Chano Domínguez: Flamenco Sketches

Miles Festival Series: The legacy of trumpeter and composer Miles Davis from across his career and from around the world.

"Chano Domínguez is creating what may be the first organic combination of jazz and flamenco. " — JazzTimes

While already a star in his homeland, Spanish flamenco jazz pianist and multiple GRAMMY nominee Chano Dominguez won an international following with his appearance in Calle 54, the award-winning 2000 documentary about Latin jazz. Born and raised in Cadiz, a hotbed of traditional flamenco, Dominguez started his career as a progressive rocker in the popular Andalusian band Cai. Attracted to jazz by fusion pioneers like Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report, he was also inspired by the earlier works of Bill Evans, Miles Davis, and Thelonious Monk. But Dominguez has found a singular niche as a pianist in the language of flamenco, with its constituent forms of tangos, tanguillos, alegras, compass de buleras, fandangos and soleas — tackled through the lens of the post-bop tradition. The incendiary keyboardist quickly became a dominant force in European jazz, leading an acclaimed trio and collaborating with artists including Paquito D’Rivera and Wynton Marsalis, with whom he recorded the stunning Vitoria Suite alongside guitar genius Paco de Lucía. In tribute to the enduring influence of Miles Davis, Domínguez brings his fresh arrangements of “So What,” “All Blues,” and “Freddie the Freeloader” steeped in the soul-searching Iberian concept of duende, as documented on his 2012 Blue Note release Flamenco Sketches.