![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/eltecolote.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Barrio-WEB-1.jpg?resize=1278%2C913&quality=89&ssl=1\")
The four-member collaboration soon became a trio. By the summer of 2015, restaurants, music venues and bars were having a new flavor of jazz blasting over all the Bay Area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The origins of the band\u2019s name came to Jim\u00e9nez during a Christmas gathering back in Spain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBecause we come from el barrio from Spain, it represents a lot of who we are so it represents our music,\u201d Jim\u00e9nez said. \u201cManouche\u201d means gypsy jazz, and it\u2019s one of the influences of the unique sound of the band. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jim\u00e9nez\u2019s passion for music was born from a solitary experience with acoustic guitar. When he was 12, his uncle gave him one, and he thanks his family for being musical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy mother and father were a big influence on our musical culture,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now an eight-piece ensemble, Barrio Manouche performs regularly in San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area, including a special performance at Stern Grove this past summer, Aug. 11. \u201cWe don\u2019t necessarily choose the people we play with in the band by how they play\u2026 but their energy\u2026 we are lucky that these people are beautiful people and we connect with them in so many ways,\u201d said Jim\u00e9nez. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Barrio Manouche\u2019s music has no electronic elements. Playing solely acoustic instruments allows the band to connect more with artists from all over the world, which only emphasizes the importance of the collaborative experience. Jim\u00e9nez said that if only one person would be creating music, it would be losing the essence of community and the social message about art. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s beautiful to have a community of artists and sometimes we cry, sometimes we laugh, its life and that\u2019s life, said Jim\u00e9nez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the Chapel, a venue located in the Mission District, the room becomes sweaty and loud. The stage is crowded with musicians, and the dancer is stomping and bending and waving her hands in the air. Not only do the musicians collaborate through the sensory experience of playing the instruments; the venue is alive and one with music. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the type of energy the musicians of Barrio Manouche reverberate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we are trying to create something,\u201d said Luis Jim\u00e9nez. \u201cIt\u2019s more like we try to connect with the music itself, what we are trying to deliver a vibration or energy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Barrio Manouche\u2019s dream is to tour Latin America and to visit Jim\u00e9nez\u2019s roots in Spain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Barrio Manouche performs at Club Deluxe in San Francisco on Dec. 21, and The New Parish in Oakland on Jan. 23, 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Imagine picking up a guitar and finding out that you would rather have your fingers bleeding than stop practicing your chords. This is the case for Javier Jim\u00e9nez, a native of Madrid, Spain, and the founder of Barrio Manouche, a Gypsy flamenco band composed of artists from different parts of the world. Barrio Manouche ended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":42187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"coauthors":[18477],"class_list":["post-42186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n