MARIOLA MEMBRIVES
Mariola is a singer and actress born in Córdoba, Andalucía. Graduated with the
superior title of “Cante Flamenco” and trained in the field of jazz and contemporary at
the Esmuc and Taller de Músics de Barcelona. In the theatrical field, she was formed in
Madrid, at the Drama Schools of «Cristina Rota» and «Gina Piccirilli».
After her album "Llorona" (2014) -a duet with the Japanese double bass jazz player
Masa Kamaguchi-, she produced the proposal "Omega 20.16", the first review of the
legendary "Omega" by Enrique Morente for Jazz quintet and Flamenco guitar, which
was selected in 2017 for the circuit Jazz in Route by the AIE (The Spanish Rights
Management Entity for music performers).
She is the flamenco voice of the shows "FreeBach212" by La Fura dels Baus and
"Federico García" by Pep Tosar. Her duet with the Cádiz-born pianist Chano
Dominguez inaugurated the Mas i Mas Festival at the Grec Theatre in Barcelona.
In November of the same year she premiered with the Symphonic Orchestra of
Barcelona and National of Catalunya (OBC) under the direction of Josep Caballé,
performing "El amor brujo" at the Auditori de Barcelona. In 2018 she premieres "Sed
libera nos a malo" with the Piccola Orchestra Gagarin at the Ciutat Flamenco Festival
of Barcelona and her new live proposal "La Enamorada" is presented at the Jazz
Festivals of Tangier, Tetuan, Madrid, Barcelona, and the Festival Intramuros in Jérez,
among others.
She has been awarded by the Government of Andalusia, with the 'Córdoba on Scene'
award for her artistic career.
MARC RIBOT
Born in New Jersey in 1954, Marc Ribot is one of the most respected and disturbing
guitarists in the field of jazz, rock and improvised music.
His beginnings in punk and garage bands led him to sound exploration through funk,
klezmer, blues, jazz, Cuban son, cumbia, free and Afro-Peruvian sounds. He was
erected as one of the leaders of the so-called 'downtown music' in New York in the late
seventies as member of the Realtones band.
Member of John Lurie's band (The Lounge Lizards), after his participation in the album
"Rain Dogs" by Tom Waits, of whom became a regular contributor, Rolling Stone
magazine considered that his contribution "was not only the key piece in the
redefinition of the new American song in the voice of Waits, but he also set the ground
to become the lead guitarist of other folk pop heroes such as Allison Krauss, Robert
Plant or Elvis Costello.
Regular collaborator of unredeemed improviser, John Zorn; founder of the power-trio
«Ceramic Dog» and creator of projects such as «The Prosthetic Cubans» or «The Young
Philadelphians», his ethical and aesthetic commitment to music and to the political
and social reality of the moment is reflected in works such as his latest album "The
Songs of Resistance".
DANIEL GARCÍA DIEGO
Pianist, composer and music producer. First exponent of national jazz along with his
trio formed by Reiner Elizarde 'el Negrón' and Michael Olivera, with whom he had
released his albums "Alba" and "Samsara". Producer and arranger of albums such as
"Obras son amores" of the ex- Ketama Antonio Carmona, nominated for Best Album of
the year 2017 at the Latin Grammys.
LORCA, SPANISH SONGS
Through «Lorca, Spanish Songs», the singer and actress Mariola Membrives claims the
most musical Lorca and recovers with a renewed spirit the Spanish popular songs that
the poet of Granada recorded on piano in a duo with La Argentinita, back in 1931.
Beyond the self-interest implied in the updating of this historical legacy, (and in the
line of the artist's constant search of new sound universes where to relocate her
tradition), the added value of this proposal is the participation of the American
guitarist Marc Ribot, one of the most restless, committed and tenacious musicians of
urban sounds, avant-garde jazz and improvised music.
In Mariola Membrives' voice and Marc Ribot's guitar, titles as "Los cuatro muleros",
"Café de Chinitas", "Las morillas de Jaén," Anda jaleo "or" La tarara", among others,
recover new life and acquire a rereading as original as it is unsuspected.
While singing traverses the essence of each song and the popular stories that count,
Mariola searches on Ribot's guitar -at times subtle and delicate and at other raw and
incisive- a new space within the traditional and essential character of the repertoire.
Profoundly knowledgeable of Lorca's dramatic and poetic work (whom she has taken
on scene on several occasions, with the revision of Enrique Morente "Omega" and in
the drama piece “Federico García” by the Theatre director Pep Tosar), Mariola
Membrives reunites now with “The Lorca” that connects her to her childhood through
the timeless songs of her Andalusia.
As for Marc Ribot, a musician committed not only to aesthetics but also to the ethics of
his speech, Mariola Membrives' proposal of putting his sound and electricity to the
songs that recorded the poet -murdered by the Franco regime- seems made to
measure.
Mariola and Marc create a common universe in which the beauty and drama, the
voice, the emotion and the feelings of the people converge. This is the Lorca of “La
Barraca”, who after his "Poet in New York" and his trip to Cuba, put himself at the
service of the Republic to take the Theater to the villages in an itinerant way and with
him, those songs that he arranged, compiled, documented and recorded on piano with
La Argentinita.
That is why Mariola Membrives prioritizes simplicity and closeness in her
interpretation, and looking at Marc Ribot, (who proclaimed himself 'A Prosthetic
Cuban' in his monumental tribute to the tres player Arsenio Rodríguez), seeks a "vital
truth that transcends". Premises to which the musician Daniel García Diego has given
form and discourse as artistic producer of the proposal.
We are facing a unique album, a contemporary and updated review of a legacy that is
still valid by an artist accustomed to challenges and in love with a pure and electric
sound, which she finds in a musician of such different origin, generation and aesthetic
as is Marc Ribot, a special connection through the poetic and musical pulse of a
universal genius.