Chano Dominguez Flamenco Sketches
Date: Saturday 21st July
Line-up: Chano Dominguez [piano], Daniel Navarro [dance], Blas Cordoba [voice], Horacio Fumero [bass], David Xirgu [drums]
While Miles Davis continues to stand tall in the jazz pantheon, it’s a challenge and potentially ahazard for artists living in his long shadow to reinterpret and even re-envision the iconictrumpeter and bandleader’s music. Hardest of all are his classic recordings, especially the biggest-selling jazz album in history, 1959’s Kind of Blue. But in a remarkable creativeachievement, Barcelona-based pianist Chano Domínguez has brilliantly fused flamenco withjazz to cook up Flamenco Sketches, a stunning new interpretation of Davis’s seminal music onBlue Note Records. It was commissioned by the Barcelona Jazz Festival in conjunction with the50th anniversary of Kind of Blue and was recorded live at Jazz Standard in New York in 2009. Domínguez’s seven-song collection features all of the Kind of Blue tunes augmented by two ofDavis’s most popular songs, “Nardis” (put on the jazz map by Bill Evans and never recorded bythe composer on any of his own albums) and “Serpent’s Tooth” (a pre-Kind of Blue tune that was part of the trumpeter’s ’50s songbook). In reflecting on the deep connection Davis had with Spanish music—as evidenced on his album Sketches of Spain and the song “Flamenco Sketches”—Domínguez says that he wanted to paysoulful respect to the trumpeter and his music. “For me the music of Miles has been a constantin my apprenticeship as a musician,” he says. “It is very important to preserve the spirit of musical freedom that permeates the entire work of Miles, so I changed some elements in themusic to approach the language of my culture.”Indeed, Flamenco Sketches is unique in its flamenco-fueled view of the Davis repertoire ,especially with Domínguez’s choice of band mates: bassist Mario Rossy, percussionist Israel“Paraná” Suárez (on the box drum cajón), vocalist Blas “Kejío” Córdoba, and dancer Tomás“Tomasito” Moreno, with the latter two contributing percussive hand claps (palmas). “I basicallywalk through the languages of jazz and flamenco,” Domínguez says. “I was born in Cadiz[Spain], where flamenco as we know it today was born. It was always around me through my parents who were big fans of flamenco. On the other hand, I’ve always felt the need toimprovise and create in the moment.” (The pianist’s jazz influences include Bill Evans,Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Red Garland, Tommy Flanagan, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancockand Keith Jarrett, among others.)
