Chano Dominguez

Spanish pianist Chano Dominguez forged a singular blend that merges the pulse and vocabulary of contemporary jazz with flamenco’s complete historical arc. Although numerous players have explored this blend and met mixed results, Dominguez shaped an unmistakably personal language from the encounter. His late-1970s releases Más Allá de Nuestras Mentes Diminutas (1978), Noche Abierta (1979), and Canción de Primavera (1980) secured his standing in Spain as both pianist and composer while simultaneously introducing his name across Europe and Asia as an inventive force. Building on that foundation, he forged a trailblazing alliance with Paco de Lucía that yielded the widely praised 1997 album En Directo. Later projects such as Cuentos del Mundo (2008), Chano & Josele (2014) with guitarist Niño Josele, and Soleando (2015) alongside the WDR Big Band Cologne opened fresh pathways for both flamenco and modern jazz.

Dominguez entered the world in Cádiz in 1960. He first took up flamenco guitar near the age of eight and later shifted his focus to piano. During his twenties he co-founded the progressive Latin-rock group CAI, which issued three albums on CBS. After the band dissolved in 1981, he launched a solo career. Recognition arrived swiftly; in 1992 he captured First Prize at the National Jazz Competition for Young Interpreters. The following year saw the release of his debut solo album, Chano, and his relocation to New York City. Further recordings followed, among them the 1995 Paco de Lucía homage 10 de Paco and the 1997 concert set En Directo.

Throughout the 2000s Dominguez maintained a consistent flow of boundary-crossing work that included I Si! (2001), Hecho a Mano (2002), Acercate Mas (2006), and New Flamenco Sound (2007). In 2007 he shared the screen with saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera in the concert film Quartier Latin, then issued Cuentos del Mundo the next year. Piano Ibérico brought a Latin Grammy nomination in 2010. Two years afterward he unveiled Flamenco Sketches, a re-imagining of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue that reached number eight on the international jazz album chart. He next collaborated with contemporary flamenco guitarist Niño Josele on Chano & Josele. In 2017 he recorded the solo-piano recital Over the Rainbow live at Barcelona’s Palau Falguera and, the following year, released Chano & Colina with Spanish jazz bassist Javier Colina on Sunnyside Communications.

While performing at the 2017 Jazzahead Conference in Bremen, Germany, Dominguez was approached by Israeli flutist Hadar Noiberg, who had attended his set. She introduced herself and suggested they collaborate. Because both artists resided in Brooklyn, New York, only blocks apart, they began meeting for informal rehearsals whenever their schedules overlapped. Their musical outlooks aligned naturally, each drawing on jazz and classical training as well as an affinity for diverse Latin traditions. Dominguez’s Spanish roots resonated with Noiberg, whose own wide-ranging Israeli background offered points of connection to the Iberian Peninsula, while her experience with Latin American music supplied an instinctive grasp of its rhythmic language. Several Israeli folk pieces she shared further evoked holiday melodies from his native Andalusia. Once they had rehearsed, performed, and refined a shared vocabulary, the pair committed their material to tape at Trading 8s Studios in Paramus, New Jersey; the resulting duo album, Paramus, appeared in 2019.