Rubem Dantas

Leandro Rodrigues. First of all, I'd like to congratulate you on your album 'Festejo'. So, how did you come about organising a collaboration of more than 30 musicians?

Rubem Dantas. Well you know how it is. We don't have much support from big record companies, so instead it was a different experience with friends and family. It was amazing to finally produce this album with my friends after such a long anticipation over the years for me to do something like this. I'm very happy.

LR. About touring and promoting your new album. How do you plan to promote 'Festejo'?

RD. I haven't started touring yet as I'm working on other things at the moment but I'll start promoting the album on tour in November (2008), in Brazil , the U.S and Australia . Right now we're in the process of preparing everything for it.

LR. In addition to being a percussionist you're also a composer. Could you tell me more about your songs? You start the album with the song 'Pan con Manteca '.

RD. 'Pan con Manteca' is a song dedicated to the people of the Canary Islands on the coast of Spain, as well as people from Africa. One day I saw a story about a girl who put a piece of bread and butter in a boy's mouth, at which point the boy began to smile and the girl nearly cried with emotion. Seeing as everyone knows what the story means, I figured the best thing to do was to make a song about it which people would understand, with the title, 'Pan con Manteca '.

Everyone did such a great job. Pedro sings really well on this track, Irapoán Freire with his trumpet solo, Joaquín Galindo and his saxophone solo, and Carles Benavent on bass here is incredible. I really love the song 'Pan con Manteca ' because it was created with so much love inspired by that story.

LR. You also seem to have a lot of African influences; the third track entitled 'Shalaba' was the product of a collaboration with the musicians Gnawa from Morocco .

RD. Yes, they're friends I've played with for 20 years but we'd never before had the opportunity to record anything together so this was the first time. One day I heard a friend singing a song by Gnawa which I thought fit perfectly with one of my songs called 'Al sur de tu cintura' and that's how it came about.

LR. You also dedicated a song to Pixinguinha.

RD. It was a dedication that I did 'ao véio' . He was a person who gave his soul and affection to everyone, so much so that he wrote the song 'Carinhoso', so the least I could do was dedicate a song to him.

LR. When you arrived in Spain in 1976, Madrid to be exact, with all your 'musical baggage'.

RD. Ah, for a minute I thought you were talking about my actual luggage, because in reality, I arrived in Madrid with only a pair of trousers and a shirt.

(laughs)

LR. Well that aside, you also brought a big musical background with you, right?

RD. In reality yes, my musical background is impressive, people often admire that and say to me: Rubem, you're a percussionist, and on top of that you also compose songs and arrange melodies?

It's because I grew up in Bahía ( Brazil ) where at home I was the only classical musician. So it's amazing when you can have an insight into Africa and Europe from Bahía because Bahía is half African and half European. When you understand that, everything's a lot simpler, because there's a universal musical language.

More so than American music because with American music if you don't understand African culture it's not going to do very well and if you don't understand part of European culture that's not going to do well either. The best solution is to combine all this knowledge and stop racism, because there is a lot of racism within the European culture and there are also people who are racist towards African culture. We have to stop this ignorant attitude so that we can experience something more amazing.

LR. Have you been playing the piano for a long time?

RD. No, I learnt exercises and played scales for a while with my mother in Salvador (Bahía) that drove me crazy. I've always loved percussion and I also love classical music. Recently I was talking to my brother, who's a pianist, about a concert he's preparing in Salvador , where he'll play with a symphony orchestra. We were talking about doing something with classical music, seeing as I also play the trombone.

I didn't formally receive any classical music training, I mean European music like Mozart and Bach, I didn't have that type of training. Although there was always that type of music at home as my mother is an university music professor. I listened to it but I never actually studied it. My 'training' was in Candomblé, in Capoeira, the school of samba, pop music, and popular world music which I've always liked since I was little.

You know, in the American continent, the only country that actually did something for its pop music was the U.S. Now in Brazil they're starting to focus on it as well, you know what Brazil 's like. In all this time I've never seen a big school for pop music in Brazil , there are conservatoires for classical music but pop music in that environment is dull, I still haven't heard any.

LR. How can that happen in a country whose popular culture is so rich and diverse?

RD. The culture is an industry driven by money. In Brazil there are amazing, incredible musicians. If you ask, where did they train, what school did they go to, there aren't any. However, on the other hand, this way we have a more distinct personality.

Berkley for example produces 10 John McLaughlins, 20 Chick Coreas, 40 Toninho Hortas, 50 Pat Methenys. but we don't have any of that over here in Brazil . Brazilian music is more unique, regular or played well, excellent or incredible, whatever, each musician has his own sound, since there isn't a standard school as such. This has its advantages and disadvantages too.

LR. You're not a 'purist' when mixing and fusing.

RD. I mix and fuse because I'm a 'purist' , because I know how to make music, how to put something here or there, because the first thing you have to have is knowledge of music before mixing. Today everyone fuses and mixes everything, I say to myself:

"uf, I don't understand what they're trying to do'

(Laughs)

LR. In the case of the cajón flamenco .

What was it like when you first introduced the Peruvian cajón in flamenco?

RD. The first time that I saw the 'cajón' was in a hotel in Peru . I was sitting down waiting for the hotel to sort out everything so I could go up to my room when I saw three men sitting in this thing about to play.I thought to myself "what the hell is that?", as I'd never seen the instrument in their hands before, and suddenly they began to play and I said:

I want to play that aswell!

LR. What was flamenco like when you arrived in Madrid in 76'?

RD. One day I was with Chick Corea in New York and they were interviewing him, and at one point they began to ask him about flamenco and Chick Corea asked:

Flamenco before Rubem or after Rubem?

Flamenco was nothing, only the tapping of palms and feet. Rain sticks, drums, bass-drums, fiddles, and whistles weren't ever used in flamenco before.

LR. How did you introduce those instruments, was it a gradual process?

RD. I was also experimenting at that time, I didn't know how to play flamenco. In Bahía, I played with my friend Leonardo Boccia, he told me that there was no percussion in flamenco so I told him:

If there's no percussion I'll make sure there is.

LR. Today the cajón is established, but why did you choose this specific instrument to introduce in the Flamenco?

RD. That was the mentality at the time. When I arrived everything was new, I was on my own and nobody wanted to play flamenco. You know how musicians can be arrogant: one is a rock musician, others do ballads, others do bossa nova, jazz, funk, and classical music. I was on my own and nobody wanted to play flamenco so I was begging people to play but there were also problems with the Marshall Plan at that time. Rock and roll had invaded the whole world, American music invaded the whole world and nobody wanted to hear anything different, like in Brazil .

Playing flamenco was much more difficult, I was all on my own and it was a bleak time. Now everybody uses me as an example, but at the time I didn't have anyone to look up to as an example. I didn't have anyone to show me how to play, and now people play what I invented.

Innovators didn't exist. There were leading guitarists and people famous for using their feet and palms but it was up to me to introduce instruments like the 'atabaque', 'berimbau', 'cuica', 'cajón', 'agogó' and bongo onto the flamenco scene.

I made the most, the most of every opportunity. Right now flamenco percussionists in Spain and the rest of the world are impressive. They all should call me the 'father' (laughs)

LR. About your experience with Paco de Lucia.

RD. We're like a family, it's not that the six of us parted ways; we're just relaxing now because it's been 28 years. We couldn't do anything during the 28 years because it was always with Paco and the group of six. But the other day Paco said to me: "let's get together again"

It was a great experience and Paco is such an amazing, kind person. We've never had any problems, and I'm known to cause problems if I see something that I don't like. Paco's always been such a great person.

It's never been the case that Paco's stayed in one hotel and us in another, y'know, the type of stuff that happens with famous stars. What's more, Paco's music is incredible.

LR. Tell me about your project involving a big flamenco band that will include 27 musicians

RD. That project hasn't taken off because 27 musicians is a lot and I'm not rich. If the institutions help out it would be brilliant because I can't fund 27 musicians plus technicians plus personnel so we had to stop. I'd like to continue with that work because it's really great to work with musicians like Paco and Camarón. It was really difficult to prepare as the musicians were not used to the sound of flamenco with trombones and trumpets and they had to get used to that as well.

The public loved it.

LR. How does music work now with all the new technologies?

RD. Technology allows for certain things, like how you can take a laptop home and musicians come round and play but music doesn't always work in this way.

There's a lot of rush over nothing, musicians can't play the game of personal marketing, marketing is rushed but music isn't.

Why all the rush?

At the end of the day nobody knows anything, the DJ is making the album and you ask him:

Are you a musician?

He replies:

I'm the DJ

Suddenly you hear it and there's nothing. Technology is doing this, one it doesn't have culture but it has money and technology is used for this reason, it comes and fools everyone, saying this and that. You'll see these people playing and you'll listen to them and say: they sound so good. You think they must be a spectacular musician but when they play for real there's nothing. But they sound so good. They've been to university, they speak French but when it comes to making music, they don't know anything.

We use technology as well but not for that purpose.

We musicians have to learn to put our arrogance to one side. When I arrived in Europe I thought I was this Brazilian percussionist who didn't have to be humble to learn other things, but eventually I realised had to be.

www.rubemdantas.com

Lean Rodrigues, May 27, 2008

Text translated from Spanish by Céline Nadal.