Time goes by, but feelings remain. One proof of this is Jesús de la Rosa, legend, teacher, predecessor… One of the most representative individuals in our musical history (along with Paco de Lucía, Camarón, Pepe Roca, Serrat and not too many others) traveled to his hometown of Seville for the last time (or maybe he’s still hanging out on Feria street) the early morning of October 14th, 1983. It was near Burgos, heading for Madrid when the afternoon of the previous day he met up with destiny as he was returning from having offered his art for a good cause; recent flooding in the north of Spain had brought economic hardship for many. The era of Triana, the group, was coming to an end and Jesús was mapping out a solo career.
A kid who left his house on Feria street every morning, the youngest
of eight children, heading for the mechanic's shop humming some bulería
or perhaps an English music hit…shortly afterwards he began sitting
in for this brother Manuel in the Orquesta Macarena, and occasionally
playing with other similar groups, performing in local fairs. Later on
he founded “Los Nuevo Tiempos” along with Manolo Rosa (who would
go on to become bass-player not only for Triana, but also for Alameda),
Rafael Marinelli (future keyboardist for Alameda), Gualberto (future guitarist
with Smash), etc…a wealth of talent in a group that would come to an
end upon fulfilling military service. They left behind songs like “Cansado
me encontré”, the only theme they recorded in Spanish because
all the rest were in English.
During the time that Jesús was in Madrid doing military service,
he tried out with “Los Bravos”, but his voice sounded too 'Sevillian'
for the commercial objectives of the group, so they turned him down. With
the service behind him, he spent time in Granada singing with several
orchestral groups before returning to Madrid (Barajas) to form “Tabaca”
along with Emilio Souto and the guitarist for “Los Payos”, Eduardo
Rodríguez, a group which indulged in musical experiments that lacked
a clear orientation. They were trying to make music without any kind of
preconceptions or particular sound…the adventure barely lasted a year.
The CBS recording company was trying to define an art form that was excessively
formless in comparison to what had gone before. Emilio Souto decided to
head north to form “Desde Santurce a Bilbao Blues Band”. Jesús
and Eduardo went to Seville where Telesforo, who had previously shared
the stage with Eduardo as drummer for “Los Payos” also lived.
Those three, together with Lole and Manuel soon began rehearsing a new
rock music project tinged with flamenco…but it was too many cooks for
one broth. Finally Lole and Manuel went their own way, and the other three
made “Triana” which took that precise name because Tele was
a native of the Seville neighborhood of that name.
Back
to Madrid with the new group where little by little they managed to get
enough money together to record a single in the summer of '74 (Luminosa
mañana) with the loan of several instruments from Teddy Bautista
who helped pave the way. That recording was turned down by every recording
company until it reached the hands of Gonzalo García Pelayo, who
bypassed the single to head straight into the adventure of a long-play
record. The sales of this first record (“El patio”) were poor,
the band got by thanks to the many performances they gave…and so it
went until 1977 when they recorded their second LP, “Hijos del agobio”.
Meanwhile news of the group got around by old-fashioned word-of-mouth,
as there was practically no promotion in the media. And so, “Hijos
del agobio” managed to sell quite a few copies (though still a far
cry from the big time) which also brought some sales of the first record.
A commercial venture planned a tour with Spanish rock groups that would
include Triana and put them on stage with people like Miguel Ríos.
Perhaps for this reason the media finally realized just what kind of
group Triana was, and they gave the band ample air time. It was possibly
the first time a Spanish rock group had sales that reached into the hundreds
of thousands. Such was the expectation the morning of Sunday, September
30th, 1979 at Madrid's amusement park, that the auditorium's five thousand
seats could only accommodate ten percent of the people who had come to
see the group. While the crowd cheered, they accepted three platinum records
for the sales of their most recent album “Sombra y luz”.
In the three years that followed came records that, despite the inclusion
of spectacular songs such as “Cae fina la lluvia”, “Tu
frialdad”, “Una noche de amor desesperada”, “De una
nana siendo niño” and little more worthy of note, they weren't
able to match the artistic level of the three earlier records. Perhaps
due to a certain lack of direction in the project's original idea, or
the need to seek new conceptual highways due to the pressure that top
artists are under, but the group's professional destiny was in decline.
Proof of this is that “Llegó el día”, the last
record, barely made a ripple. All groups, no matter how good they are,
have an expiration date…and Triana's demise, the way the group was set
up, could be seen on the horizon. Jesús de la Rosa started to plan
his solo career, pero destiny got in the way at four o'clock in the morning,
Friday, October 14th, 1983. He left us a voice and so was born the legend.
Twenty years later Jesús de la Rosa has the honorable status of
maestro in a large part of today's artistic world. Manolo García's
first recording, even before “Los Burros” was a cassette tape
where he interpreted Triana's themes to be sold in gas-stations and highway
bars. “No es lo mismo”, an Alejandro Sanz record, contains a
song that according to the author is dedicated to the work Jesús
and Pepe Roca did on their own. Antonio Orozco claims to have found his
main inspiration in de la Rosa, just at José Luis Figuereo (El
Barrio), who includes songs from Triana in his repertoire. Zaguán,
a group from Seville currently in the process of finding its own identity,
started out interpreting Jesús' songs; Enrique Bunbury admits to
being an ardent follower of the genius from Seville of whom he has recorded
some things, and the list of artists goes on and on…
It's
true that some kind of great tribute is in order. Not necessarily a concert,
which will surely take place, but gestures, such as the naming of a street
in his honor in Seville's Macarena neighborhood, perhaps a statue somewhere
such as in the Plaza del Pumarejo…but a lot of us who write, quite a
few actually, open a parenthesis in the silence of the night, between
verses and chords. A space which holds lakes where dreams are reflected,
dreams as high as the sky, a sky we want to reach to get a good view…or
to see how the soft rain falls, to tell a story, perhaps a night of crazy
love; luminous naked mornings where we find a man who is still looking
for himself, while someone worries about a woman's indifference. I think
moments like these that we all like to feel once in a while, are the best
tribute to a poet. Wherever you are Jesús, you shall not be forgotten.
