Context. The hallmark of a revolutionary

Whilst Jorge Pardo might have little to do with this or that political faction, the backdrop to his evolution as a musician laid down a philosophy. The principle is that "Creativity is independent. Creativity, by definition, is beyond definition. You can't put limits on it, or situate it within a particular context, nowhere. It can be found even in the most stagnant environment, or in the purest environment, it doesn't respect any conditions." That having been said, he admits that "in my case there's no doubt that the context was [the late Franco years and the transition to democracy]. And sometimes, when I compare myself to other musicians, I realize that I've lived and learned in that context, and in one way or another that social burden has filtered through into my music."

Paco de Lucía in 1976

And there was a certain extrapolation from those conditions. "I didn't choose music for the money or the profession itself, I chose it because it was something you couldn't do, or that wasn't smiled upon. It's charged with something of that revolutionary spirit, if you could call it that". He adds "That's something I've learned in a way from some of my idols, like the great Miles Davis, or Coltrane, or Coleman, people who were revolutionaries in their own country. In Spain it happened too, I mean listening to Lole y Manuel, to Paco, to Camarón and other members of that wave which surged up while flamenco was hidden away, in a self-contained ghetto inaccessible to the rest of the population... They talked about things you were interested in and raised the standards of flamenco performance. It's also part of my cultural heritage, what I've grown up on." The fact that the current context is less inspirational and/or not so ill-disposed to creativity is another matter.

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