Interview: Pablo San Nicasio Ramos
Photos: Rafael Manjavacas
«What today's flamenco needs is social protest»
“Fuera de la Realidad” is the escape valve proposed by Pablo Rubén Maldonado to get away from daily human misery. Twelve pieces that bring him back into the spotlight after ten years without recording, “and having radically changed as a person and a pianist”.
Just a few days before accompanying his friend Farruquito on the Gran Vía, we met up in our refurbished premises to rediscover this Granada man who is capable of finding a flamenco thread in rap, salsa or Latin American music, and surrounding himself with a flamenco symphonic orchestra that’s one of the biggest we’ve seen.
I assume “Fuera de la Realidad” is a call to action, a social statement… Well, yes, it’s a little bit of all that. It’s a comment on the current state of the world. Wars, recession, racism…thousands of things I don’t like. Furthermore, in today’s flamenco there is a lack of social criticism, and flamenco music was always characterized by that. It feels right to protest via flamenco, I live in this country with this political class, I suffer just like anyone else, I have kids and it’s not possible to turn a blind eye. “Fuera de la Realidad” aims to leave the present state of affairs behind and seek alternatives. At least get people’s attention.
Do you see conformism in flamenco? Absolutely. If you listen to current recordings, or those made ten years ago, you can see that flamenco has tended towards commercial records, although this music was never commercial. It’s ridiculous. If flamenco is admired and listened to within Spain, and especially abroad, it’s precisely because it’s not a commercial music.
That’s why now I didn’t go for a hit single, I’m getting out the regular routine, ‘out of reality’ as the name of the record says.
You’ve certainly taken your time. Ten years, but a lot of things happened at once. Mostly, it’s a self-produced record, and that takes time and money. You have to get backers, make them happy, pay for the studio… But one thing is true, it came at the right moment. Five years ago it wouldn’t have come to this.
Over this last decade my life has undergone some dramatic changes, I’m now a father, something that nearly made me feel born again, I’ve learned lots of things, and look, when I listen to the record now, I love it. It’s something I value very highly, I’ll defend it to the death. I have no doubts about any of the pieces, and I can defend anything you hear in them.
What ever became of that first ‘Pablo Rubén’? I wouldn’t change anything from that record. As I was saying earlier to Jorge Pardo, each record is the fruit of a specific moment, of each individual. And you can’t get away from that. My first work brings memories of those circumstances. The death of my grandmother, the economic support from my mother and from the bank to make the record…I was playing worse then…but that’s what there was. It was hard, and I’m very fond of it, I have no reason to feel otherwise. That recording took two weeks to make, and this one took three years.
“When I listen to the record now, I love it. It’s something I value very highly, I’ll defend it to the death. I have no doubts about any of the pieces, and I can defend anything you hear in them”.
Nowadays you make a big thing about not calling what you do “fusion”. Are you wary of that concept? The word makes no difference, I’m not afraid of it. I don’t even find it negative. What I want to make clear is that the journalists in this country in general, not you, have rehashed fusion just for the sake of it. And they never stopped to think that all music has been enriched by fusion. Mozart and Beethoven too, this is perfectly clear.
And it came natural to them. That’s the good thing, you learn as you go, hearing other kinds of music…and all that baggage becomes part of what you compose. My cousins did breakdance! You should have seen me with a big cap, baggy pants…and my mom at home singing flamenco and Spanish lyrical song…and me at the conservatory. That makes for results that show evolution and fusion, but in a natural way.
Ketama made music in a natural way. Chano Domínguez too. And they don’t base what they do on gratuitous mixing or a pastiche or contrivance. It comes natural, and that distinction is what should have been made when undertaking any project.
For example, lately I’ve been delving into Persian music, measures of five and seven, and it sounds very flamenco…so…
I read on your blog that with this recording you want to make history “in the panorama of contemporary Spanish piano”. Well…(laughter)…I hope no one takes it the wrong way, that’s not a pretentious statement. It’s that all artists want a little of that, no? It’s a kind of positive egocentricity, with a little black humor thrown in. It’s that I want everyone to listen to this and remember it. There’s a lot of good work that went into this, a whole lot of people giving their all.
And that piano panorama you want to revolutionize…is it as full of flamenco references as it is of piano ones? It’s possible there are as many styles as musicians, although I like to make some big distinctions, at least two separate categories. On the one hand, the category that includes the greatest number of people, the pianists who try to do with a piano what they do with guitar. And the other, the pianists I most identify with, who do flamenco on the piano without getting into guitar-style variations or accompaniment as such, which is more appropriate for guitar. They just do flamenco.
It’s not that one kind of pianist is better than the other, I’m not trying to diagnose anything, but I identify more with the second group.
What I can tell you about myself is that my natural tendency is such, that because of my classical training, the ambience of lyrical singing and of rap…I always try to play flamenco on the piano with many different influences.
I like Juan Cortés, someone you don’t see anymore, but who did great stuff…Dorantes and el Churri I love… Another big problem about flamenco piano is the absence of teachers, I give classes on my own, but there is no regulated group of places, conservatories or schools for flamenco piano, and that means people who are learning just pick up bits and pieces, and musicians have to come from other genres, such as jazz.
“Ketama made music in a natural way. Chano Domínguez too. And they don’t base what they do on gratuitous mixing or a pastiche or contrivance. It comes natural, and that distinction is what should have been made when undertaking any project”.
María Toledo is a student of yours, one of the most outstanding, she accompanies herself…as if the piano were a guitar? No, she decorates her voice wonderfully sounding flamenco. I like what she does, she’s very hard-working and I think she conceives of her playing as a pianist accompanying flamenco singing, not like a guitarist at a keyboard, it’s not the same thing.
On “Fuera de la Realidad” I suppose the qualitative leap you were telling me about is also partly due to all the “buddies” you rounded up. You might say it’s like a dream come true. On my first record for example, I was left with the disappointment of not having been able to include El Yunque. At that time it was not possible, but I held on to the idea and now I proposed that he do some Levante forms, which I have a lot of respect for, and there’s no one better than him…I found a cante that would be just right for his rough voice, and just think, fifteen years ago I didn’t much care for these cantes. But I began to like them after listening to Camarón. Then one day I hear El Yunque por malagueñas, and it stopped me dead in my tracks, drove me crazy…and so it was clear. I had him do a levantica because it seemed obvious for his voice.
Piece after piece, there’s plenty to choose from. The record is a path with short pieces that serve as a transition to other longer compositions. And two or three pieces I didn’t include, but it doesn’t matter, twelve is plenty.
The bulerías “La Esperanza Nace” is a banner for the record, it’s the overall philosophy of everything I’m trying to say. It describes how an artist receives inspiration, and how he or she works an idea and you go pulling the thread until it makes a big ball, all thanks to the magic that comes out. Then, of course, Farruquito’s footwork solo is the icing on the cake.
In “Cómo Pasa el Tiempo” I try to say you have to live every day as if it were the last, we don’t know when we’re going to go. It’s in five quarter time. Thanks to Moi Natenzón the drummer, I got into that world of irregular measures, and this piece came out. And Diego Carrasco is sensational. I remember it was very hard to jump into this because I was ashamed to ask him to participate, although Rubém Dantas introduced me to him.
What’s the secret to be able to bring all these people together? Well, you have to be a little brazen, and just do it, and your people have to help, like Moi, who made me forget my fear at those moments.
Who is “Mi Alba”? My niece. She’s eleven now, I wrote that piece a long time ago and Carmina Cortés sings it with incredible ease. All the women on this record are fantastic, like María on the rap, which is what she did right off the bat.
María Toledo singing rap, just like that… It’s that she has an uncanny facility for learning music. She sang chorus on some of the other pieces. On this one she came out directly, and it was super hard. It was a central piece for me, because I’m a follower of groups like Black-Eyed Peas and Calle Trece for example, I’m crazy about rap. I wanted to do something outrageous, but without straying from my musical idea. I started to write the verse thinking about the economic crisis…and I saw it was coming out, but my idea was to do it with electronics. However, Moi, Moi Natenzón, told me it was perfect to put a voice, and we called María. It’s a piece that also gives me the advantage of saying what I want, the way I want, without any problem, without being subject to metric parameters or orthodox flamenco styles. I didn’t go further than I did, because it would have been over the top.
You want to highlight the piece by Jorge, I can tell… What a guy. He already had a composition where I play bulerías for him. He might bring it out in the future. For now, we’ve done this. And the solo piece he does is an authentic monument worthy of being transcribed start to finish. It’s in a seven-beat compás. And it’s a piece written with the text of a friend of mine who is incredibly talented, although he doesn’t play it up at all.
And then Jorge, like I say, he does it just right and gives me a rest, there’s nothing wrong if I don’t play…(laughter).
I think “Latineando” has an upbeat feel, even though you say you weren’t trying for a hit single. Well look, I’m glad you say that, because I wasn’t thinking precisely of that as such. And it’s helpful for when the time comes and they need things for the radio. All this time I didn’t know which theme could become a single.
Are we going to have to wait another ten years to hear from you? Noooo, what I have to do now is work, and I can’t complain about how everything is going. I’ve got things with Farruquito, with Rafaela Carrasco, I’m teaching…and mostly, I have to promote this work, that’s the most difficult part. It’s a self-production, and my wife is being very helpful, she’s my right hand and has set up an office at home.
