SPECIAL FEATURE. ‘NUEVA FRONTERA DEL CANTE DE JEREZ
2008’
Oral… and digital transmission
Silvia Calado. Madrid, September 25th, 2009
History repeated itself. A gathering
ambience, young cantaores, promising voices, traditional
flamenco. Over thirty years after the original ‘Nueva
frontera del cante de Jerez’, a new generation of
cantaores from the land was ready to record the sequel.
If that record from 1973 revealed the voices of Manuel Moneo,
Diego Rubichi, Nano de Jerez and El Torta, in the second
installment, that of 2008, things were taken over by Jesús
Méndez, Ezequiel Benítez and José
Carpio ‘Mijita’. And they did so throughout
a double album whose essence has been taken live to stages
such as the Teatro Arriaga in Bilbao, La Alameda in Seville
and - just today - at the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid.
All three times wishing to make it clear that, although
mp3s help, the transmission of cante continues in the houses
- and the apartments - of Jerez de la Frontera.
Graffiti on an old whitewashed wall…
but with a portrait of Manuel
Torres. The album’s artistic director, José
María Castaño, says that cover “really
reflects what ‘Nueva Frontera del Cante de Jerez 2008’
means; that there’s still a group of kids clinging
to the singing history of Jerez, and that’s why they
are claiming their place; they’re 21st-century guys
but they’re still with their ancestors”. Eleven
cantaores and four guitarists gathered at the recording.
As José Carpio ‘Mijita’ and Ezequiel
Benítez relate, they were called together to eat
and drink, and once the right climate was created, the recording
began. “When they got the urge, they started singing”,
Castaño recalls. And that is how the disc “has
atmosphere, which is what’s missing on a lot of albums.
Moreover, we try and leave it as natural as possible, even
with the flaws it might have”.
Now then, there was one condition: for
them all to be traditional cantes of the land. Ezequiel
Benítez corroborates. “Yeah, that was demanding,
singing Jerez-style. That cante is very much our own and
all of us are young who maintain that. Nowadays, flamenco
is influenced by many types of music and here they wanted
to safeguard the essence of Jerez a little bit. I find that
focus of the project nice and interesting”. So one
of them used romance, another the bulería to listen
to, this one the malagueña de Chacón,
that one the tangos de Tío Borrico… Mijita
explains that “the people who directed the album knew
what was best for each of us to sing. Although we all have
a large repertoire when getting up on stage, at that moment
the best was searched for in each of us and each of us was
given his chance”.
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'Nueva Frontera
del Cante de Jerez' at Auditorio Nacional
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
And it was thus reflected on the night
of September 25th, 2009 at the Chamber Room of the Auditorio
Nacional de Música (National Music Auditorium), a
real temple of classical music which sheltered the jondo
for a little while… while in the Symphony Room tribute
was being paid to Leo Brouwer. There, as Castaño
disclosed, they went to “demonstrate that for them
flamenco isn’t merely a musical exercise, but rather
a way of life”. And that includes the domestic and
knowingly flawed touch of the meeting around the table.
Which didn’t stop individualities from standing out
such as that of Jesús Méndez, the most developed
reality of this breeding ground. The cantaor belonging to
the lineage of La Paquera and one of the top artists of
the flamenco generation born in the ’80s, recently
took part in the show ‘Flamenco Hoy de Carlos Saura’
and made his album début a few months ago with ‘Jerez
sin Fronteras’, a disc on which he upholds through
soleares, seguiriyas and bulerías that “Jerez
is a city open to the world in every sense, but in flamenco
we’ve never been affected by crazes; we’ve respected
true cante”.
And apparently of the same opinion are
his colleagues on ‘Nueva Frontera del Cante de Jerez
2008’, who for nearly two hours passed along the mike
in order to give different voices to one same legacy. With
Manuel Valencia, Miguel Salado, Juan Manuel Moneo and Pepe
del Morao on guitars, Jerez’s stuff and that of its
surroundings - that the border is more than easy to cross
- were sung by young vocalists of the land Jesús
Méndez, Ezequiel Benítez, Juanillorro, Luis
de Pacote, El Tolo, Mijita, El Quini, David Carpio, Moneíto,
Niño de la Fragua and Manuel Garrido. Yes, all of
them men (by the way, why aren’t there any women?),
all of them wearing a suit and all of them before a scant
but attentive audience. And between all of them, they gave
a full sample of the range of cantes belonging to this place,
from the sound of the forge to the bulería to listen
to, with soleares, tientos, seguiriyas, la zambra de Méndez
and the malagueña de Benítez in between…
and even tackling miner airs, those of Cádiz, those
of Lebrija and even a fandango macareno, leading
up to the inevitable fiesta finale.
On witnessing the show, it wasn’t
hard to imagine what was experienced in those two “natural”
recording sessions on December 26th and 27th, 2007 when,
as Mijita affirms, “we all demonstrated our camaraderie
and we all gave one another a hand: now it’s your
turn, well, we’re all with you”. And it wasn’t
just about marking the beat, but rather exchanging what
each of us brings from each street, from each house, from
each caste, whether it is orally… or whether it is
digitally, for in Jerez - luckily - times are also changing.
Have you learned from each other
in this project?
-Mijita: Well, if I come
across Ezequiel and he tells me José, I have this
which is really good, or Ezequiel asks me, we swap it like
good friends. If he tells me well, I like it more this way
or do it that way, I listen to him. Of course we help each
other.
-Ezequiel: There’s
always been oral transmission in Jerez, but what I live
in Jerez and what we live there is still like that.
But the mp3s must help, don’t
they?
-Ezequiel: The mp3s help
a lot; you no longer live at your neighbors’ house…
-Mijita: As Pepe Castaño
says, you have to use mp3s but with the entire memory full
of Agujetas, La Paquera… great cantaores. We haven’t
stuck in El Barrio, or Niña Pastori, or anything
like that. We’re concerned about old-time stuff and
that’s what we carry on the mp3.
And that’s what is offered by ‘Nueva
Frontera del Cante de Jerez 2008’; old-time cante
uttered by today’s voices... for the sake of transmission.
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