Santiago Lara, flamenco guitarist. Interview
“My career as a flamenco
guitarist
is a continuous final exam”
Silvia Calado. Jerez, March 2007
Translation: Joseph Kopec
Special Feature.
‘El sendero de lo imposible’, track by track
(by Santiago Lara)
Jerez’s toque continues
to show that it is alive and well. Santiago Lara joins
the long list of tocaores, who beginning with the traditional
school of Jerez, are broadening horizons in search of
their own personality. Discovered at the mere age of sixteen
by the prize of Bienal de Sevilla 2000, he began his professional
career with the help of Manolo Sanlúcar, who instilled
in him “respect for the essence of flamenco”.
Following several seasons as the maestro’s second
guitar, he launched into the world of accompaniment and
composition for baile, joining the Mercedes Ruiz Company.
And now he wants to defy fortune tellers with ‘El
sendero de lo imposible’, a début album which
makes his dream of being a soloist come true.
Santiago Lara (Photo:
Daniel Muñoz) |
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How does your love of flamenco
guitar begin?
I started playing when I was eight. My
father is a real cante enthusiast and my brother Paco,
who’s ten years older than me, started to play the
guitar. I got keen on it through them, and in fact my
first teacher was my brother. That’s how I learned
the styles and the foundation of the Jerez school of toque.
Then when I was fourteen, I went to learn with José
Luis Balao, who’s taught everyone. I acquired more
knowledge of classical guitar, my first solfeggio lessons
and he really opened my mind to composing.
You soon make contact with Manolo
Sanlúcar...
The next stage comes when I start composing,
when I meet Manolo Sanlúcar, who’s the one
who gave me the little secrets. The relationship comes
from the contest of Bienal de Sevilla 2000. He must have
found out; someone must have told him about me. And it
so happened that the following summer I registered for
a course he taught in Sanlúcar, where he listened
to my stuff... and he liked it. When he needed a guitarist,
he called me up to work with him. That year I’d
finished Selectividad (a standardized exam in Spain taken
at the end of high school) and I didn’t know which
way to go; I saw that there weren’t a lot of opportunities
for guitarists. My father always used to joke with me
that Manolo Sanlúcar had called. Until one day,
he really did call. It was a nice surprise. His son, may
he rest in peace, acted as the middleman. He gave me the
recordings of the second guitars in ‘Locura
de brisa y trino’ and I spent a month living
like a monk, learning it all by ear. I rehearsed a couple
of times with him and with the group, and the first performance
was at the 2002
Mont de Marsan Festival... trembling.
What teachings did he instill
in you?
There are so many... The truth is that
Manolo’s courses are more spoken than played. Mainly,
he instills in you respect towards the essence of flamenco
and flamenco guitar. He always repeats that you have to
respect the styles, that the seguiriya has to sound like
a seguiriya, that the taranto has to sound like a taranto.
And after that, you can do whatever you want. As far as
composing goes, he opens your mind unbelievably. He has
a prepared thesis. And he doesn’t make it up like
most people do; he has it written down. And he starts
to talk about it and he doesn’t let up. On more
than one occasion, listening to him, I’ve stayed
at his house until the wee hours. You’re not ready
to follow him. I’ve also learned to work with an
orchestra. I did ‘Medea’,
both live and in the recording. Then he even gave me lessons
on orchestration, about how to treat the guitar with an
orchestra behind it, on the behavior of orchestra musicians.
And it’s really complicated. You can’t fight
against sixty people; you have to make a sacrifice yourself.
Santiago Lara with Manolo
Sanlúcar (Photo Daniel Muñoz)
Moreover, you’re finishing
up your training at the Conservatory...
To be honest, I entered the Conservatory
to get a title, a degree, training. I aspire to be able
to do orchestrations... some day far away. You learn a
lot from classical authors, especially in composing, in
the way they use the melodies and refrains to make the
pieces nicer. It’s really good for flamenco, especially
for composing, but flamencos are somewhat closed-minded.
Mozart, Beethoven, Bach... Manolo Sanlúcar draws
from there a lot. I’d point out Bach’s harmony
and Mozart’s ability to synthesize; with three notes,
he can turn a theater upside down.
Are formal music and flamenco
toque incompatible?
They have to coexist. There are all kinds
of guitarists. There are people who want to play for singing
and to preserve the traditional toque of Jerez is really
worthwhile and respectful; if not, it’d be lost.
But someone who wants to be a soloist has to study, has
to enrich himself, go beyond that. It isn’t a must,
but I think that way the music might have better quality.
And is a guitarist reproached
in Jerez for jumping the rules? For example, it happened
to Daniel
Méndez in Morón...
I don’t think I’ve been listened
to here in Jerez. Every opinion’s good, but typically
there’s some mistrust; they say I’m a virtuoso.
But the truth is that there are colleagues I admire like
Diego
del Morao who tell me the opposite, that it’s
also the road they’ve taken, that we’re keeping
up the school from here, that we haven’t lost it.
At any rate, we camouflage it, but it’s still there.
Even Manolo Sanlúcar used to analyze my compositions
and told me to highlight the stuff from Jerez, from Rafael
del Águila, from Morao... They’re things
a guitarist from somewhere else would never do. Besides,
the school of Jerez isn’t just strumming; it’s
much richer than that. Right now there’s an incredible
generation of guitarists here in Jerez, including Javier
Patino, Alfredo Lagos, Juan
Diego... And each one has his own style; we’re
not like each other.
Has that guitar boom in Jerez
been a coincidence?
It’s not a coincidence. They went
to Madrid to make a way for themselves when the heart
of it all was there. In my case, I’ve made a way
for myself differently, with the contest... and with what
I’ve been able to.
Do contests help?
I think it hurt me at first. But I’ve
seen that it has helped me afterwards. Back then I wasn’t
aware of what was happening. I was just sixteen when I
won at Bienal de Sevilla. And I flip out watching myself
on video; I stand firm at the Lope de Vega as if I were
here at this terrace. I was a lot more insolent than now.
I wasn’t alert to people’s regards; I was
on my guitar. It hurt me because everyone wondered who
that kid was... to give him the prize. At a contest a
moment is evaluated, not a career.
The next step is that of composing
for baile in the Mercedes Ruiz Company. How do you manage
in that facet?
The relationship with Mercedes
Ruiz came to me at the right time. My career
is a continuous final exam. After winning two really premature,
really important awards, I had to start from scratch.
I’d never played for dancing... And it’s not
that I didn’t know how, it’s that I still
hadn’t had time to get down to it. You learn everything.
The zapateado I’d composed since the Bienal reached
Mercedes and she took it to do a choreography she wanted
to present herself with at the Córdoba Contest.
She called me up, I played it with her and she won. Afterwards,
we got together professionally. She started to call me
to do second guitars with Javier Patino and one day when
he couldn’t come, I was there by myself. The truth
is that it’s work which imposes on you the demand
of rhythm; the baile has to have a clear rhythm. That’s
why it’s fundamental to know the discipline of baile.
It’s a really complete world. And at the same time
you have to know cante, because indirectly, you’re
playing for cante. I love playing for baile; I don’t
want to stop doing it. If I were ever a soloist, I’d
always take baile with me and not to draw a larger audience,
but because I love it. I like baile as music, the percussion
of footwork. And I’m lucky to work with someone
who masters that aspect perfectly.
Santiago Lara with Mercedes
Ruiz (Photo Daniel Muñoz)
What does composing for baile
require?
It depends. There are pieces which stem
from a request. If she asks me for bulerías, I
compose thinking of that style, giving it musical motifs.
I also like composing the other way around, when she shows
me some shuffling steps and I have to adapt myself to
the rhythm she marks for me, giving it musicality at the
same time. It turns out that adapting to the footwork
without being bothersome and for it to make sense is a
complicated task, but it’s really gratifying.
What are your references?
All of them, maestros. Especially the
ones from Jerez. There have been geniuses, creators such
as Antonio Chacón, Manuel Torre and El Gloria;
strong artists like La Paquera... And even more recent
ones.
In
a recent interview, Cañizares said he recommended
young people to get to know the sources better...
We have different references. He’s
worked with Paco
de Lucía, who’s an immediate reference.
They’ve overcome their predecessors, so they’re
our reference. And then there’s the interest for
the accompanying group. I know very well that the farruca
by Sabicas
is the essence.
And now speaking about the album,
how do the compositions come about?
They’ve come about since I was
sixteen. There are ideas which have been there since I
started composing and which are the fruit of six years
of work today. They’re songs which don’t come
from joining loose falsetas, but rather I’ve always
had the idea of composing for an album, of shaping things
up as a whole. It isn’t a summary of my career,
but rather I’ve always hoped to record an album;
I had the need to record. And I did so surrounding myself
with musicians such as Paquito González and Perico
Navas on percussion; David Palomar, Londro and Carmen
Grilo on cante; my brother José on choruses;
Manolo Nieto on contrabass, José Amosa on keyboards;
Mercedes Ruiz on footwork...
Santiago Lara with Carmen
Grilo (Photo Daniel Muñoz)
Obvious criteria of legibility
can be appreciated throughout the album...
The guitar has to sing. If it doesn’t
sing, it’s hard for it to reach out. Then there’s
the harmony, which your intention can be appreciated in...
Manolo Sanlúcar sings. I sometimes see him apply
cante techniques, even quejíos. If we aren’t
legible, who are we making music for? There are musicians
whose message I don’t grasp.
As was seen at the Festival
de Jerez, it’s ready for the live show.
I’m really happy after the premiere
in Jerez. I was quite scared. I’ve tried for it
to be as faithful to the album as possible. And I’ve
had to work on the adaptation. For example, it had many
percussion tracks by Paquito González and we had
to synthesize that for the stage. You have to be careful
when you make an album for it to be possible to do it
live. It’s always a shame that not everything can
sound live, but it can be replaced. I’m surprised
by that ability in Vicente
Amigo, who reproduces an album faithfully on stage
with three people. He uses very few instruments and has
really exact production and musical directing.
What is your goal now that your
first album is out?
I want to be listened to; I trust in
my album, in my music. May anyone who listens to it do
so freely, without thinking about doing a critique, about
whether it’s like this or that. I want them to listen
to the music, to forget about technique, since technique
isn’t there to race along, but to make the music
grow.
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