Intro By: Samuel Moore
Interview By: Ms. Tenley Martin
Regarded by many as one of the greatest living exponents of the flamenco art from, guitarist Juan Martín, throughout his dazzling career, has delighted audiences across the globe with his passion, musical virtuosity and charming personality.
Having initially learnt to play the guitar from the late great Paco de Lucía, Juan has since gone on to have an astounding performance career, playing in many of the world’s most prestigious performance auditoriums.
In addition to this, Juan has also achieved many other astounding feats during his career, such as: recording many critically acclaimed albums under his own name, releasing a superb series of flamenco guitar tutorial books with the publisher Mel Bay, working alongside such eminent musicians as Miles Davis, and performing a solo recital at the 90th birthday party of the legendary artist Picasso.
It is thus little wonder that Juan’s most recent UK solo concert, at the Leeds Flamenco Festival 2014, was a sell-out event with fans traveling from across the country to attend.
Packed into the intimate and beautiful setting of Holy Trinity Church on the 7th of June, a 300 strong audience listened, enraptured, to Juan’s exquisite and eclectic solo recital.
From dark Arabic-influenced laments such as the Zambra Mora to more fiery flamenco dances such as Bulerias and Rumba, Juan’s performance was breathtaking from start to finish.
Not only was Juan’s recital a musically hypnotic and technically dazzling tour de force in flamenco artistry, but also educationally stimulating and informative.
Throughout, Juan took great pains to explain the history of the flamenco tradition thus creating an intimate and warm atmosphere as he guided his audience though a unique and deeply personal musical journey right to the heart of Spain’s most captivating art form.
Juan Martín’s next UK solo performance takes place on the 25th-28th of July in London at the King’s Place and promises to be another stunning experience for all who attend.
If you missed Juan’s Leeds Flamenco Festival performance, don’t miss out on this opportunity to see one of the world’s greatest flamenco performers, book your tickets today.
So what are the secrets to Juan’s ability to play flamenco? What advice does he have for young and aspiring musicians? And what are his experiences as a flamenco musician based in the UK?
In order to find out the answer to these questions, and many others, Guitar International’s interview correspondent Tenley Martin went to find out.
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Juan Martin – photo courtesy of Tenley Martin
Tenley Martin: I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about your history, how you got into flamenco.
Juan Martín: Well really, the first time I heard the guitar, it was immediately like a drug, flamenco guitar. It had an intensity of sound and rhythm that just hit me you know, and I knew just straight away that it was my thing.
I picked up from other boys my age and I knew various people that played professionally and people like a barber that used to work in Malaga that played very well.
When he showed up, he would get the guitar out and play. He had very fine fingers, I guess from cutting hair.
Whereas other players worked in the port, had rough hands, it was very hard to maintain their nails, fingers, and so on. I would walk 10 kilometres to play someplace under a 40 degree sun sometimes.
There would be a wedding, baptism type of thing and it would go on sometimes for days if they were Gitanos.
You would learn so much in a single outing like that. And there would be a singer from such and such a village, another from Sevilla, meant to be very knowledgeable you’d learn the different cantes, how to follow them. I think that was fundamental really.
I played a lot for dance. I went to Madrid when I was 17-18 and I played for Rafael de la Cruz in a square called Plaza Vara del Rey I played alongside another guitarist called Jesús, and we earned 1 peseta an hour, but we were happy just to be doing what we loved.
You could buy a single cigarette for under 1 peseta then and we would go and share a cigarette. It was pretty poor but I don’t remember it that way because it was just being involved, playing, learning, full of the illusion of the future of playing.
Madrid at that time was an incredible flamenco place. I met Paco de Lucía, he taught me formally for 6 lessons, but we were friends anyway and he said he didn’t want to charge me for that sort of thing.
It was a Madrid with Paco, , Serranito was playing really well, and Juan Maya Marote was a great accompanist that inspired me with the way he attacked the guitar because a lot of the virtuosos had this fine playing, but I’ve always liked very much to attack it Juan Habichuela was there, Pepe Habichuela, it was a Madrid really very pure compared to now.
The music has become very jazz-influenced which is interesting to a point. Influence in jazz in Madrid is much greater than if you are in Andalucía. I think probably Paco had a lot to do with that because he formed the Sextet and introduced the bass guitar. It became the sort of formula for a group with flute, cajón, etc.
He told me he had to do this because when he studied solo, playing with Ramón, his brother, you couldn’t break through into the big commercial market to make money you deserve as that level of player.
I think flamenco has really had bad luck in the sense that it has a really high level of artistry and technique but it’s not reflected in the payments like in the rock world.
So it does seem that in the west, that it’s all down to sales and in that sense, I rather like the old Russia where the winner of a Tchaikovsky Young Piano competition would be mobbed by the young Muscovite ladies because that was the hero, not Mick Jagger.
But there you are, that’s the West isn’t it? Sex, drugs, Rock and Roll. That’s how you get paid and flamenco has fallen a little bit like jazz, in that if we’re not careful we’re only playing for ourselves and for our peers.
Rather than going out to the audience that might not understand totally about your art, but funny thing about the public is that in some ways they understand very little and in other ways they understand everything.
And because we’re all given a sort of intuition to sense where there is feeling, communication, clarity of sound, attack. All those things we all understand really.
And I think it is so important to go out and give your art, speak to people’s hearts really because ultimately you can call it flamenco, you can call it art, you can call it jazz, whatever but there are certain things that touch people.
And that’s the thing you need to move an audience. You may not play your very best but if you touch them and they laugh, they cry, they go away feeling they have a good memory and you’ve touched them
Tenley Martin: I’ve been to flamenco in Madrid, Sevilla, and here, and it always interests me in how to reach differing audiences. I’d say most of the people in the audience last night probably haven’t seen a whole lot of flamenco before.
Juan Martín: In the master class that morning, I was surprised how many just knew the basic rhythm of solea. It was good to be able to play solea with them, the basic compás, the llamadas, remate, that type of thing.
They knew it, which means there is a basis there, we are moving on. At one time, you had to really explain the sequence. I’ve seen a difference there.
Now with this common market in Europe there are reciprocal situations for health, education, and some people just move down, put their kids into school in Spain so they are growing up from quite early there and get into whatever, but if they get into flamenco.
There is now much more cross-culture than before, I notice quite a big difference. I think in Leeds, in a way it is a very musical city.
So people are listening to you in that hall and they may not be an expert in flamenco but they’ve maybe attended a high-music concert, not just rock and roll.
I was touched by the immediacy, from the opening piece I didn’t expect to get a reaction like that and it was very nice.
As it happens I was playing a brand new guitar. You know, it takes a long time to know an instrument and it was quite a risk to take.
Tenley Martin: What I really like about your playing is obviously, the accuracy of the compás, but also the feeling. There are so many classical guitarists out there playing flamenco…
Juan Martín: They play off the page and flamenco is from the interior really. I play a lot with dance and singing. If I play a bulería, all that information is still in there even if I’m playing solo. So if I play a remate [it’s] as if palmas were with me.
If you don’t play for singing and dancing, it won’t have the [same] drive, you know?
It adds a dynamic to your playing if you do play for singing and dancing that you cannot get without.
It’s not very good for the right hand, if you come to play an arpeggio, tremolo or that sort of thing your hand is trembling from the violence of the rhythm.
It’s very challenging to play for singing, dancing, solo, than fusion groups and so on. It’s hard to control everything with the dance you are like the camarero at the mesa.
You are serving them and the public doesn’t realize the degree to which you and I provide the excitement to what they are doing.
They just see these beautiful people dancing and they think it is just all coming from their feet and in fact a lot of it, the purest harmonies, are in the percussion or in the guitar.
We are like the motor of the Ferrari and they are the beautiful body-work. But when you play solo what is nice is that people can dream, it is less carnal and more spiritual and people can be taken on a journey with your music because of the wonderful toque libre and toques a compás you’ve got all these vehicles to do that and that freedom is wonderful, rather than in classical you have the freedom as long as you obey the canons of that particular palo.
A solea, seguiriya, – you play the compás and the modal system that you’re in. I like to quote some of the great masters in my music, because I think when you are too original almost it’s like you go off the radar and you think ‘is that a granaina or what’, he hasn’t done the typical glissando up that you can tell if its a granaina.
That’s another thing, I like all styles, I’m open to anything really as long as it is felt and good and real you know?
I’m not against very traditional, I’m not against very modern, I think as long as there’s the sensibility, the touch, the sincerity and many things.
Tenley Martin: What do you think the role of the guitar is in flamenco is?
Juan Martín: Well if it’s singing, you set a mood for the singer to start and then you have to follow the chords carefully, that you hit the right chord to answer him or to take him along in the case of an alegria.
But in the case of a fandango, he sings a phrase and you answer. You have to know where you are and you need a good ear to follow.
Whereas when you accompany the dance you need a good ear in the sense of rhythmic feel and not getting ahead of her or him in the taconeo, the zapateado, or behind.
To flow with that rhythm of the dance it takes experience, it takes a very good ear and obviously you have to stop when they stop and be aware of the physical movements that the dance implies when thathappens, like a llamada or whatever sudden movements that you know what it asks for in the guitar.
Then in fusion, like I’ve taken very good musicians with me who are top jazz musicians, they have a narrow sense in jazz of the rhythm, it isn’t as demanding as flamenco compás.
There is in a way no flexibility in flamenco compás, no forgiving, it’s either in or out. Where in jazz there is in a way – you can play with the rhythm.
The excitement the guitarist can create with rhythm, is something I carry over in my solo playing – I still attack the guitar and as if I’m with a dancer; I play falsetas that evoke those rhythms, even if you’re not seeing it you will sort of hear the singing in some of the material If you go too far over into jazz then you get lost – jazz more than flamenco.
If you overdo that, it loses it’s character of Moorish and Gitano feel a lot of that is down to your sensibility and your taste.
Juan Martin workshop – photo courtesy of Tenley Martin
Juan Martín: There’s a lot of provincial competition in Andalucia, it’s ridiculous really. Its funny.
The Sevillanos, when they do the Biennale in Sevilla, they nearly always award the Giraldillo to people from Sevilla. It’s a corrupt election.
But that’s the way it is in Spain. When it travels, flamenco, you have to be careful because you must keep the tenets, the basics around the compás and the aire that you create the atmosphere, the touch, the flamenco-ness.
A lot of the young guys want to be hot players so they are coming from an egotistical point of view of ‘look at me play’ and then there are others that have a seriousness and almost a sacred quality to, a respect to the art, which is a much better position, in that you will follow a singer, or a dancer and be more humble and then you can work on your solo stuff.
But if you come in ‘look at me’, it’s not a good way because flamenco is a team thing, you know. And the thing that unites you, the chain, is the compás.
Tenley Martin: What do you think the importance is of being part of the group, I guess, versus always being a solo artist, because you do both things. Do you think it’s important to be able to play with the dancer, play with the singer, as a foreign player.
Juan Martín: Yeah I think if you’re going to get involved. On the other hand, if your main interest is dance and you love looking at yourself and doing all this.
A lot of people take it as a little hobby ‘oh, I fancy being a flamenco dancer’ or ‘on the guitar, I’ll show them my flash playing’.
I think that’s a superficial level and maybe that’s what you have time for. Not enough time to really become high-level, then that approach is fine.
But once you really are involved then you want more meaningful involvement, like if a dancer asks you ‘can you follow this alegría’, then you know what you are doing, put this subida here.
What is a subida? A subida is where you get faster and faster, a cierre is when you stop, and then the singer comes in at this point, so I don’t want you doing a falseta.
That is what forms the structure of an alegría, that you have an introduction, and then the singer sings, then you mark, then you have subida, then come down again.
That way, the dance has a form, then you get to the escobilla, and then again that’s another recognizable tune.
These days everyone ends with bulería; it’s not always the thing for me, because then everything sounds the same.
I like to keep the character of that particular palo; I would hate for seguiriya to end in bulería. And then a lot of artists change from seguiriya into bulería, move the rhythm around, because the accents are similar, but they are back to front.
The people I respect are the people that every second know where they are in the compás. And that it’s not just all instinct, because then you make mistakes, get it back to front.
Tenley Martin: I find that seguiriya is one that is difficult for people because it is so easy to get lost in the compás.
Juan Martín: Yeah when you are playing it slow it is easy to understand, but once it doubles up, then you realise if you move along after the first 1-2-3, you are then into the beginning of a bulería, and then they do bulería instead.
A lot of the job of the guitarist is covering up the faults of singers and dancers. And the public doesn’t notice, it’s seamless. But any serious flamenco will hear it.
There are good people though who are fine artists but they will make those sorts of mistakes, which is surprising.
Tenley Martin: Do you think that flamenco is appreciated more outside of Spain than inside?
Juan Martín: There is an association with Spain on a sort of socio-economic level that people look down on Gitanos and fiestas and flamencos and they’re trouble.
There are also very cultured people that think it is one of the great arts of Spain and it is sort of proof that going out to the world and people finding it fantastic.
And I think that when you can stand outside and look at it, in Spain, it is part of the social fabric. So if there’s Gypsies causing trouble in the town and they sing flamenco, but they steal as well, those things get associated with all flamencos.
On the other hand, Spanish people when they leave Spain, sometimes suddenly become very flamenco and they are like ‘Oh, I know how to do palmas’ and in Spain they weren’t even interested. Suddenly when they go out, they become experts.
I think really now there is an international, a universal, interest. All over, you’ll get real talent that decide ‘this is for me’ and they will dedicate their life to it.
At one time, Jazz was only for African Americans, and now I’ll go to Norway or somewhere like that and there’s incredible talent around.
And yet, if you are Wynton Marsalis and you come from New Orleans, they always had the upper hand, they are ‘the real thing’ if you like, and um but I think it’s going to the world.
And I think something is happening with flamenco. I mean we are maybe where jazz was 20 or 30 year ago, but we are catching up fast.
Tenley Martin: I think so. I spent some time in Sevilla, and of course there you get the attitude that ‘oh you’re, not Spanish, there is no way you’ll ever get this’. What do you think the key is for someone not from Sevilla, not from Spain to really grasp it?
Juan Martín: Basically, if you are good. There was a little kid in the class yesterday and he just had a natural talent in his hands, but also in the way he is expressing. Y
ou can’t really define that. I think it is undeniable that there are people in Spain who have the advantage, of growing up hearing the cante and the dance.
That they are not necessarily very gifted, or there are people that are very gifted and then they have the advantage that they have always been in touch and they know it more completely.
But [in Andalucía] a lot of [the problem] is just the work – people don’t want to be displaced. For example, there were Americans working in Sevilla that were willing to work for €30 rather than €50 and so the Spanish artists lost the gig.
And that doesn’t go down well because people think ‘well, come on. It comes from here and these people, they study with us, they take the knowledge and now they are displacing’.
Now, I think basically in a marketplace, always you’ve got this supply and demand thing and if the man who runs the tablao says ‘I haven’t got the money to pay you, I’m going to pay this guy, who is also good’.
At one time in Spain, this wouldn’t have happened. But that’s another sign that it is becoming a truly international art, when you get [foreigners] in Sevilla, in the main tablaos.
But I remember ages ago in Madrid, there was Maria Benitez and she looked great. She was part Native American or something.
And you see that is a sellable thing. But it shouldn’t just be for the looks. It should be that someone as blonde as yourself and not typical looking Gitano, but if the talent is there, that is what is important. But people like the old traditions and the presumption is that if you are Gypsy you are bound to be good; but not necessarily.
