Flamenco x 3. Interview
with Jorge Pardo, Carles Benavent and Tino di Geraldo about
the album ‘Sin precedentes’
“Our music has to surprise
ourselves”
Silvia Calado, December 2008
Translation: Joseph Kopec
‘El trío’
continues their journey... at their own pace. Jorge
Pardo, Carles
Benavent and Tino
di Geraldo have taken nearly a decade to return to
the record scene. ‘Sin precedentes’ is the
second album by this “equilateral triangle”
of instrumental flamenco. According to Jorge, the saxophonist,
bass player and drummer do “an update of the proposal”
which, so far, had only been captured on ‘El directo
de Sevilla’ recorded in 1999. The obvious difference
from that first album is the studio work. As Tino says,
“at the laboratory, you do your utmost”. So
much so, that even they themselves have been surprised
by aspects such as the “great sound” and the
“ideas”. To Carles, it is “a record
to listen to many times”. To Jorge, “an unprecedented
record... in history”. Why?
The story ‘Sin precedentes’
(but pronounced with a Brazilian accent) began, as Carles
Benavent recalls, “with something Jorge had. He
came over to my house, broke out a flute he had there,
I added bass and I told him that if Tino did drums, we’d
start an album”. And that is precisely the piece
which opens the album, a fandango written by the three
of them. The coming and going of tracks began there. “Each
of us started recording the sax and bass at home, just
like some editing by Tino, and then the drums and the
mixing were done at the studio”.
The disc has eight cuts in total. As
Jorge explains, “there’s a little more of
the same, the thing is that the elaboration is different
at the studio. The same, in the sense of doing some new
versions of songs of ours”. Jorge Pardo authors
‘Maid Marian’ and ‘Cora Cora’,
Carles Benavent contributes ‘El tiempo vuela’
and ‘Sujétame... que lo mato’, and
‘Mi Carmen’ and ‘Diego’ are by
Tino de Geraldo. These scores of their own are joined
by a borrowed one: ‘Ahora’, by percussionist
and composer José Antonio Galicia. With this repertoire,
the trio assures that it is remaining faithful to itself:
“It isn’t very different to what we’ve
done; the system is different. It’s an update of
the proposal”, Pardo specifies.
And the proposal by this trio (‘el
trío’) has usually been labeled ‘flamenco
jazz’. As Carles says, “you have to label
it somehow so that people have some reference”.
But it has its reason. In Jorge’s view, “we’re
people who use different musical styles, but we coincide
in flamenco, which is our main connecting point”,
Jorge Pardo remarks. The jazz part, as Tino di Geraldo
comments, is the most relative one: “It depends
on what you understand by jazz, because it can be very
easily understood as a genre. And we do just the opposite,
for jazz to mean “do what you feel like”,
besides the sense of the improvisations and the solos.
And of the flamenco, since we take melodies and rhythms.
Even if we don’t want it to, it comes out”.
They are aware that the originality of their formula stems
from this jondo connection, although there is nothing
premeditated or forced: “One of the things the three
of us have in common is that we’ve always done the
stuff we ourselves like; our music has to surprise ourselves.
We’ve never thought about making a formula for it
to be successful”.
That is why Jorge Pardo emphasizes that
“the most significant thing isn’t what we
play, but how we play it. At a given moment, we can tackle
any song. We make a genre ours, we’ve invented a
genre, even though we don’t do jazz or flamenco
or anything specific”. According to Tino, the challenge
is “for us just to be a drummer, a bass player and
a flutist; that’s hard, just to start off with”.
Carles specifies that for him, “it’s hard
for the bass to be the only harmonic instrument there
is. I have to give more harmony, but I like to; I’ve
always tended to overdo it and do more than the right
amount... And I’m right at home here because I do
what I feel like”.
The group feeds on that freedom: “That’s
what we liked when the three of us found ourselves playing
alone; we felt a pleasant sensation of freedom... although
these shows are more tiring”. They do their utmost,
as Tino says, to “give power to that soberness of
the drums, bass and flute. Even though there are three
of us, we could use machines, sequences, a percussion
set, mandolins... but we’ve tried to make it as
bare as possible; just three things, and the more alone
they are the better. That’s the challenge”.
That is also the idea of the album -
as Carles comments. “We’ve had discussions
about putting the brakes on ourselves and we’ve
reached the conclusion that the album has to sound like
a trio, for you to be able to tell that there are three
things”. And they’re more than satisfied about
being faithful to that strategy on ‘Sin precedentes’.
Carles says he is “very happy with the sound, with
the great sound. And with the ideas! I think it’s
a record to listen to many times. It isn’t that
the songs are very complicated, but they’re full
of details. You can make out very well who each one is
and the instruments sound really different”. Tino
adds that “you can’t imagine how much work
has gone into that; it has nothing to do with the live
show. At the laboratory, you do your utmost, and suddenly,
you see the result of something worked on so hard and
which we’d never done that way before. Each of us
has recorded our albums, we’ve collaborated with
one another, but this is the first time the three of us
have concentrated on this business and at the studio;
that’s why we really wanted to do it. And then it
turns out that it surprises me, in particular”.
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