2023-10-06 13:21:44
Those who know Pino Sagliocco (Carinaro, Italy. 1959), music promoter and president of Live Nation in Spain, notice that special shine that lights up his eyes when he has a project in his hands that excites him. And he has it. The man who brought together Montserrat Caballé already Freddie Mercury in the now legendary ‘Barcelona’, which produced the album Shrimp y Tomatito in Montreux in 1991 and who was for a time responsible for Joaquín Cortés’ career, has now united his two great passions, rock and flamenco, to create ‘Oco’, which after an aperitif at the Teatro Albéniz in April of this year, is now presented at Espacio Delicias Madrid.
Estrella Morente, Antonio Carbonell (also musical director of the show), Bernard Fowler, Tim Ries (vocalist and saxophonist who regularly collaborate with the Rollling Stones), the dancers Belen Lopez y The Yiyo… They are the headliners of the show, “a fantasy, a fascinating journey through the two universes, flamenco and rock”, as Sagliocco defines it.
The show also has Lita Cabellut, who has created the twenty works of video art that are projected and has decorated the Espacio Ibercaja Delicias; with Juana Martin, costume designer; and with Juanjo Beloquiresponsible for lighting.
A wedding in style
Estrella Morente, one of the greatest current figures in flamenco, is undoubtedly the figurehead of this project. When she is asked if flamenco and rock go well together, she laughs: «Man, my father had a grand wedding! -refers to the disk ‘Omega‘, what Enrique Morente did together with Lagartija Nick-. He was not only a precursor creator, researcher and even instigator of this mixture, but he was one of the first to discover the magic of the universal dialogue that is music. There are people who, when they see Picasso’s ‘Guernica’, do not only see the grays, but are able to see the colors underneath: the reds, the blues. And my father knew how to see it. And in this show we see rock and flamenco as the first fusion, but behind it is blues, there is jazz, there is funky… There are many genres.
What can a show of this style bring to an artist like Estrella Morente, with a very consolidated and successful career? She is very clear about it. «You learn from everything. Of all the experiences, of all the steps one takes. Because any step one takes is forward; It is something that learns, something that goes through. Look, I’ve been riding and on the roads all my life, but I have never been in such a big company and in a show like this.
«It is also – continues Estrella Morente – a coexistence exercise. I’m used to going to a theater, going into my dressing room, doing the sound check, then the concert, but for me this is something new. My grandfather Montoyita and my uncles had told me a lot about company work, but I had never experienced it. It is a terrain that you do not know and that takes you out of your comfort zone. It means feeding on others.
There is something else. «The constancy. I could talk to him about the color, the fantasy that the show has, about how well each of the companions dance, play and perform. But one of the things that excites me the most is the fact that I have to be there every day at a specific time and put myself at the service of the show. I’m learning a lot, not only from what I see on stage, but also from the dressing room moments, from the sound checks, from the general rehearsals. “It is truly a delight to share it with such high-class people.”
Accustomed therefore to defending only her own art, Estrella Morente feels in this show «a cello. If I were an instrument I would be a cello, a string instrument. I also try to do it in my concerts. Be another rope; But of course, when we are a company like the one in this show, that feeling increases.
They remain, says Estrella Morente, two or three windows to open, two or three doors in the task of definitively breaking down the borders of music, and he believes that it is not as important to be the first as to be a sincere artist. «I prefer to give a personal vision to something that other people have done than to be the first to do something. I find it even more difficult to give personality to a version of a song, for example, that has been covered by others before. It is very important to do original things, but honestly and honestly making your own version of something that already exists also seems to me to be a very important job.
Estrella Morente does not want to say goodbye without showing her gratitude to Pino Saglioccofor “this sane madness”, and also to Antonio Carbonell; «It has a lot of merit to direct this ship and take it to port, to direct so much music, to go from Janis Joplin to Nirvana in a natural way.»
#learn #step