in Venezuela and a dancer came out, the best dancer in Venezuela at the time, he used to put maracas on his feet and he was very famous. He took Carmen Amaya out to dance but the guy finally had to sit down because Carmen was just too much... Then there was another time, in Mexico, we finished working and there wasn't anything else for another four days so Carmen took us all, the whole company, here, there, everywhere, she'd rent a big hall or whatever and the food and drink just kept coming...that woman was so generous...she was a very good person...it makes me cry whenever I talk about her...

No, I was right after him. Sabicas told me, with that way of talking he had, "son...it's good for you to be in that group". He was a very good friend of mine. One day Sabicas embraced me and said "I want to go to Spain...there's nothing here but skyscrapers...but I can't go back...". So I said "after all this time you can't return?". He was afraid...later on he returned and now he's well-known in Spain. For me he was a giant, and I really heard him plenty...

The record you made with Fernanda and Bernarda, according to some people, it's the best recording the sisters ever made...

I've got three with them, three longplays...you mean the one with the soleá...[he laughs]. That record went down in history, a lot of people like it, and I don't get it! Sometimes I put it on in the car to figure out what it has, and the fact is, I hadn't realized but it sounds very good. I really knew that gypsy well and she treated me like royalty...

Why do you suppose they made such a brusque change from Diego del Gastor to Marote? You're nearly as different as night and day.

They needed more punch, more strength... They came to Madrid the two of them and they heard me in Torres Bermejas. They said "do you want to record with us?" And so it was, and everything was fine, without rehearsals or anything...we recorded the whole record in one day, in about three hours. They sang very at ease with me, because Fernanda would say "ay, I can't sing in that tone". She didn't undertand about those things and I told her "if you sing in the other tone you're going to strain your voice and you're going to have a hard time" and she didn't believe it but I told her not to worry. Afterwards they both said "oh, what a pleasure!". Then they called me the following year to record again, and they came to Madrid looking for me.

Me and Habichuela got Paco del Gastor into Torres Bermejas in Madrid. Paco arrived playing very good bulerías but he had no rasgeuos, so the kid worked and worked and now today he's made quite a name for himself.

Gades is a fantastic person...and very hard-working...he got to where he is today because he deserved it. I remember once when we were in Madrid, at three o'clock in the morning, with my brother Manolete, with el Güito, my cousin Mario, and Antonio Gades came by with this car he had, a little Seat 600, and Antonio says "look where I just came from!". He stuck his shirt out the car window and squeezed it and water came out...from rehearsing...at three o'clock in the morning! And he went on to become Spain's most complete dancer. It's a crying shame the way they're dancing nowadays...you call that flamenco dancing?

Yes, she dances here in the caves, you'll see her later on... And my son is a guitarist, Pepe Maya, he just left for Japan with a cuadro of eight people he put together, for six months. He's a real professional and plays very well for baile and cante. It makes no sense to stay here in a tablao, it's not worth it...there used to be art in the tablaos...there were stars, but not any more...

Also very good...one hell of an artist, he did his own thing and was one of a kind. He'd come out with those bulerías and rumbas, that stuff he did, all that back and forth thing with the guitarists and the rest of the group, everyone copied him...that was his! And Morao, he's another one...he was a giant in his era, he played for la Paquera like no one else ever did...Manolo Sanlúcar and I played for her, but it was much better with Morao, he had a different approach...and the way he played for Terremoto...now that's a flamenco guitarist! And the kid, Moraíto...he came to the 'homenaje' and said "what do you want me to play?..anything at all!" He's not Paquito de Lucía, nor this one or that one, but he knows more than any of them because he didn't go in for playing "pieces"...he stuck it out. Nowadays, guitar-wise, any young kid picks up the guitar and your jaw drops, but it doesn't smell of flamenco...it just doesn't have the aroma! They play like they have hiccups...hip!....hip!...and those chords they play...can't they see they're ruining the singer? But of course singers are learning to adapt...nowadays you give them a natural tone and they say it's old-fashioned. We'll see what's going to happen with the cante, because they have to sing differently now. And the same thing playing for dancers... First you have to study each one's counter-rhythms and stops. They say "here you stop...now you play 'lalala'...now you stop again..." It's all rehearsed, and you have to have a prodigious memory!

There's one more thing... Anyone who tells you that flamenco is in its golden age, you tell them "Marote says it's a lie!". In the golden age no one was out of work, and now you've got two-hundred good artists who aren't working, they're giving classes and workshops because they can't make a living...

Do you feel you've left a legacy? Have you got any representative disciples?

Well, everyone says that Felipe Maya sounds a lot like me, the way he plays, and also Chuscales. Chuscales says he more or less started out liking me. I remember when he was a boy, always chasing after me, he's got my strength, and the thumb and all that...I used to teach him something each time he came. And Felipe Maya, he's not a relative of mine, but he's worked with me, and his strength and his thumb, and the way he accompanies baile, because he really likes playing for dancing, everyone says he sounds a lot like me.

Not at all, I swear...quite the contrary. I think that today they're playing technically better than before, but as far as accompaniment, they're going backwards. I keep on my path, and let me tell you something, right now, if instead of being the age I am, if I were twenty years old, I'd still be following my path...there's very little left of pure flamenco, you know?

Juan, a lot of people would like to hear you play again. When are you going to record?

[He laughs]. That's what everyone's always telling me, my son in Madrid says "Dad, I'll prepare everything for you". I've been a little ill...when I'm a bit better I'll probably get into it and get myself into the studio...you need a few months, it's not like it was before with everything "hurry up, let's go!". Now you record one falseta one day, and the next day you record another, and it takes four years to make a record [he laughs]...hey, there's a bullfight on TV...

Juan invites me to see the zambra in the Cueva de la Rocío and disappears into the cave's living room to watch the bullfight. The artistic level of the cuadro is good compared to years ago. Marote's daughter dances some tangos and his nephew, dancer Juan Andrés Maya, who learned to dance in these caves, observes the zambra from the doorway. Throughout the night the singing is Camarón-style, the dancing shows a strong influence of Mario Maya and of Manolete, but the guitar-playing is pure Marote...