|
AROUND THE WORLD, PASSING THROUGH 'SPAIN'
by
Candela Olivo
At the halfway point between the two Atlantic shores, a musical "ida y vuelta"
hybrid. Tomatito and Michel Camilo, guitar and piano. Flamenco and jazz. That
transoceanic meeting point, which lets loose peaceful tidal waves is, according
to Michel Camilo, "the musical feeling". The Dominican pianist's eyes
sparkle and his inmutable smile gets even broader when he explains that "what
attracts me to flamenco, jazz and Latin music is the shared spiritual vibration".
And he says that when he hears flamenco he gets goosebumps from "the laughter,
the crying, the anguish"... the explosive mixture of emotion. Tomatito adds
that "the common ground isn't the music, but the musicians". For the
guitarist from Almería this "trip", as Camilo calls it, is a
product of "love, since we feel strongly connected". With his penetrating
look Tomatito says that "each one does what he knows how to do, as he knows
how to express it... there's no more chemistry than that".
Grammy Awards 2000
The
discovery of that place where the common gene for jazz and flamenco is found was
not accidental. Michel Camilo, a talkative, restless personality, comments that
Spain "is the result of more than forty previous concerts, which added up
to a process of integration". An integration of musicians, music, and instruments.
Because when you listen to Spain you don't know where the guitar begins and the
piano ends, where it starts being flamenco and ends up as jazz. A soleá
opening suddenly becomes a splashy dip into New Orleans harmonic games, in a careful
stroll through the festive cantes, in a dream, a flight which ends up without
defining boundaries.
And
the instruments melt and modulate into a single entity. In Spain, the piano doesn't
assume the role of singer with the guitar accompanying, but rather the strings
mix and entangle. A kind of fusion which is, as Tomatito points out, "effortless
and easy, resulting from the simple desire you have to express what you're feeling".
Michel Camilo sees it as the result of a "profound trust which, far from
doubting, causes us to risk more and more. It's an alliance which if overplanned,
doesn't happen. Simply stated, it's a question of caring, of knowing the other
one is there... it's like magic".
The
magic springs from a pronounced mutual admiration which, in live performance,
you can almost reach out and touch. During the solos, the silent partner awaits
his turn, enthralled and overcome with sheer respect, until the moment of reunion
arrives. And, in each reunion, they rework the recording with new musical dialogues.
Michel Camilo notes that "whenever we play, we throw something different
at each other".
But
they always come back to the point of reference: Spain or España or its
music or culture. Michel Camilo points out that "the name of the record comes
from Spain, Chick Corea's piece - a version of which is included on the record
- by way of which we wanted to refer to previous experiments in this same line".
The name was chosen by Fernando Trueba, the film-maker who's in love with jazz
and with flamenco, and who produced the record on the Lola Records label. Camilo
recalls that Trueba chose it thinking of "something known worldwide, a title
which would connect with the whole world, at the same time leaving no doubt that
it was something that had come out of Spain to the rest of the world".
But
from that trip around the world, passing through Spain Tomatito says he doesn't
expect anything, "I just hope to get some satisfaction and learn. In this
world, in which time just makes you get older, the only thing that keeps me young
is music. If I get in a rut I lose mental agility... I need to continue learning
in order to be alive".
By
Candela Olivo
Translation: Estela Zatania
|
