Daniel Garcia

“Flamenco and jazz,” says pianist Daniel García, “are brothers. They have some essential things in common: self-expression, a total engagement at the instant of making music, plus the deep experience of the moment”. That is how he sums up what “Travesuras” is all about: García has delved deeply into the music of his homeland and has combined influences from it with the vocabulary of the modern jazz piano trio.

Western classical music also helped to pave García’s way to becoming an artist: before he studied jazz at Berklee College of Music in Boston (where Danilo Pérez became his teacher and mentor), he studied classical piano at the Castilla y León Conservatory in his native Salamanca. It’s fascinating how his music sparkles and shimmers with the cadenzas, harmonies and timbres of classical music, but will then unexpectedly take a flamenco turn, dissolve into jazz harmonies or flow into a powerful improvisation.

And yet there is much more to García’s musical substance. He describes himself as an eclectic who has also ventured into rock, electronica, music of the Middle East, Cubanism, and even medieval music and Gregorian chant. “So much has influenced Spanish culture – and also left its mark on me. Pieces like ‘Vengo de moler’ and ‘Travesuras’ reflect this development.”

“My goal is to bring the original Spanish music into a new context through improvisation and to make all stylistic dividing lines invisible,” he says. And the album’s title is to be understood in that sense. “Travesuras” means pranks, or mischief, and describes the kind of innocent, naïve, unconstrained behaviour that is often observed in children as they discover the world. “It is a lovely metaphor for what I’m trying to do: to look at the music from a naïve angle. I free myself from expectations, let myself drift, and just watch out whether or not something new and interesting emerges.”