It was ten years ago that Chano Dominguez made his debut with a record witch bore just his Christian name, with a bull’s head emerging from the bottom of the cover. Few people realized at the time that they were witnessing a historic event: the first great pianist of flamenco jazz. The way he talks about it, it wasn’t something conceived of in advance. It just happened. Through in fact, it had been hatching since 29 March 1960, when he was born in Càdiz in a home where his father listened to Flamenco.he started by playing the guitar and then the old organ at the Andalusian Symphonic rock of Cai and the incipient jazz of Hixcadix. And he also saw hard times as a hotel pianist.

Nobody knows what he did to achieve his fusione of jazz and flamenco. Swing performed in “buleriìa” style, blues in “soléa” …. That alchemy the others tried in vain. He often says that you are either from Cadiz or your’re not: that he grew up with Flamenco, and that what he most likes to do is improvise. It could have been a dead ent. But no. it turned out to be sufficiently interesting for others to follow conservatory to guide him, delving away at his piano like a miner. This would lead him in 1996 to the memorabel “Hecho a mano” – from which half of the dozen recording here are drawn, to “En directo. Piano solo” (1997) ore the darker “Imàan” (2000). Before that, he paid tribute to Lucia’s son, in the company of Jorge Pardo, in “10 de Paco”.

With Martirio he recorded the anthological “Coplas de Madruga”, one of Spanish music’s most important offering. Between them both they dusted down the copla, that dark creature of the dictatorship: they brushed off its Francoist dandruff to offer it to free ears for their enjoyment. Titles such as “No me digas que no” by Leon y Quiroga, were played as standard jazz. Unsefconsciously, for once. At Maribel’s, in Madrid, he met Marta Valdés, the Cuban composer responsible for the “filin”. And he fell in love with “Como un riìo and Llora” – just as Nola de Nieve, Vicentico Valdés or the novelesque Freddy he had done before him. He wanted to be an executive producer and for her to sing them in the record cum book “Tu no sospechas” (2001). He didn’t give her a choice: “It’s either you or nobody”.

Three basic formats: solo piano, the trio – joined by a supernatural rapport – with Javier Colina on double bass and Guillermo McGIll on drums, and a septet with piano, double bass, drums, vocals, cajon or Flamenco percussion, dancing and hand claps, with which he appeared two summers ago on the stage at the old Montreux casino, a stage once played by the likes of Miles Davis, Astor Piazzolla and Elis Regina. There he performed his version of “Oye come viene” – which feature in Trueba’s film on Latin Jazz. It was the only non-American music. And since “Calle 54”, Chano Dominguez has shared programmes, hotels andh buses with Paquito D’Rivera, Jerry Gonzales and Giovanni Hildago, who asked him to play at the Lincoln Center. His music is like a fino sherry savoured in the half-light of a snug jazz club. The work of someone for whom it is only musicians that have limits, not art; who arranged “la Tarara” and “El toro y la luna” and who plays a melody by Pastorius in the “alegriàs” style, in order to carry on “Chaneando”

discografia