Flamenco Jazz represents the first — and perhaps the most fertile, rich, and meaningful — meeting ground between flamenco and jazz. It’s the most vibrant and thought-provoking blend in the history of both genres, and arguably the most significant expression of Spanish music in the last forty years. What’s more, it has spread beyond Spain, embraced by musicians around the world — proof of its truly universal dimension.

Jazz is an art form built on tradition, molded by the transatlantic currents of rhythm and resistance. Beneath its heady harmonies and soaring solos lies a history of migration, resilience, and cultural collaboration. Through the violin and voice of Yilian Cañizares, this heritage becomes audible: a synthesis of Afro-Cuban rhythms, world-class violin technique, and jazz-latin fusion. 

At the beginning of the 1940s, jazz underwent a profound transformation. In the nightclubs of Harlem—especially at Minton’s Playhouse and Monroe’s Uptown House—a group of young African American musicians began developing a new musical language that would break away from the dominant style of the time: swing. From those informal sessions, bebop emerged—a movement that would forever change the history of jazz.

Picture this: Havana, Cuba in the mid-19th century.  There is music everywhere; infectious rhythms and lively dancing make the city feel alive.  Locals tap their feet, dancing the Contradanza, a popular style of dancing based around a specific polyrhythm, the Habanera.  Fast-forward 100 years to 1956, and hear the same rhythmic pulse driving tantalizing new sounds of the Horace Silver Quintet. How did one rhythm travel thousands of miles to shape the sound of jazz and all modern music? 

El Flamenco Jazz constituye el primer mestizaje tanto del flamenco como del jazz, el más fértil y rico, el más sustancioso e interesante. Asimismo, es la mejor índole de música española de los últimos cuarenta años, la de mayor significación e inquietud. Por añadidura, también se cultiva fuera de España y por músicos extranjeros, en señal de su perfecta dimensión universal.

Jazz, which emerged in the United States at the end of the 19th century, soon found fertile ground in Mexico for its reception and transformation. Early contact between Mexican and American musicians allowed the genre to spread throughout the country, where it acquired its own characteristics through interaction with local traditions. Over more than a century, jazz in Mexico has gone through phases of introduction, consolidation, experimentation, and contemporary revitalization, becoming an essential component of national cultural life.