In a short period of time the bass guitar has become common property in flamenco. Nobody seems to be surprised by the sultry sounds of a fretless bass that flow comfortably with the falsetas of the guitarist. You'd almost forget that it concerns a reasonably recent development. A milestone was 1980, when the great flamenco renewer Paco de Lucía, contracted a jazz bass player for his sextet. This Carles Benavent, a Catalan from Barcelona, who had never played flamenco till then, became the founder of the modern flamenco bass. Artists are queuing up to record an album with him and bass players try to imitate his light fingered style. The Spanish flamenco and internet lover Rafael Moreno wrote out an interview with Carles Benavent on the radio show Duedeando, and placed it on the flamenco mailing list. Next follows a slightly shortened version.
What are you currently doing?
Currently we're recording an album with Barbería del Sur, with el Paquete, El Negri and David. On this cd we work, Jorge Pardo, Chano Dominguez and myself, together. We're laying the foundation and are half way through.
How did you meet Paco (de Lucía - MJ)?
Well, Paco was left without a bass player and (saxophonist - MJ) Jorge Pardo and (percussionist - MJ) Rubem Dantes were already with him and said to him: "there is a certain guy in Barcelona ..." Paco called me, not to have a try, but to rehearse immediately, and after five minutes we were playing full on ... it clicked from the start.
You must have experienced unforgettable moments. How was a tour with Paco?
Hallucinating. The first time you do something, it's always hallucinating. The first tour through South-Africa, that was ... discovering everything. Not just the fact of traveling with an artist of that category, and going to the good theaters, that are filled with people. But most of all I was discovering a world unknown to me. I didn't know what a bulería was, or a tangos, or a tranguillos ... I knew nothing.
And how do you learn to do that?
Well, playing and listening. Mostly listening.
Carles Benavent invented flamenco bass. Can you explain how the flamenco bass works?
The system that I always use, is copying ... looking what someone does who knows more than you do, with a comparable instrument like the guitar, looking at what he does, and then copy that, so that what you do fills it up, so that the legato sounds the same, the same adornment, the same pellizco. Flamenco is - mainly in the phrasing - based on accents; the accents have to be very clear, almost exaggerated. That which is called pellizco, is the accentuation of the phrases. And that's what you have to do, listen and look how people who know, do it.
There are few flamenco bass players who don't sound like Carles Benavent.
That's what you say. It's because of the formula I just explained to you. the fact that you imitate a guitar with the bass, makes the bass sound that way. And above all, because I play with a plectrum, the staccato sounds more staccato, and the accents more accentuated.
And the bass were talking about, is that the same one that Paco would have played?
I think so. I believe that's why we understand each other so well. After a few hours of rehearsing, we played the colombiana 'Monasterio de Sal' of the album 'Solo quiero caminar'. And that's a bass I listen to now and think, I would do that the same way now. It was crystal clear from the start that that should be the formula.
You and the other musicians that have gathered around Paco, have all developed in an independent way. Every one of you has delivered work of considerable interest.
When we started, we had to discover a way, and I believe that we're following that road now. Jorge, Rubem and myself as well. I think it's the right road and we should follow it, because it's something that we feel deep inside, and the only way to convince somebody of your work is when you believe in it yourself.
All people you speak about are in the middle between jazz and flamenco.
It is not a formula, like in a laboratory: we add two drops of jazz and two drops of that. We're here, because we met here, because life brought us here. When I was twelve, I wanted to play the blues. B.B. King, Cream, Jimi Hendrix... whatever was available back then, we'd go to Andorra to search for records, because you didn't have them here. And all that puts a brand on you, and when you play in a spontaneous, natural way, those influences float to the surface. That's only logical.
In which year was your first album published?
Is was published by Mario Pacheco (of Nuevo Medios) in 1983. I had just returned from the tour with Chick Corea, because I'd been in the United States for a year, with Chick Corea, and also with Paco.
I read in your biography that you've also performed with Miles Davis.
Yes, that's quite a story. I went to Montreux to play a song. The last one of the concert. Imagine, it was like a movie. And above all I believe that it was the last or the one before last concert that Miles Davis gave. He was already ill. The sensation, imagine, to play with Miles Davis one meter away and Quincy Jones directing two meters away. I remember it like a dream, even though it was nothing, ten minutes in all.
What are you doing at the moment?
We're working with our group, with Chano Dominguez and Jorge Pardo and Chonchi as a singer, and I'm making recordings, like those with La Barbería del Sur.
How do you see current flamenco?
For me it looks good. I've never considered myself as a flamenco expert.
There's few people with your power of perception. Mostly because you lived abroad. Do you think there will be an explosion, especially outside of Spain?
Outside of Spain flamenco has always worked. I don't know if it's something folkloristic or not. I remember that people were always surprised when we performed abroad. Especially in the jazz circles. When you perform flamenco at jazz festivals, people are turned upside down, because they don't expect it. The way of phrasing things, our "things" as we say it here. So in jazz circles it has tremendous impact, it's a novelty. Maybe we've reached the limits with many things. There's a lot of material of things that have been done, at a high level. And certainly, when you come out with that, it is refreshing.
(Rafael Moreno, source: flamenco mailing list)
Adaptation: Marlies Jansen
(English translation Carmen Morilla, 12 February, 1999)