Chris Burton Jácome Set to Release New Album 'Levanto' on 4/23

Flamenco guitarist Chris Burton Jácome is set to release his new album, LEVANTO, on April 23rd.

Chris first started playing guitar in the 80s and, like every other white kid of the time, wanted to be the next Eddie Van Halen...until he heard flamenco guitarist Gerardo Nuñez on the radio. He thought to himself, "I have to play flamenco guitar!" So he quit his garage band and devoted his life to everything flamenco.

After college (he majored in Spanish Literature and Classical Guitar) he moved to Spain and took the first apartment in Seville he could find on the internet. By chance, his landlady happened to run one of the main flamenco shoe stores in the city. This provided him with a ton of connections to the flamenco world.

He eventually became a regular at a bar owned by the legendary Farruco family. With much help from the good-hearted clan, he soon became fluent in flamenco. "Flamenco is a just like that: it's a language, it's a musical and dance language," he reflects. No one could simply teach him how to play...flamenco had to be acquired by osmosis, by living and breathing it.

LEVANTO is a studio adaptation of an original full-length flamenco performance (complete with dancers and palmas) by CALO FLAMENCO, a touring music and dance ensemble based in Phoenix. Chris is the Musical Director and his long-time friend, Martín Gaxiola, is the Artistic Director.