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And there will also be a share of non-flamenco collaborators. "A great friend
and great musician Andrés Calamaro, does a rumba with me - a really elegant
number, good fun, beautiful and modern all at the same time. The lyrics are Argentinean,
about the Paraguayan prisoners, about the real lives of prisoners who are friends
of his. It's a very personal lyric with music by Javier Limón... and the
result is a very stylish rumba." Then comes a flirtation with Arab music,
specifically tanguillos tinged with gnawa music supplied by the
Orchestre National de Barbès, "whose rhythms can teach us a good deal.
I wanted to move away from flamenco and into their territory, and I weaved my
guitar in trying to find where it would fit. In the end, the track's really pretty,
it's got a lot of style. I like it when things sound that way, with style."
  
Niño Josele (Photos: Daniel Muñoz)
So will this project see Niño Josele moving up in the world? The answer
has various parts to it. "Right now I'm absolutely clear that I really like
cante and what I'm doing is accompanying vocalists. To play solo guitar would
mean taking a very different path, but accompaniment gives you a good grounding
for that. Flamenco cante is so rich and so powerful - the voice is the most natural
instrument there is - that if a guitarist tries to play what a cantaor
does alone, the guitar almost sings, you make it speak in a different way."
The guitarist is convinced that "cante is a good route to later playing
as a soloist. Solo guitar is really beautiful, but it's a whole different world.
I can't play a concert for El Cigala then another just by myself, you're talking
about two very different personalities." And he defines those differences:
"When you're going to play for a vocalist, you have to prepare yourself mentally,
you don't play falsetas, and you play less, you look for the close... all
to make the singer feel comfortable. Neither you nor the guitar are the star of
the show, you're accompaniment to that voice, and you have to pamper it. Question-answer.
Question-answer." A matter of changing your mentality: "Another day
you can take on the role of solo guitarist, and then it's you out there sitting
on the chair, and you're the one who has to play."
Even though he might be completely absorbed by his instrument, Niño Josele
confesses that he doesn't think too much about the guitar: "I never think
like a guitarist. I like to talk about cante, but I don't worry about the guitar
a whole lot. I don't get obsessed like 'I just have to get this note right…'
A lot of people say you write songs when you find inspiration, and I think that
the way to find inspiration is through working. Inspiration doesn't fall to your
lot when you're lying on the couch, it comes to you while you're working. If you
sit down and you damn well have to write something, then it'll come to you sooner
or later. That's what music's about: work, work and more work. Then after that
comes the flair you may have for expressing something, and if you've got other
talents they'll maybe show through in something else. Everybody has to channel
their energy, to use their abilities to the best of their advantage." So
what of musas - that inspiration that just comes from who knows where?
And what about duende - that magical spirit that resides within, the mysterious
force that drives an artist to give a performance of awe-inspiring intensity?
"I've never seen a magical spirit. What I have seen is when you sit
down at home and you spend five hours composing something, and in the end it comes
out right. That I have seen, but that wasn't down to any kind of magic, that was
because I worked my ass off. Sure, you need inspiration, but that comes from the
mood you're in, or from all the beautiful things in life. You can write best at
a beautiful moment. It's your experiences in general that help - you need to have
lived a little to write beautiful things".
Niño Josele (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
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