The Spanish Ministry of Culture has awarded Jorge Pardo the National Prize of Contemporary Music, a well-deserved accolade, as he\u2019s one of the best musicians in our country. It\u2019s a prize that we flamencos have celebrated in a very special way, even as some still think that Pardo isn\u2019t a flamenco, just a musician, a flautist and a saxophonist. One day, talking with Paco de Luc\u00eda, in one of the few times I had the opportunity to chat with him about flamenco, we brought up Jorge Pardo, with whom the genius got along well, both musically and personally. He said something beautiful about him: \u201cJorge is pure and modern\u201d. As you all know, Paco had lot of issues with the \u201cpurity\u201d thing, and it was a topic he disliked and which he didn\u2019t quite understand.<\/p>\n
My opinion is that Jorge Pardo is much more \u201cpure\u201d, as a musician and as a flamenco, than those who think they\u2019re \u201cpure\u201d because they sing the mythical ca\u00f1a de El Fillo, or the hypothetical sole\u00e1 de la Adonda. What Paco tried to say is that each generation has had their own concept of flamenco \u201cpurity\u201d. There are young flamencos who, in order to be considered \u201cpure\u201d, not only shamelessly fake their voices, but even try to make \u201cpure\u201d faces, overacting in a particular way, making unnecessary efforts with horror-movie-like gestures. Then there are who those who argue that non-gypsies can\u2019t be pure, as if purity was something unique to gypsy artists. Well, you see, the prized artist isn\u2019t a gypsy, and he isn\u2019t from Jerez or Triana either, but from Madrid, just as Ram\u00f3n Montoya, Angelillo or La Chata, sister of another flamenco from Madrid, Joaqu\u00edn El Feo. Jorge Pardo was already a great musician when he started collaborating with Paco de Luc\u00eda, with whom he discovered not only the wonderful world of flamenco, but also the world of musical freedom. I remember that three or four years ago, Pardo gave a concert at the castle in Alcal\u00e1 de Guada\u00edra, hometown of Joaqu\u00edn el de la Paula and of some of his family, such as his son Enriquillo and his nephew Manolito de Mar\u00eda, all of them good cantaores and performers of the sole\u00e1 alcalare\u00f1a. It was summertime and the night was breathtaking, with a sky full of stars. Pardo gave us incredible and greatly inspired sole\u00e1 melodies. At the castle there was a descendant of Paula, I think his great-grandson, who had a strong physical resemblance to that cantaor of the old days. I noticed he was moved to tears, and I asked him why, and this was his answer: \u201cIf Joaquin were alive today and he played the saxophone, he would play it like that, he would be just like Jorge Pardo\u201d.<\/p>\n
The thing is that flamenco is more timeless than in seems. That\u2019s why a sole\u00e1 by Tom\u00e1s Pav\u00f3n or a seguiriya by Juan Mojama doesn\u2019t sound \u201cold\u201d to our ears. Jorge Pardo is a musician, a great musician, playing jazz and flamenco, mixing, fusing, toying with rythms and beats, improvising, enjoying, suffering, feeling, laughing, creating. The American trumpeter, composer and lover of flamenco Miles Davis always was clear that, whatever he played, it was \u201cmusic\u201d. He said so when he came to Seville and someone asked him if what he had just played was jazz or flamenco. \u201cNo, it\u2019s just music\u201d he replied. He had played a sole\u00e1 which certainly was very much like the one played by Jorge Pardo in the castle of Alcal\u00e1, the one which had moved the great-granson of Joaqu\u00edn el de la Paula to tears. I always feel moved when I listen to Jorge Pardo, be it flamenco or jazz, and I never ask myself what is what he played. But I always, always remember what Paco de Lucia told me, that Jorge was pure and modern. Congratulations, genius.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My opinion is that Jorge Pardo is much more \u201cpure\u201d, as a musician and as a flamenco, than those who think they\u2019re \u201cpure\u201d because they sing the mythical ca\u00f1a de El Fillo, or the hypothetical sole\u00e1 de la Adonda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[256],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bordonazo-new"],"yoast_head":"\n