Niño Josele – El Mar de Mi Ventana

Niño Josele comes from a long line of Flamenco guitarists and has played with the best of them. His accompaniment on Diego “El Cigala”‘s Teatro Real live album from 2002 is quite sublime. Like many Flamenco artists of late, he has broadened his horizons and has played in recent years with artists as diverse as Lenny Kravitz, Alicia Keys or even Elton John. He started out many years ago accompanying the great Enrique Morente but had spent some time away from the strictly Flamenco. Questions were being asked. “When are you coming back, Josele?” Well, he came back in June this year. And how!

El Mar de Mi Ventana, the title track, was originally written as a Soleá to be sung by Enrique Morente. The lyrics are out there somewhere but they will never be sung. They were written for Enrique, he’s no longer here to sing them so an instrumental it shall be. Here it is:

“The Sea is Flamenco itself, which is fed by many rivers, which drinks from many sources” says Josele. In Caribeña we can feel this. Another instrumental, which never quite leaves the Iberian peninsular, but is infused with the subtle rhythms and warmth that found their way over here in the last couple of centuries.

Enrique Morente died before the album was recorded but his three children – Estrella, Enrique jr. and Soleá – are here. The track Granada Enamora features all three with an arrangement that Enrique would have been proud of.

Josele is from Almería so what better way to end this short look at this album than the Alcazaba de Almería? Another example of the pictures he paints with six strings. As someone far more eloquent than I once said: a pencil’s just a pencil – but it’s amazing what some can draw with the same one I use to join the dots. I’d say the same about guitars.