"I am very happy to have gotten rid of the foolishness and taken the step to dedicate myself to music professionally." After a tapas meal of torreznos and bravas, saxophonist and composer Héctor Floría sips a twelve-year-old Macallan double cask leaning on the bar. In the background, John Coltrane's Lonnie's lament accompanies the nocturnal atmosphere of the Bar, and the patron smiles, looking at the amber liquid in his glass. "I am poorer, I have more time at my disposal, and I am much happier," he concludes.
As a child, in his father's village, La Yunta, he was captivated by the notes that the saxophonist of the local brass band blew through his instrument. "In my house, a lot of music was always listened to, and I started studying it at six years old." He grew up with a very varied soundtrack where classical, metal, progressive, and, of course, jazz "which was always there, especially Coltrane!" were not missing. But almost two decades had to pass before he considered making it his modus vivendi.
"I studied Telecommunications Engineering. Back then, I lived music as a hobby," but he met guitarist Abel Pàmies at university, who was an example for him because he alternated his studies with a rich musical activity. Shortly after, he joined the band APAC (acronym for Atomic Particles After Collision), from Barcelona. "With them, we recorded an album and played a lot live."
And the moment came when, freshly graduated, "scared of a life of working twelve hours in front of a computer," he took the step, got rid of the proverbial foolishness, and, along with David Carcelén, the band's drummer, they applied to study music at higher education centers. "I was 24 years old, I was very late, but after preparing conscientiously, I entered ESMUC." There he met Irene Reig and, shortly after, they went together to Amsterdam, where they lived for four years, he studied at the local conservatory and was able to learn from musicians like Dick Oatts, Ferdinand Povel, or Mark Tuner. "It was the best decision I could have made!" He sips a drink of whisky and smiles remembering it.
In memory of Pol Vicente Audí
"To make my first solo album, Phanerozoic, it took me ten years, on the other hand, to make this new one, a month and a half has been enough for me." Héctor Floría has just publishedCoordinates(The Changes), his second solo album, which includes three of his own compositions and three by drummer and composer Joan Casares. An album that has, behind it, a sad and beautiful story."This Christmas we were in La Yunta with some friends from the town, among whom was Pol Vicente Audí who, like me, lived in Barcelona, but his parents were from there. It was four days of being together and having a good time, a kind of farewell, because one morning we found him dead in his house due to a congenital disease he suffered from."
Héctor wrote the title track of the LP in homage to his friend. The cover that illustrates it is, furthermore, a photographic panorama taken in the town by the musician's mother, at dawn on the same day they were going to find Pol deceased in his home. The entire work thus exudes the memory of a friendship and a place that deeply define the artist. That child who fell in love with the saxophone watching it played in his town's brass band and who shed the foolishness that prevented him from living the life he was truly called to. A tribute to those who are no longer with us, although they will always continue to be there, somewhere within us, as long as we breathe on this earth.
It is also an album that arrives at a very special moment for Héctor, who has just become a father to a girl, Nora, born in September. "I have to combine fatherhood with the album presentation," he jokes, without losing his smile.
Barcelona is (or was) music
"It's the city where, as a kid, I used to come from Blanes to buy clothesheavy, to cruise its streets. It's where I bought my first professional sax, where I came to play and see concerts. It's the city where I studied and got completely hooked on jazz. It's the city where I lived until I left not long ago for Piera," the musician reflects before taking the last sips of Macallan."For me, Barcelona is music",utters.And he takes a few seconds to empty the glass, before adding: "at least, it was. Now it's more like tourists and nonsense. And, although it always has the capacity to make you find peculiar places, Barcelona is succumbing to a process of depersonalization, from which some neighborhoods that preserve their character still save it."
--- What you can't deny is that this Bar still maintains its Barcelona character!
Héctor Floría smiles intensely. The crowd livens up and, through the glass, the streetlights illuminate the nightlife. In the background, Elvin Jones dialogues with Coltrane and Jimmy Garrison in the first bars of The drum thing.
"I think I'll have another one of these," he decides, looking at the empty whisky glass, and letting himself be infected by the electricity of the atmosphere.