Jose Fernandez

Jose Fernandez first fell in love with flamenco in the heart of his Andalusian Gypsy family where everyone was a musician. From his grandfather, a well-known Flamenco singer & poet, he inherited his musical skills. As a boy, he wandered around gypsy ceremonies and camps, performing as a drummer. At the age of four he was recognized as a phenomenal child singer, which led a local newspaper to call him "the Mozart of Flamenco."

Born in the era of great musical fusion of the '70s, Jose grew up dreaming of mixing his flamenco heritage and his cante jondo vocal style, with other world musical styles, from salsa to oriental tunes. With this goal in mind, he has not limited himself to mastering only one instrument, he has shown interest in practially everything that makes a sound. After the drums, it is the guitar, the piano, the bass in all its different forms (guitar bass, contra bass, baby bass) and percussion (timbales, congas, bongos, darbouka).

On one of his recent projects, Jose recorded an album with the living legend of the tarab, Wadih El Safi. His subsequent project, Makhlouta is named for a Lebanese dish composed of a mixture of vegetables and beans, and is a fusion between ingredients as different as oriental, flamenco, Brazilian, funk, swing. —Courtesy Calabash Music