Although he has all the makings of a cultural agitator, Luis Cabrera prefers to define himself as "a distorting element, an ardent dilettante who never places himself in the flock and who lives installed in dissidence." Guided by what seems like a congenital allergy to taking the easy paths, his life is a sum of self-induced complications, stimulated by a contagious enthusiasm. Steps that, one after another, have led Barcelona to a much better position in which to live culturally.
He arrived in the city in 1964, before turning ten, from Arbuniel, Jaén. At 16, he promoted the first flamenco club in Verdum, dedicated to Enrique Morente, "inspired by my escapades in the house of Cádiz, located in Barceloneta which, of the four Andalusian regional houses that existed in the city at that time, was the one with the most color," he recalls, at the bar, before a steaming short cortado coffee.
In 1977, some members of the club encouraged the demolition of the asphalt plant in Nou Barris so that it could be converted into a cultural space. Color and warmth against the dark gray of the tar. The initiative prospered and gave rise to the Ateneu Popular de Nou Barris, which is still there. "For the inauguration, I was commissioned to organize a popular festival with thirty hours of music, and that made me get in touch with musicians, artists, sound companies." This is how he drew a first map of the cultural who's who of that city halfway between the death of the dictator and the institutionalization to come, where everything was possible.
"That popular festival was the first activity ever carried out in Spain to claim culture and environmentalism. But, in addition, from that the founding team of the Taller de Músics was born," explains Luis, who in 1979 founded a higher education school "that has the soul of a flamenco den, a jazz club, a rock and roll garage and a Latin cabaret" and in whose classrooms countless musical talents have been trained, tempered, and flourished.
"As you can see –he says with a smile that is both resigned and joyful– I, who have no entrepreneurial spirit, and here I am: reviewing invoices, paying salaries, and expanding the business." For this very reason, the only musician who has not prospered in the Taller is himself: "I played the sax, but I had to quit, because this grew very fast and I no longer had the time to play". He considers the Taller his eldest son, "who, like the other two, Luis and Miguel, is also good people," he says. And his eyes sparkle. In 2024, the school received the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts.
A healing process
For Luis Cabrera, the struggle to make his voice heard, "to say yes, when my horse says no, as the fandango says," has not come cheap. Dissident enthusiasm has a price and, at this point, at 71 years old, he has had four heart attacks. One, the worst, one night in 1988 in Berlin: his heart failed just as his wife was at Vall d'Hebron losing a child. "Same day, same time," he murmurs, still unable to explain it.
Other open fronts for the parishioner are the Xnet platform, which defends freedom of expression and digital rights, and the Els Altres Andalusos association, which protects and vindicates the identity traits of Andalusians in a Catalonia where the existence of a derogatory term like charnego speaks for itself, "and where, in order not to accept autochthonous urban music, Catalan rumba, due to its flamenco air, in popular festivals they continue to opt for batucada." From that association come Luis's books: Catalunya será impura o no será and Els altres andalusos.
But a few years ago, a moment came when he felt the need to write other things. "To put words to a series of issues that I carried within me, as if it were a healing process". Thus began his facet as a novelist, which started in 2021 with La vida no regalada, an effective fresco about a marginal Barcelona full of duende from the 60s and 70s.
This facet continues, now, with La muerte no desvelada (Roca), which transports the reader to a post-war Andalusia of deep silences, some painful; of dry suns and shadows full of secrets. Of pain, discovery, and magic among almond trees, olive trees, and poppies, whose essences are capable of stopping tears.
In defense of the contemplative life
The notes of Lo bueno y lo malo, by his adored Ray Heredia, resonate in the Bar: Y en mí, y en mí, y en mí – En mi mundo nuevo, lo voy a olvidar – Las aventuras que he podido vivir – En mí, y en mí. The patron finishes his cortado, who knows if thinking about all those dissident adventures he has embarked on. In all the avatars that have led him to be the man he is, in this Barcelona where "there are still sectors that climb onto the pulpit of privileged areas and dare to pontificate about the salvation of peripheral neighborhoods where they have never even set foot."
Even so, he confesses that he loves Barcelona very much, in love with those imperfections that make the city "human and not robotic", despite it being unrequited love. "I have the feeling that, for some time now, she, and Catalonia in general, don't love me, which is why I'm considering returning to Arbuniel, to a simpler, contemplative life. Because if you don't contemplate, you can't see, or hear."
--- And you can't savor it either! It's already lunchtime and we have an amazing gastronomic offer in this Bar.
As a good Andalusian, aware of the double pleasure, culinary and social, of tapas, Luis Cabrera is clear. "Let it be some tapas!", he exclaims with Súmamela bien by Ray Heredia ---yo he encontrado el camino el camino que llevará a la felicidad--- playing in the background.