Flamenco Jazz: an Analytical Study

Abstract

Since the 1990s, the hybrid genre of flamenco jazz has emerged as a dynamic and original entity in the realm of jazz, Spanish music, and the world music scene as a whole. Building on inherent compatibilities between jazz and flamenco, a generation of versatile Spanish musicians has synthesized the two genres in a wide variety of forms, creating in the process a coherent new idiom that can be regarded as a sort of mainstream flamenco jazz style. A few of these performers, such as pianist Chano Domínguez and wind player Jorge Pardo, have achieved international acclaim and become luminaries on the Euro-jazz scene. Indeed, flamenco jazz has become something of a minor bandwagon in some circles, with that label often being adopted, with or without rigor, as a commercial rubric to promote various sorts of productions (while conversely, some of the genre’s top performers are indifferent to the label1). Meanwhile, however, as increasing numbers of gifted performers enter the field and cultivate genuine and substantial syntheses of flamenco and jazz, the new genre has come to merit scholarly attention for its inherent vitality, richness, and significance in the broader jazz world. The Spanish jazz scene has been documented in a handful of publications (e.g., García Martínez 1996), a few authors have written on socio-musical aspects of the flamenco jazz scene (Iglesias 2005; Germán Herrero 1991; Lag-López 2006; Salinas Rodríguez 1994; Steingress 2004), and certain sorts of information regarding leading flamenco jazz performers are of course available on the internet. However, nothing has been published on flamenco jazz in the way of formal analytical studies except for two useful articles by Juan Zagalaz (2012a and 2012b) regarding the early fusion music of Jorge Pardo. The present article does not attempt to provide an ethnography of the flamenco jazz scene nor a historical survey of the genre replete with obligatory names and dates. Rather, it aims to