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Rita Payés: Tiny Desk Concert with tags npr, npr music, national public radio, live, performance, tiny desk, tiny desk concert, tony desk, tiny concert

Anamaria Sayre | October 2, 2024

Admiration is the spellbinding tenor of Rita Payés’ Tiny Desk performance.

Flanked by mother Elisabeth Roma and husband Pol Batlle, the Spanish multi-instrumentalist’s presence at the Desk reflects the way she creates and lives her music: in the cradle of familial love.

Payés performs a variety of Spanish jazz that is contemporary and nimble in its delivery, yet leans heavily on tradition. Born to a musical family in the same coastal town in Northern Spain where she now resides, she was raised surrounded by deep, musical tradition which she was able to identify as ripe for revival.

Across earlier, softer songs composed alongside her mother, to her now more grandiose string-laden, percussively rich arrangements, authentically representing her home and creating music fit for intimate exchange is always central to Payés’ craft. In the longing trill of her trombone or her sweetest vocal note, a sense of generational respect and understanding is born anew in Payés’ revered harmonies.

SET LIST

“El Cervatillo”

“Por qué Será”

“Nana Per Les Mamas”

“Quien lo diría”

MUSICIANS

Rita Payés: lead vocals, trombone, guitar, composing, arranging

Pol Batlle: guitar, palm tree leaf

Elisabeth Roma: guitar

Horacio Fumero: upright bass

Juan R. Berbín: drums, percussion

Jonathan David Lewis: violin