Anyone in Lanzarote who claims to love music should make the most of the opportunities that the Asociación Isla y Ritmo began to offer last Saturday. 18 May marked a turning point for top-level concert programming on the island and also turned out to be a real treat for everyone who came along.
The recital, which ran for almost three hours with an interval, was a gift to the more than 200 people in the audience. On stage, four musical giants showed their sheer power in every note, every bar and every improvisation.
Jorge Pardo, who pioneered the flute in flamenco alongside Paco De Lucía, filled the Pool Bar of the Arrecife Gran Hotel with all the experience of having played with the greats, De Lucía himself among them, as well as Tete Montoliu, Chick Corea, Pedro Iturralde and Pony Poindexter. The luckiest members of the audience, those in the front rows, could hear him gasping between the breaths he used to draw notes from his saxophone. A towering figure in jazz and flamenco who was visibly happy to be up on that stage.
Blending extraordinarily well with Pardo were Daniel García on piano and his two fellow musicians: drummer Michael Olivera, superb with every stroke of percussion, and bassist Reinier “el Negrón”, whose physical stature is matched by his musical one.
The concert was a joy and a delight, and a new doorway for music lovers in Lanzarote, for whom Isla y Ritmo has opened up a new path, since its aim is to bring the finest jazz and flamenco musicians of today to the island.