Despite being a literary night, there was no music for chameleons at the Sant Jordi party, nor was it possible to dance to the music of time due to the large number of people gathered in the gardens of the Alma hotel. Instead, the melodies performed by the Quintet de l’Alma could be heard, which, as on previous occasions, was in charge of providing the soundtrack to the event. Led by Edu Miralles on clarinet, the Barcelona group combined jazz standards with Italian lyrical song by Iñaki Rodríguez on drums, Jairo Ortega on piano, Brady Lynch on double bass, and the voice of crooner Stefano Riva, a familiar face from the Barcelona Jazz Festival who did not forget to sing Elvis with Can’t help falling in love, nor Fly me to the moon, so appropriate in this year where Earth’s old companion has once again received a visit from humans.
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What there was on the night of books was a mix of music and literature, like the one promoted by the Mexican Jordi Soler. This son of the diaspora forced by the Civil War has just presented Ámala locamente, a dissection with a literary and philosophical air of 13 popular songs such as Pink Floyd’s Wish you were here or Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to heaven. “Sometimes songs don’t mean what you understand,” he comments, likening it to what happens to him with his books, from which he discovers new interpretations based on what his readers tell him. “Sometimes they tell me things about my books that are not what I meant, but I adopt it.” With this open spirit, he dissects the songs, among them one he suggests for the party, Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz. “It’s her last song, a criticism of her hippie colleagues who were all driving a Mercedes Benz.”
“Sometimes songs don’t mean what you understand,” reflected the Mexican Jordi Soler
On the other side of the mirror was the musician Ramon Mirabet, who after paying tribute to his father by singing jazz in Songs i heard has launched Per sempre més, an autobiography where he recounts his approach to music and the last moments lived with his father, Ramon, an orchestra trombonist and jazz lover. An experience, that of writing, that allows him to experience the Sant Jordi day from the other side of the barrier. “I feel like I’m traveling in a foreign country where everyone is friendly,” he comments with a smile, happy to be alongside many names he had not had the opportunity to meet in person, “you can talk to them for a while, it’s very nice.”
Valentí Oviedo, director of the Liceu, also spoke about music and literature, taking advantage of the upcoming performance of Werther at the Rambla theater to recommend reading this Goethe classic. “It is the essence of romanticism, which fits very well for Sant Jordi,” he pointed out, then warning that we must “flee yes or yes” the tragedies implicit in that artistic period. “If we don’t get too much into the role, it is highly recommended, but even more so is going to see the opera with Jules Massenet’s music, the combination of music and work has made it a universal classic of opera.” However, for this lighter night, he opts for the folk pop of the young Ivan Herzog, a good option to replace the performance of David Uclés, whom the musicians invited to sing last year. But this time the author of La península de las casas vacías preferred to focus on literature, as it is known that mixing is not always good.
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