Who is your favorite musician?
I have to say Igor and Oleg from the Red Elvises. Igor plays the big triangle bass balalaika. I grew up on the Beach Boys, so I love the idea of a Siberian surf rock band. You’ve got that genre, but with a twist. —Topac
Jordi Savall. He revived the viol, the viola da gamba’s ancestor. He played the music in the movie All the Mornings of the World. He’s from the Basque Country and he speaks at least six languages. His mission is world peace and understanding and he brings together cultures and groups for concerts. —Dean
Jimi Hendrix. The greatest guitarist ever, in my not-so-humble opinion, for his willingness to experiment. Nobody had ever really sounded like that before.
—Maggie
Omar Apollo—he’s a Mexican-American R&B artist from the Midwest. He plays guitar and I like his music style and his taste. He’s very smooth, very similar to Frank Ocean. —Andrew
Let’s just say Jobim—Antônio Carlos Jobim. I’m half Brazilian on my mom’s side. Jobim played Latin jazz and he made the bossa nova popular. —Dave
I listen to so much music, but the first that comes to mind is jazz—so I’d say John Coltrane. I like his style and how he developed as a musician. He started off addicted to drugs and then he gets more spiritual and then he does a lot of unique things after that. —Aria
Jordi Savall is a wonderful artist and promoter of Western early music. An excellent choice! However, Savall is not Basque, but rather Catalan.
It’s easy to imagine how one might confuse Savall’s native Catalonia with Euskadi (the Basque Country). In both autonomous communities, a majority of residents view themselves as “not Spanish”, having been forcibly colonized by Spain. Both are lovely places!