Saxophonist, flautist, songwriter and champion of the flamenco-jazz fusion cause, Jorge Pardo celebrates Nuevos Medios label's 20th anniversary with the release of a compilation album. And it’s a compilation that paints a faithful portrait of his musical career, and his social side - as a guest on other artists’ releases, or playing host to musicians from diverse musical backgrounds on his own recordings. A glance at the elite of featured artists on the compilation reveals names like Gerardo Núñez, Gil Goldstein, Chano Domínguez, El Potito, Agustín Carbonel El Bola, José Miguel Carmona, Antoni Soteldo, Rubem Dantas and Javier Colina (and let’s not forget Di Geraldo and Benavent of course, who together with the saxophonist comprise the current mythical flamenco jazz trio), and more besides.

It’s a disc that features some of Pardo’s most successful work: ‘Jeta’, and its brilliant, almost singable chorus line, with glorious key changes, an energetic, vibrant piece, music from the streets. ‘Que no quiero dinero’, with El Potito on vocals, and ‘La cigarra’, all three of them tangos. On this Nuevos Medios collection, Pardo puts on show all of his facets as an instrumentalist, playing soprano, alto and tenor saxes as well as the flute. Other compositions on the disc penned by Pardo include the lyrical ‘Atardecer en el patio’, the bulería ‘Veloz hacia su sino’, ‘Mas’ and the Caribbean suite ‘Post colombiana/Pastorius de Belen/Mapas y cartas/Gracias Lou’. ‘Currito’, a deeply personal and somber number, is taken from the music for Lorca’s ‘Don Cristóbal’, which Pardo composed for Madrid dance company Teatro de la Danza.

Jorge Pardo is an exceptional arranger of other artists’ work and of standards. His creative flair shines through both in his own compositions and in his arrangements, showing the true breadth of his musical interests and, occasionally, his sense of humor too. An ironic twist is not unknown in Pardo’s work - take his version of Charlie Parker’s ‘Donna Lee’ which he adapts por bulerías, in doing so illustrating how close the frenzied bebop and the bulería style lie. Then there’s the Duke Ellington Orchestra’s ‘Caravan’, and ‘Río Ancho’, a well-known rumba from the seventies by Paco de Lucía, given a healthy Latin twist by Chano Domínguez on piano, with new key changes that tone down the epic nature of the original. No time for epics these days...

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