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Diego Amador
Biography
With influences ranging from Tomatito and Paco de Lucia to Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans, acoustic pianist Diego Amador is an experimental, risk-taking instrumentalist who fuses Spanish flamenco with jazz (mostly post-bop, although he is hip to fusion and avant-garde jazz, as well). The Spanish musician/composer isn't a purist when it comes to flamenco; a totally traditional flamenco artist wouldn't have recorded a piece by the late electric bass virtuoso Jaco Pastorius ("Continuum"). And Amador's main instrument, the acoustic piano, is hardly flamenco's main instrument -- some flamenco purists would even argue that the phrase "flamenco pianist" is an oxymoron, and that the acoustic guitar is the only real flamenco instrument. Nonetheless, Amador has clearly mastered flamenco forms such as the bulería and the solea, and he combines them with a strong appreciation of post-bop pianists like Jarrett, Evans, and Corea (who has experimented with flamenco on more than a few occasions). Although most of Amador's jazz influences come from the post-bop realm, he appreciates fusion (Pastorius certainly played fusion) and occasionally acknowledges free jazz and the avant-garde.
Selected Discography