Alejandro Latinez: Do not pursue dreams that are not your own

When he was nine years old, rummaging for sweets at his grandparents' house, he opened a cupboard and there was that guitar that seemed to be calling him. "I remember spending hours caressing its strings, tracing its contours, hypnotized." The rhythm of Wes Montgomery's In'n'out accompanies the sunset at the Bar while, leaning on the bar, Alejandro Latinez sips a negroni. "I think finding that guitar was the seed of everything that came after," he adds.

To understand how this Lima native nurtured his musical passion, one cannot help but talk about Aldo, "he was my uncle, my mother's brother, and, although he made a living as a cameraman, he had played in several groups like Juego Sagrado. He taught my brother and me the first chords and instilled in us a love for progressive music." Bands and artists like Yes, Genesis, Spinetta or (especially) Rush, were Alejandro's first great loves who, with his brother, went in search of those difficult and expensive CDs to find in Peru in the late 90s.

A mediocre student, things improved when he moved from a military school to Los Reyes Rojos school, more open to the artistic inclinations of students. At thirteen, he joined the reggae band Ya Vamos Jah and realized that what really excited him, what really motivated him, was playing. To keep learning. "When I finished my studies, I knew I wanted to be a musician. I had the support of my mother and my uncle Aldo and it was then that Teresa, his wife, who is Catalan, offered me the possibility of coming to Barcelona."

Two decades ago, not yet 18, the musician arrived here and immediately felt at home. Many things started to happen, of course. "My first big project was playing with Dani Lança for several years, with him I gained experience on tours and concerts for thousands of people." Other interesting projects included being part of the Always Drinking Marching Band, or writing and arranging repertoire for the album Jatarishun, by Winiaypa, "an Ecuadorian Andean music band mixed with reggae and pop with whom we still tour the United States and Latin America." But, despite an increasingly frantic activity, there was something, a void, that the musician felt he had to fill.

Ending up answering the call of jazz

More than his own dream, Alejandro Latinez seemed to be sublimating the frustrated aspirations of his uncle Aldo. "He didn't like jazz, but ever since I had my first contact with this music, through the guitarist Andrés Prado, I felt like it was calling me." This need to grow musically was what led him to enroll in the Liceu conservatory. There, between studies and passionate listening to Bill Frisell's albums, the foundations of where his musical career was going to go were laid.

The final step that pushed him into the world of jazz, definitively moving him away from that inertia of playing rock and pop, was when he enrolled in the New York Comes to Groningen master's program. "I moved to Holland and studied a lot. I had to practice, play all the hours I could, not leave other music aside, of course, but focus on jazz." The double bassist Joris Teepe, director of the master's program, realized the seriousness of that student. "He became my mentor and I went with him to New York, where I realized the enormous level of the musicians there. You could say that there I found the meaning, the direction, that I had been looking for. My dream, and not my uncle Aldo's."

One night, in New York, Joris made an incredible proposal. "He raised the possibility of recording an album under my name and by the end of the evening everything was ready: I had eight days to prepare the repertoire, because he and I were going to record together with Mike Clark, the legendary drummer of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters." This is how Introducing Alejandro Latinez Trio (Club del Disco) was forged, the acclaimed debut of the guitarist, who announces that it will have continuity in the form of a tour of Spain and a second album already in preparation.

Nourishing the sense of belonging

"My grandfather always told me that life was going to be difficult, but that you always have to look forward." The musician's persistence is based, to a large extent, on this life lesson. "I've worked a million things before being able to dedicate myself to music, especially being a terrible waiter," he laughs. Even so, what has not been difficult for him has been integrating into Barcelona. "I have felt welcome. From the first moment I felt it was my home, I immediately started studying Catalan and now I speak it with some fluency."

From the city, what stands out most is the sense of community, of belonging to the host place. Even in increasingly difficult situations —"like that of housing, always more inaccessible"— there can be magic, "like what happened during the season when a community of musicians lived in an occupied building in La Ribera, filling that neighborhood with music and strengthening ties with the neighbors," he recalls, as he takes the last sip of his negroni.

— What creates a lot of caliu and community is our gastronomic offer. Perhaps you'd like to have something for dinner, it's already time.

A drum roll anticipates the start of The Villa by trumpeter Kenny Dorham. The sky has darkened and the bar's clientele is livening up. Alejandro Latinez lets himself be carried away by the atmosphere.

— We could start with a burrata salad and then a good cut of meat, accompanied by a good red wine —he ventures, smiling.

— You certainly know how!