MATABUENAPURA by Monica Matabuena

What does Spanish jazz sound like outside of Spain? How does language sonority influence what we hear?

“MATABUENAPURA” is the debut release from Spanish musician and composer Monica Matabuena. It is a set of her own compositions and arrangements with an aesthetic inspired by contemporary jazz. With influences that move from Ben Wendel to Maria João, she applies the parameters of composition and musical assimilation of jazz from this era to her own works.

With a quartet-based formation, the compositions integrate modal harmonic sonorities over pleasant melodies and sweet-sounding lyrics, all of them in Spanish; very fluid grooves and tense polyrhythms mix with apparent ease thanks to the cohesion of the band and the composer's arranging work.

The arrangements on non-original themes are taken from very diverse sources that summarize Matabuena’s musical memory. “Blue in green”, one of the most emblematic themes of modal jazz, is performed inspired by a flamenco beat, a solemn soleá , but renewed by a 5/4 time . Matabuena dares with coplas, with the very “Ojos Verdes”, which surprises due to its stylistic turn and its very logical development without losing an iota of identity. She performs the last arrangement on “Ae fond kiss”- a Scottish folk ballad, where Chris Kase stands out on the flugelhorn.

“In MATABUENAPURA I want to lighten the words a bit, transfer their meaning to the musical elements and express everything through the arrangement. All the instruments tell the story, and so I can sing more freely, also enjoying the sound of words in my beautiful language. In this way, the weight in this word-music relationship is more balanced and the text also speaks through the instruments that sound. I wanted the content of the words to be understood even though the song was not sung with words. I wanted to make sounds speak.”

Jazz singer and composer based in Madrid, Spain · Album debut MATABUENAPURA coming out on June 18th by Errabal Music (Hotsak)

"Mónica Matabuena's passionate yet serene voice infuses all songs with a mature character and a patina of perfection."
Félix Amador, "Jazz, that noise"

monicamatabuena.com
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