Juan Martín

A native of Andalucia, Spain, acoustic guitar virtuoso Juan Martín is a master of what Spanish musicians refer to as nuevo flamenco -- that is, flamenco that is contemporary and expansive rather than totally traditional in its approach. Nuevo flamenco is not straight-ahead flamenco any more than jazz-rock fusion is straight-ahead jazz; instead of being carbon copies of flamenco's traditionalists, Spain's nuevo flamenco artists have set out to expand flamenco's borders. That isn't to say that Martín (whose last name is pronounced Mar-teen) hasn't been affected by flamenco's traditionalists -- actually, straight-ahead flamenco and the Spanish classical guitar tradition have been ongoing sources of inspiration to Martín, whose major influences have included Paco de Lucía, Tomatito, and the great Andrés Segovia. But Martín's influences don't stop at either traditional flamenco or Spanish classical guitar. While Martín is flamenco-oriented, he is not a flamenco purist -- instead, the broad-minded musician/composer views flamenco as something that can be combined with anything from jazz to Brazilian samba, Afro-Cuban salsa, and Argentinean tango. Latin America, in fact, is a major source of inspiration for Martín -- and that willingness to unite Spanish and Latin American aesthetics is reflected in song titles like "Cuba y España" ("Cuba and Spain") and "Bossa Rumba." Martín's output (which is largely but not entirely instrumental) has something for Paco de Lucía and Tomatito aficionados, but it also has something for Joe Pass admirers as well as fans of the late Brazilian guitar virtuoso Laurindo Almeida (who was one of the first guitarists to combine samba with cool jazz and is among Martín's non-Spanish influences). Martín began building a catalog in the '80s, when he...