The little while began as all important conversations do, without ceremony or announcements. With a cold beer on the veined marble table and time breathing slowly among the glasses and plates, as if everyone knew that essential things were about to be discussed. Metropolis Restaurant of Stops. Juan Carlos Cortes Taking care of us like only he knows how. And whatever will be, will be.
In front of me, after we'd poured two glasses of beer on the ground, José María Velázquez-Gaztelu —with Nieves, his lifelong companion— he had the lively gaze of someone who has never accepted retiring from passion. Of someone who doesn't understand retirement as a closure, but as an administrative word incapable of touching the true territory of a vocation. He spoke to us of Paradas, of the Peña by Miguel VargasHe spoke of his eternal gratitude to those who remembered him and his life. Between beers, as if each sip untied a different knot in his memory, he spoke of flamenco And of life—which for José María are one and the same, always woven together by lyricism—not as someone analyzing a genre, but as someone returning to an inner homeland he has never left. His emotion remains undiminished. It was enough to name one canteto remember a voice or evoke a distant night so that in their gesture there might be hinted that secret emotion that only those who have made listening a way of life possess.
We started by talking to Eduardo Benjumea And, almost without transition, the figure of Francisco Moreno GalvanBecause there are names that aren't invoked, they simply appear when the conversation begins, aided by a high note in the third. Then José María's voice acquired a different gravity, as if at that moment he was no longer speaking from memory but from an ancient fidelity. We remember how with Moreno Galván new aesthetics opened up. But José María said it without theoretical emphasis, like someone recalling the opening of a door through which a different way of understanding the world entered. He spoke of The Puebla de Cazalla, of those celebrations built from authenticity with Fernando from Central, without artifice, without tourist traps, where the flamenco It was great because it was true. And that word—truth—began from then on to order the entire conversation like a secret music.
It was then that Paradas took center stage. And the atmosphere shifted. It no longer appeared as a geographical reference, nor as a secondary episode in a sentimental biography, but as a living presence, charged with affection and recognition. When José María pronounces “Paradas,” he isn't saying the name of a town. He's saying an emotion. It evokes fondness, love, a kind of moral hospitality that he still recognizes as a refuge. He spoke of Paradas as one speaks of places where one has found not only friends or memories, but a confirmation of life's meaning. And as he spoke, I came to understand that for him, Paradas represents something deeper than a mere backdrop. flamencoIt represents a reserve of authenticity, a territory where art has not lost its gravity. He recalled the seriousness of his passion, a seriousness understood not as rigid solemnity but as respect for truth. And at that moment the name appeared Miguel VargasHe entered the conversation with the weight of a name that needs no explanation. There was even a brief pause before continuing, as if silence itself were claiming space to receive a flamenco singer whose stature can only be understood through respect.
"Suddenly I understood that the loyalty that José María Velázquez-Gaztelu has maintained towards the flamenco It bears a striking resemblance to the fidelity with which she has loved: the same loyalty, the same persistence, the same undiminished emotion. Arcos de la Frontera, La Puebla de Cazalla, Moreno Galván, Paradas, Miguel Vargas, the PeñaNieves, these were not scattered episodes from a biography. They were the measures of the same soleá, the fragments of a single truth lived with coherence.
As the cheese and ham gave way to the tuna belly—accompanied by a generous glass of the glorious wine from Sanlúcar de Barrameda—José María spoke of Miguel Vargas as one speaks of those who embody a lineage. He didn't dwell on embellishments or easy praise. He simply said that he possesses truth. In that single word, everything was said. Because in the flamenco Truth is a sacred, religious category. Something that cannot be learned or displayed. Something that happens when a voice manages to say what others barely intuit. He described Miguel Vargas as one of those flamenco singers who don't sing to please, but to reveal. One of those who don't embellish the cantebut they leave him naked so that his wound appears in its entirety.
And from Miguel Vargas the conversation inevitably led to the Peña Flamenca of Paradas and its people, about whom he spoke with serene emotion, like someone recognizing not a cultural institution but a form of resistance against these vile times that know nothing of sensibilities. Because the PeñaAccording to what he was saying, it's not just a place where people sing. It's a space where the flamenco It preserves its dignity, where silence still matters before the first cry, where a cante Well said, any show. In times of noise and pretense, Paradas, his PeñaHis passion and figures like Miguel Vargas, who hold a special place in his memory, represent for him an ethic, an aesthetic with body and soul. To continue meeting to listen, to continue believing in what jondo Without turning it into a commodity, continue to uphold the truth. That was, in essence, the word that always returned.
At the Metropolis restaurant, with Pepe Lamarca Orbiting the conversation from the phone, José María seemed to grow younger as he named all those things, because he wasn't evoking remnants of a vanished past, but realities that for him were still alive. He spoke like someone who still belonged to that world.
And then, with a clear and clean gaze, she appeared snowsHis wife, and the interview turned into a confession. When she said, with disarming naturalness, that he was and still is her first love, everything that came before took on an unexpected meaning. Because I suddenly understood that the fidelity José María has maintained toward the flamenco It bears a striking resemblance to the fidelity with which she has loved: the same loyalty, the same persistence, the same undiminished emotion. Arcos de la Frontera, La Puebla de Cazalla, Moreno Galván, Paradas, Miguel Vargas, the PeñaNieves, these were not scattered episodes from a biography. They were the measures of the same soleá, the fragments of a single truth lived with coherence.
As we were saying goodbye, he ordered another glass of Rioja. Martínez Lacuesta“Curro’s,” he said, almost smiling, adding that there was still more to the conversation. And I thought that phrase defined him completely. Because José María Velázquez-Gaztelu is precisely that: a man for whom there is still more to talk, still more to say. canteThere is still emotion. A man who refuses to retire because some vocations know no retirement, fires that refuse to be extinguished. As long as he continues to pronounce Paradas as one names a beloved place, as long as he continues to recognize in Miguel Vargas the naked truth of cante, while the Peña Flamenca He will maintain that seriousness he admires as a form of honor, and as long as Nieves looks at him as she did on the first day, he will continue to inhabit that continuity where memory, love, and flamenco They are of the same substance. And then one understands that what is truly great makes no noise, does not proclaim itself, does not exhibit itself. It simply remains. Like the cante True. Like Paradas. Like those men who, even surrounded by time, continue to live as if the best conversation were yet to begin. ♦
