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A PERCUSSIONIST OF REFERENCE

"I've been called at times to put
in a percussion and I said no"

Silvia Calado Olivo. Madrid, October 2003

Tino di Geraldo has had, along with Rubem Dantas and José Antonio Galicia, a leading role in the development of flamenco percussion...

I have.

Tell us how you got into this world.

	Tino di Geraldo and Carles Benavent (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

When I started I wasn't aware of this. I was a guy who gets to Madrid and tries to make a living. You meet someone who has a whatever group, you join because you like it, you don't have a dime and you play. And you meet another and another and, by chance, Diego Carrasco in a studio and they've called a percussionist and he was very bad and they fired him and I show up there. Suddenly, I'm into flamenco, I'm recording bulerías and I had never played flamenco before in my life. I'd always liked the guitar, but I'd listened to flamenco very superficially, like most people probably listen to it, without knowledge and, of course, I'd never played it. I started playing listening to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, James Brown... I mean, I was quite white and very payo (non-Gypsy). And through music, through making a living, by chance, you're in a studio recording bulerías, but the same as if you were recording a sardana; it's a circumstance. For whatever reason, you keep getting called... And from then on I recorded with Manolo Sanlúcar. In fact, the first time in my life I played a box drum was recording a song on 'Tauromagia'. And he had it made by a carpenter from Sanlúcar. "Thump there, right there, that's nice". I just thought it was kick ass that these people were calling me. And on top of it, paying me. You end up getting by that way to the present.

Analyzing things, how do you think the role played by percussion in flamenco music has evolved over the last few years?

I don't know. It's going in two directions; backwards and forward. Flamenco is very complicated. Percussion was always in flamenco one way or another. It is simply a question of colors. A new color is discovered and it seems as if such an amazing thing has been discovered, but it's only another tone. The box drum is still new to many musicians. I'm playing somewhere and they ask me: "What's that?". And nevertheless, in flamenco many times it's: "Not again". They're like whims, but in the end what's important is the tapping, the rhythm. And you can do that with a box drum, with a table, with clapping, with your head against the wall, with whatever. It's not the instrument, it's the musician. Whatever happens beyond that goes the wrong way and instead of helping... Percussion is supposed to be a help and a support, but it should never be the opposite. And many times it's senselessly overdone. And what it does is ruin it when there's no need. It's also the effect of a kid with a new toy and you overdo it at the beginning, until you realize it and then you put it in its place.

Tino di Geraldo's hands (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

Doesn't it seem like the instrument has lost a little prestige, with just anyone sitting down to play it?

That's what it seems like, that anyone can just grab it and play it, but who do Paco de Lucía, Manolo Sanlúcar, Vicente Amigo, Cañizares, cantaores or producers like Isidro Muñoz call to play? It's the same with the guitarists. There are a zillion who play that you can't even keep track of them all, but when it's time to record, there are just two. "Dieguito isn't here, he's in Tokyo, goddamnit". The proof is there. And that's kick ass. That there are a lot of people who play and play well raises the level; the average skyrockets. And percussion, you already know the story. Paco de Lucía brought back Rubem Dantas from Peru with the box drum... And I appear shortly afterwards. José Antonio Galicia, may he rest in peace, had already recorded drums.

Do you agree with José Antonio Galicia that less is more?

In fact, I've been called at times to put in a percussion and I said no, that it was OK the way it was, what for? There are loads of albums you'd take away tracks and reverberations from... And the guitar too, without so many notes, without so much stuff... The rest, the little decoration, the ribbon, the paper... OK, but it's a question of going to the substantial, to what's interesting.

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