JUAN ANTONIO SUÁREZ ‘CANO’.
PREMIERE OF ‘SON DE AYER’ IN MADRID
A guitar’s journey
Silvia Calado. Madrid, September 5th, 2008
Juan Antonio Suárez
‘Cano’: guitar. Pablo Suárez:
piano. Juan de Pura: cante. David Vázquez, Samara,
Vanesa Losada, Alba: clapping, vocals. Daniel Suárez:
box drum. Rafaela Carrasco: guest artist (baile). Adela
la Capachera, Dámaso Suárez, Cachapín:
guest artists (grand finale). Teatro Español (Sala
Pequeña). Madrid, September 5th and 6th, 2008
Cano and Pablo Suárez
on 'Son de ayer' (Photo Mcb-orlindadesing)
Cano
set sail. The guitarist undertook a journey towards ‘Mi
pequeño mundo’ (‘My Small World’).
And shifting positions like someone who shifts sails,
he explored the feelings of someone who leaves port to
face the challenge of the unknown. But with luggage, with
the chest of roots always half-open. The first piece of
the presentation of ‘Son de ayer’ in the small
hall of Madrid’s Teatro Español was nearly
a metaphor of what Juan Antonio Suárez is today
as a guitarist.
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Cano and Rafaela Carrasco
(Photo Mcb-orlindadesing) |
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Neither his posture nor his music is
what can be expected. He appears standing, with his guitar
hanging, sometimes in the air, sometimes plugged in. He
calmly strolls around while he plays. He stops and looks
at you. And if he takes a seat, he does so on a high stool.
Everything coming out of his instrument is new, wildly
personal... and a bit anti-gravitational. An apparent
simplicity conceals an interesting complexity. And rests
and feelings and tensions. That’s what the overture
suite is like, as is the bright bulería ‘Conclusión’.
Although he prospers in the intimacy
of his toque with overwhelming ease, he is by no means
a solitary being. In his presentation concert (which there
were four performances of in two days), he surrounded
himself with a group of artists including family and friends.
With his cousin, pianist Pablo Suárez, he performed
the touching elegy ‘A nuestra Mari’. Next,
the face-off would come, between musicians, with bailaora
Rafaela
Carrasco, “one of the greats of yesterday, today,
and always”. He had another cousin of his, Juan
de Pura, sing a fado por tangos for him. And at the end,
in the grand finale, he had his elders. His father and
his uncle singing... and his aunt Adela la Capachera playing
the guitar! What a sight, that elegant lady as if coming
in from another time, carefully plucking her earthen falsetas.
And thus, with the explosion of a fiesta typical of gypsies
from Extremadura, ended a concert exquisite in presentation,
deep in feeling and refreshing to the ear. Flamenco toque
surprises once more.
Cano on 'Son de ayer'. Grand
finale (Photo Mcb-orlindadesing)
