PRE-ORDER: Pintura De Color [CD]

On Pintura de color, bassist, composer and arranger Javier Sanchez Perez, working under the name Cuejero, brings together musical worlds shaped by years spent between Spain and Northern Europe. Rather than placing traditions side by side, the album explores how cultures transform one another, bringing the language and rhythmic foundations of flamenco into conversation with Nordic jazz, Cuban music and wider Mediterranean influences. North and South become colours within the same palette, distinct and rooted in tradition, yet part of a shared contemporary sound.Across eight pieces, original compositions sit alongside imaginative reworkings of music by Jean Sibelius, Chucho Valdes, Paquito D'Rivera, Julio Gutierrez and Chick Corea. Cambia la vida opens with the energy of bulerias and a message of connection and resilience, while the bilingual Seinalla kuvasi brings Finnish Romani and flamenco voices together through cumbia and rumba. Sibelius's Valse triste is reframed through jazz and tanguillos de Cadiz, while Tangos de Misirlou places the familiar Mediterranean melody within the language of tangos de Granada.The title track turns painting into a metaphor for memory, love and erasure, reflecting the album's wider idea of individual colours forming a coherent whole. Elsewhere, the stripped-back arrangements of Chucho Influenciado, Inolvidable and Rumba de Armando place violin, percussion, double bass and voice at the centre, allowing groove, melody and improvisation to emerge with clarity.Recorded in March 2026 at Okoume Studios in Madrid, Pintura de color features an international ensemble including Jose Minguez, Juan Murube, Anette Åkerlund, Jacob de Carmen, Antti Korhola, Beatriz Vela and Oiva Haapamaki, with all arrangements by Javier Sanchez Perez.