María José Pérez, flamenco cantaora.
Interview
“I know in time
I’ll become more and more personal”
Silvia Calado. Jerez, March 2009
The trilling of the birds of the
Jerez Alcázar seems to be announcing her. The mild
late-winter sun is still shining when, for a little while,
María
José Pérez puts on hold the preparation
for her recital at Festival de Jerez 2009 in order to talk
about her early days, her achievements, her references and,
above all, her first album. The Almería-born cantaora
has just released ‘Cante flamenco’, a record
and a title which are a real declaration of intentions.
“It’s a heavy disc because it’s quite
classical; it’s not ‘flamenquito’ or anything
like that. There are eight cantes and a couple of more current
songs”, the artist explains. And to hatch them, she
has surrounded herself with a team highlighted by the guitars
of Miguel Ochando, the special collaboration of Gerardo
Núñez and lyrics by José Luis Ortiz
Nuevo. Speaking about this, about that and about her second
university degree, about twenty minutes went by. Shortly
thereafter, she began to trill...
María José
Pérez
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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Where does María José
Pérez get a liking for cante?
My liking for flamenco is because in my
family, on my mother’s side, they’re real cante
enthusiasts. And I’ve heard my aunts and uncles sing
at family gatherings ever since I was a little girl. But
none of them has done it professionally. My older sister
also devotes herself to singing and the two of us began
at the same time. She always used to sing like a cicada
at my house and as I used to worship her, I’d listen
to her and follow her. At the age of 13, I got the itch
to sing saetas because I’m a member of a religious
association in Almería, La Soledad. So I went to
a flamenco peña, I learned lyrics to some music which
I already knew from listening to, and I sang it one Good
Friday. I repeated for several years and, at the same time,
I kept on going to the peña where amateurs got together
on Tuesdays and Thursdays to sing and play the guitar a
little. I went and learned from them; they’d tell
me to buy such and such an album, to listen to one, to another...
and they’d give me advice. Little by little, I started
to enter contests, I started to win them, I started studying
more... In short, a route which goes on today, when I’m
going to sing at Festival de Jerez. It’s really, really
important to me due to the festival’s relevance and
because this city is awe-inspiring as the cradle of flamenco
that it is.
Out of those records which were
recommended to you, which ones had an effect on you?
Antonio Mairena, Antonio
Chacón, La Niña de los Peines, Manuel
Vallejo, Pepe Marchena, Pepe Pinto... I don’t know,
all the great cante maestros. I liked some more, I liked
others less. But it’s like when you feed a child;
he has to start getting used to everything. Maybe the first
thing he likes is French fries and he doesn’t eat
green vegetables because he doesn’t know what values
they might have. Something like that happened to me. I might
have listened to Mairena and he sounded a little tiresome,
or I’d hardly play Chacón because the recordings
weren’t really good quality. Until you start acquiring
certain skills which make you see the wealth of that person’s
cante. Little by little, I began going towards those cantaores
who I hadn’t exactly rejected, but I had sort of shied
away from.
And today’s cantaores?
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María José
Pérez
(Foto Daniel Muñoz) |
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I like Enrique Morente a lot because he’s
really full of novelties, he’s always looking to make
the most of the cantes. I like his way of composing; he’s
very creative and he gives the cante a personal trademark.
Everything you listen to by Morente,
you know it’s by Morente; he’s unique. Besides
him as a creator and cantaor, I like many others such as
Poveda, La Macanita, Esperanza Fernández, Mayte Martín,
of course, Carmen Linares. There are so many... The list
we can approach nowadays is quite varied; each one has his
own features. And as a cantaora, I have to take from each
one what best suits my conditions both in voice and in what
I want to be as a cantaora.
Is that the challenge, creating
your own trademark?
Of course, but it’s really complicated.
Now when you’re getting started, you always have a
reference you try not to copy. But it just comes out sometimes;
you can’t help it. You always have that struggle,
I don’t want to, I don’t want to, but I do it.
I know in time I’ll become more personal. I want to
manage for when I’m heard, they say “that’s
María José”. That’s my challenge,
as well as reaching up as high as possible, as José
Mercé, Enrique Morente and Carmen Linares have done.
That’s what I want to fight for.
There are two crucial moments in
your young career. The first one is the 2007 National Contest
of Córdoba, in which you won the ‘Antonio Chacón
Award’...
Ever since I started entering contests,
the National Contest of Córdoba was an objective,
a goal I wanted to achieve. I entered for the first time
at the age of 18 and reached the semifinal. At that age
and with the little experience behind me, it was a really
big achievement: I’d been listened to, I had a long
way ahead of me and I’d made myself noticed a little
bit. And I kept it as a goal. Achieving it was a really
big joy, recognition of the work which I was doing little
by little, with my youth, with my inexperience and with
my ignorance. It gave me strength to keep on working, learning,
practicing the cantes each day, going to more places and
loving flamenco more.
... and the second one is your
participation in ‘Diálogo del Amargo’
by Mario Maya. What does that mean to your career?
I’m really grateful that he had me
take part in ‘Diálogo del Amargo’. I
was very young; I was 19 years old. Mario
Maya was a really great artist and a really great person.
I was the baby of the family there; everyone pampered me.
I came from Almería, got to Granada to study and
found myself working for an entire summer at that level.
They treated me really well and Mario especially. He put
up with a lot of attitudes or ignorant actions on my part.
I didn’t have that experience; sometimes at the rehearsals
I’d be talking and everybody told me to shut up. I
might give my idea... And Mario would ask me: “Let’s
see, who’s the director?”. And I had to say
I was sorry and shut up. He taught me discipline which I
didn’t have, as well as know-how on stage which I
didn’t have either. I had a positive attitude with
the audience and so on, but he gave me a different consideration,
another vision. And I’ll always be grateful to him
for it. If I hadn’t been through that, I simply wouldn’t
be where I might be now.
And you’re right in the middle
of launching your first solo album. What are enthusiasts
who listen to it going to find?
It’s a heavy disc because it’s
quite classical; it’s not ‘flamenquito’
or anything like that. There are eight cantes and a couple
of more current songs which have been made especially for
the album, but they’re minimal. It’s highlighted
by some cantiñas which are a little strange, mixed
with soleá... that I like a lot. There are granaínas,
a cante from my native land, seguiriya and cabal, malagueña...
And I’ve treated each one as if it were a child of
mine. I wanted to really leave my mark because an album
is for your entire life and it deserves a lot of work. I’ve
tried by every means. It’s been a year of a great
deal of effort, but I’ve had the day-to-day collaboration
of producer Juan Mesas and co-producer Miguel Ochando.
The special collaboration on the
album is contributed by Gerardo
Núñez por bulerías. Is it a composition
of his?
The song’s music is by Juan Mesa,
but all the guitar and guitar arrangements are by Gerardo
Núñez from A to Z. A great luxury. I’m
really excited, since having one of today’s top guitar
figures is no trifling matter. I’ve had support on
his part and he’s done it unselfishly. Ah, and Cepillo
stuck in all the percussion and the clapping arrangements,
those little details which he adds, too.
But most of the guitars are by
Miguel
Ochando...
Five of the eight songs are by Miguel Ochando
and he’s the co-producer. I like his toque a lot,
he makes the most of the cante and always looks for new
airs. For example, in the malagueña he plays por
granaína, and he plays the granaína por rondeñas.
And it’s a really nice tonality; it turns out really
well and everything’s really well-rounded. He’s
given it his all.
María José
Pérez
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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It seems like he doesn’t
get enough recognition, doesn’t it?
It’s a shame he isn’t better
appreciated because he’s a guitarist who plays marvels;
he plays sweetly. He accompanies me because I love how he
plays, that sweetness and everything so clean that you hear
each note to the millimeter. He’s a guitarist who’s
worth a great deal, and he proved so on his album, where
he does classical toques. I think he’s a source to
resort to for young guitarists because the toque he does
isn’t among the most listened-to ones now. It’s
a current guitar in which you can hear perfectly each touch,
each tone and each note, and moreover he’s playing
old-time stuff with today’s sharpness. He’s
a good maestro.
Other musicians in the recording?
Another of the guitarists is Rafael Habichuela,
who also worked with me in ‘Diálogo del Amargo’.
He plays that soleá and those tangos so Moorish,
so granaínos, that I love how he accompanies them
for me, with his son on percussion.
The authorship of José Luis
Ortiz Nuevo makes clear that the lyrics haven’t been
left to chance...
José Luis Ortiz Nuevo knows me through
my producer; they’re good friends. And we struck up
a relationship in Málaga. He gets across a lot of
wisdom to me, he really knows cante and flamenco, he’s
done things in this world which he has to be thanked for
like Bienal de Málaga and he was the one who put
Bienal de Sevilla on the right track. As a current poet,
he’s one of the best. Juan asked him if he wanted
to take part and right away, he sent quite a few sets of
lyrics; we chose from here and there. Por granaínas,
for example, there weren’t any that fit. But all you
had to do was tell him and he wrote some new ones. His participation
has been really good. All the collaborations are great;
everyone’s made a big effort.
There’s a detail which stands
out on the back cover: the credits appear for all the lyrics
and falsetas.
Yes, we wanted to make it all clear for
there not to be any dispute, for it all to be taken as it
is: clear. I’ve wanted to be clear with my cante,
with the lyrics, with the falsetas and with everything.
Also it being my first album, I wanted to put each person
in his place.
Unfortunately, it’s also
eye-catching that you’ve studied at university, since
it still isn’t frequent in flamenco...
Well, I’m already doing my second
degree. Culture doesn’t take up space, nor do studies.
In my family, studying is tradition, it’s something
normal. I’m the youngest of four sisters and we all
have our degrees. My profession takes its time but at first,
it rather took up my weekends. I finished my studies in
three years, my degree in Speech Therapy and now I’m
doing Audition and Language Education. But I’m a little
worse off with this one because luckily, I have more work
now and more projects.
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