Pedro Ojesto, pianist. Interview

“People are fond of the label ‘young flamenco’
as what is modern, but it's been thirty years”

Silvia Calado. Madrid, June 2004

Pedro Ojesto's first contact with flamenco came at an early age and was a curious affair. “My grandfather was an ear, nose and throat doctor and he was the doctor of Manolo Caracol, his idol. I met him when I was a little boy. I saw a lot of flamencos appear at that house”. His grandfather gave him a guitar as a present and he started learning the flourishes of Sabicas, whom he also knew. “That was my first contact and it was remote, but it made an impression”. Without closing himself to any type of music and especially fond of jazz, he set off on a road whose destination was flamenco. Composer, performer, instructor, producer, arrangement writer... Pedro Ojesto is a versatile music worker, hardened by a thousand battles. The latest is ‘Quiero’, an album he shares with his trio and with “a potpourri of guests who represent my fantasies”. Flamenco piano and flamenco fusion are topics he analyzes with sensibleness and a pinch of criticism.

	Pedro Ojesto

His first serious contact with flamenco was with La Cuadra de Sevilla. “I did music for theater and there I threw up all the mixture that I was carrying inside. I did works such as ‘Herramientas’ with Salvador Távora”. And that opened the door for him once again. “I had the honor of meeting Antonio Mairena who, as much as he was a purist, what we used to do got to him. He saw so much flamenco spirit in it”. Next he accompanied guitarists on the organ... and even Enrique Morente, “who even before ‘Misa Flamenca’ was sticking in yells on top of the organ, he was already seeking”.

Despite these experiences, Pedro Ojesto felt that “there was like a barrier to getting into flamenco, not as a guest, but as if I were at home”. Before acquiring that longed-for key, “he took a glance at jazz from Spanish music, with flamenco roots, since in that period I saw it as an analogy with all the European jazz”. In short, he who would open the door for him would be El Bola, “a guitarist who I've worked with in all that he's done”. At his side, he has “been fortunate enough to see renowned flamencos getting started such as Bernardo Parrilla, who used to have a violin with strings that seemed to be made of catgut and he didn't even know how to play it. He did his first gigs with El Bola and me; just like Bandolero, who made his first performance with us at La Cova del Drac in Barcelona”. At that point, Ojesto says that “we were already playing flamenco, at a time when all that fusion with jazz was starting up”.

Once certain that “flamenco was my axis”, he attempted to “feel inside flamenco to be able to look outwards and see what I could contribute with all the potpourri of musical information that I had”. That preoccupation would take shape in his first albums: “The first record I did solo was already directly flamenco. There weren't even any drums; it was extremely purist, in the sense that the sound was as flamenco as possible. I avoided there being jazz or blues phrases in my phrasing; that broke me up, I wanted it to be developed from within flamenco towards other things. And so I was a bit square up until a few years ago. Now I'm fed up and I don't care any more”.

‘Quiero’, his latest album, proves it. “I did it with the aim of recording what's there. I didn't try to elaborate, just to really concentrate on doing a really serious job, but with a very jazz philosophy, which is what I think I'll always keep”. And that philosophy consists of being “very libertarian, with a lot of interaction between musicians, a lot of maturity, more experienced than the philosophy of flamenco musicians”. He points out that in this jazz know-how “the authentic is valued more than the pure”. As a result, he emphatically affirms that “I don't like styles, I like artists”. The Madrilenian pianist explains that “an open jazz player is able to value a great many things; he isn't tied down to one style or language. And I think that's what's made me go into flamenco and stick one foot out to see in the end that I can't leave, but at the same time, I'm open to thousands of things”.

A classical album

One adjective in the libretto calls our attention: classical. Thus describing the album, Pedro Ojesto refers “to the fact that it's a wireless album, it's all acoustic, it's played in a classical way, there isn't a lot of mixing, what the group has played live at the studio is what's recorded and what the people are going to hear”. He criticizes that “right now on all flamenco albums there's ‘Pro Tools’ fever; everyone touches up, pastes, clicks, clips, edits, repeats it a thousand times until the phrase sounds perfect. I've avoided that; we played what we know how to play and tomorrow we can play it here”. The esthetics, as he elaborates, is also classical, “with regards to what was modern twenty years ago. People are fond of the label young flamenco as what is modern, but it's been thirty years”.

He worries enough to look ahead: “Right now I'm on the watch for new technologies; some DJs are flipping me out. I don't like all the new trends, but I do like some like those of some jazz musicians who have mixed with drum and bass producers such as James Scofield”. And he judges that “we're in the 21st century and things are moving fast. I think the pop flamenco that used to be "in" may now have hit rock bottom. As far as innovative music, the freshness flamenco contributed to pop is there now. Brazilians took a very big step, Cubans too and flamencos took a long time to jump on that bandwagon; the bandwagon had already left and now there's another one. What the cleverest ones have done is to move backwards and be more flamenco, which is what they really have to do”. Pedro Ojesto has also moved backwards, “but I've looked more within myself than into flamenco to see what I've got inside, what my knowledge is and I think I've gained in authenticity with regards to the previous album”.

	"I think the pop flamenco that used to be "in" may now have hit rock bottom"

Moreover, he makes a reference to the purity of flamenco: “If I'm playing Sabicas, you can't be purer”. He adds that “I'm playing in a very sober way”. In short, “I haven't tried to say anything new that wasn't said twenty or thirty years ago, but to do it better, to make a very balanced record, cleaner and with the utmost quality”.

All of that scents a repertoire full of serenity: “There's a seguiriya, soleá, some jazz tunes evoking my longing for the Bill Evans sound; though I don't play any track that sounds like it, I do hold him as a halo in a very jazz ambience. Nor is the one Jorge Pardo plays precisely the most flamenco one; it can go to a beat similar to the bulería but we've treated it more as a jazz three-four time, in the European wave that used to be done twenty or thirty years ago”. And the thing is that the album “has several sides; one that heads more towards jazz, another heading more towards flamenco”. To a great extent, they are defined by the guests, “a potpourri of artists who represent my fantasies”. Ramón el Portugués“performs in the seguiriya which is the riskiest of all, perhaps what might have the most aspirations, since it's a deep-rooted style, a very strong poem, sung by a cantaor with great lineage”. Curiously, the descendant of Porrinas de Badajoz takes cante up a notch... “Yes, Ramón is a great experimenter; he's keen on seeking new things”. And he recalls the experience of ‘Chanson Flamenca’: “He was enthused with the project, he did an adaptation that fit him like a glove and to him that was flamenco, but a different type of flamenco”.

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