The Hero's Journey

Spain’s leading newspaper El País calls Daniel García Diego “one of the most exciting figures to have emerged from the world of contemporary jazz in the past decade.” Whereas the pianist is never an attention-seeker for its own sake - it simply doesn’t form part of his way of being - there are things which he does stunningly better than anybody else: his knowledge, respect and love for both jazz and flamenco go astonishingly deep, and he combines these two very different heritages fluently, effectively, indeed dazzlingly in his own music.

“For a long time I have been attracted by the hero figure - I’m not thinking at all about some invincible movie superhero, but rather the idea of a person constantly facing new challenges who needs to overcome them.” The pianist has been fascinated by the concept of archetypes and the ‘monomyth’ developed by Joseph Campbell in the book ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’. Campbell’s theory of a universal narrative arc effectively served as the blueprint for the Star Wars saga. “What I like about it is that this way of looking at the world tells that, at our core, we as humans are not different from each other.”

That idea of dealing with challenges that come along, one by one, determines the structure of an album which is designed to be listened to as one continuous experience, and which will be performed live in concert from late 2026. “What I did was to put music with a different character to all of those stages. It’s about what I feel at each different stage, a reflection of my own journey.” That approach also suits the pianist well because he is such a musical omnivore: “I find it difficult to categorise my music. It’s like trying to put the sea in a box - it just overflows! I love classical music, I love Middle Eastern music, I love rock, I love singer songwriters! Inspiration can come from anywhere!”

In its 13 sections, The Hero’s Journey is one unified story which takes the listener through a wide range of experiences and moods. All of the tracks have a sub-text, examples of which are - opener ‘Life in a Crystal Bottle’ is about a simple, ordinary, innocent world in which nothing remarkable has yet happened. The fourth track, ‘Meeting the Mentor’, is an affectionate portrait of a gentle father figure, with delicate inner voicings indicating a safe place, and the enjoyment to be had at the piano. The tenth, toccata-like track, ‘The Ordeal’, is the only one in the set to be completely through-composed. It is about the inner strength, motivation and mobilisation that comes from having a strong internal engine. And the final track, ‘The Resurrection’, is about having come full circle... and being ready to face more new and unexpected challenges.

There is a theme of self-reliance in the way in which the album has been made: all of the sounds have been fashioned by Daniel García Diego himself. “Everything is me,” he smiles. “It’s made in a way that I am going to be able to perform it live. That has been part of the purpose since the start.”