Spanish singer-songwriter Josefina Gómez Llorente, better known as La Jose, has a wide repertoire spanning Iberian music, flamenco songs, Sephardic melodies and Indian classical music instruments. Her recent album Espiral (Arc Music) includes guitarist Victor Iniesta, who has also collaborated with other artists such as Manolo Garcia and Miguel Campello.
La Jose joins us in this exclusive interview on her musical journeys, collaborations and messages. Special thanks to Araceli Tzigane for the Spanish-English translation!
How did you get started on your music journey? Who would you say are the leading influences in your musical career?
My musical journey started when I was a child, spontaneously, dancing, singing, listening a lot, learning to clap with my father in his car while we were listening Chiquetete or Lole y Manuel, imitating my mother in her facet of flamenco dancer, and my auntie Feli in her role as Arab- Oriental dancing, drinking black soul music and pop music, that always attracted me in a natural way, and my uncle Chema helped me to approach and listen to the lyrics of sensitive songwriters of protest song, traditional or today’s rappers…
I remember I used to spent many hours dancing in front of the mirror locked in my room and recording my own voice with the means that I had: a cassette recorder and blank tapes where I played with my voice by making simple harmonies without even knowing the name of that practice.
How has your musical journey evolved over the years, in terms of styles, collaborations, themes, albums?
I have spent periods focused on listening to pop, soul and funk music, other periods on flamenco, Arabic and French music, drum & bass, Brazilian music, salsa and other Afro-Latin forms. By the way, my work for five years in AMA Records, a shop of black and world music of my aunt and uncle marked my taste considerably since young. My approach to my father, the respect for the old, for the flamenco roots from the rural communities struggling for survival in Andalusia in recent years also have influenced me a lot.
And I have the desire to practice interculturality, a dialogue between cultures as a way to find myself – I am of mixed descent and been raised in the midst of contradictions and separatism, that did the rest. To integrate, integrate, integrate, to link and not separate, was always my cornerstone. I have worked in many different bands: Ofir (Sephardic music), Rapsoda y La Jose (melodic rap) and Sacromonte (trance fusion).
I performed with Flamenco Tablao at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; with Paso by Carolane Sánchez at Charlieu, in France, with flamenco experimental singing; with Melech Mechaya in Portuguese Balkan rumba style, Latin and rumba style at the beginnings of Sentimiento Positivo; flamenco- jazz with Biriliquitiqui or boleros with a Cuban pianist; with David de Maria making flamenco-pop back-voice; or the last song I recorded, Buscando el Norte (Searching for the North) in collaboration with Mario Boville in a very rumbero-sonero style but with different nuances.
I have released two albums: Zoom, by Rapsoda and La Jose (2012) and Espiral by La Jose (2014). The rest have been collaborations of bands were I was the vocal soloist but not the leader of the project (Ofir, Sacromonte and others).
How did the musicians on your album get to know each other on your album Espiral?
Most of them were my friends from long ago and they already knew each other, and there are also two or three guests who were coming to the studio because I was searching for a specific instruments and I knew them because we had contacts in common.
Tell us about the arrangements with instruments like tabla in the tracks La Ruta and Vamos a la par – how did that come about?
These two songs have quite an Oriental taste, there are details on the voices that evoke India, in fact. I’m personally interested in approaching the origin of Roma people and the theory that points to North India as a possibility fascinates me, as well as the other that talk about an origin in Egypt. The Oriental flavor is present in much of the album and the song La Ruta (the route) tells the story and metaphors around the journey of Roma from India to Granada, the province of my father, my favorite gypsy.
What are the themes of some of the tracks in the Espiral album?
The bond of human beings been with its animality in nature, leaving the grey city, the gypsy people, the interpersonal dialogue and solidarity, love, loneliness, the pursuit of freedom, respect for women, grandmothers, for the Earth and about my homeland Castilla, the universality of human dignity.
How do you blend different musical influences and genres, and create ‘fusion without confusion’?
By listening and feeling. The brain wants to rationalise everything and put it into words, but the listening and the feeling that a song with its arrangements and its instruments produces is perceived on the skin and in the senses.
How do you manage the balance between preserving traditional music and blending contemporary sounds?
Just sticking to what I want to sing, to what I want to express – it emerges as it wants and, in any case, I polish it to make it more “fine,” but usually my consciousness is not the boss, it is something deeper.
What are the challenges you face as a musician and composer? Do you also teach or conduct music workshops?
The challenges are the money, the financial need of my colleagues. I used to create melodies and lyrics and I propose a few single arrangements but I like to finish the work together with more musicians. Those musicians need money to eat, nowadays the economic situation in Spain and in many other places is difficult, and, so far, I financed myself alone, so they cannot always devote the time they want to compose with me just for the love of music, they can do it only “sometimes.”
I teach classes and workshops in vocal technique, whether involving physical sensations that I often see related to psychological and emotional issues. I love to share these experiences with pupils.
What are some unusual reactions you have got during your live performances?
Now I am a bit more used to it, but at the beginning it seemed very shocking to see people weeping at my concerts. Some of those people come to talk with me after the concert and they share their excitement with me. Actually I think it’s a gift and I thank to have the chance to reach a real communication with other people and their internal world.
What is the connection between music and dance in your work?
I love to dance, it is difficult for me to stay still when I listen to music I like. So when I am singing, I move. I express with the body what I am feeling.
What new album or video are you working on now? Will we see duets with other female/male singers?
Nowadays I am just living, that is not easy. There are experiences, reflections, emotions happening today, that will become songs soon. The last collaboration I made, recorded in audio and video, is Buscando el Norte (Searching for the North), with Mario Boville.
Nowadays I have new songs in the mind, or in raw recordings made in domestic way, that I hope I will record in a near future with more audio quality. You have to struggle a lot to earn the money and to be able to make it.
What kinds of social and political messages have been conveyed in your recent albums?
In Zoom, the album by Rapsoda y La Jose, most of the songs had a very clear social message. In Espiral, my mostly personal work, the recovering of the respect and love to rural world and to the multicultural history of what nowadays is a country named Spain, the solidarity and the anti-racist struggle, not to be deceived by the manipulative political discourse, the right to pleasure and freedom for everybody, but specially for women – these are the themes in my composition, with different metaphors and expressions.
Author: Madanmohan Rao
Madanmohan Rao is an author and media consultant from Bangalore, and global correspondent for world music and jazz for World Music Central and Jazzuality. He has written over 15 books on media, management and culture, and is research director for YourStory Media. Madan was formerly World Music Editor at Rave magazine and RJ at WorldSpace, and can be followed on Twitter at @MadanRao.
