The iconic central coffee of the central Plaza del Ángel de Madrid – at a short distance from the Puerta del Sol – definitely closes next October, as announced by its address. There will be special programming in these months, and work against a new place is worked.
After some extension that has prolonged its activity in recent years, and after overcoming the hard impact that the pandemic had on the music industry, the property has finally refused to renew the rental contract. It is a story that is repeated in a city whose center is increasingly subject to the pressure of tourist success, for better and for worse.
The Central Café opened its doors in 1982, becoming one of the main scenarios of the capital – and throughout Spain – for jazz artists and concomitant genres. Until today.
In these forty -three years – a life – more than 14,000 concerts have been held between its walls for more than one million spectators, figures within reach of very few. Or nobody. In the Central, which had been offering two concerts to the day 365 days a year, they have given their best national jazz figures such as Tete Montoliú and Pedro Iturralde, legends such as Lou Bennett, George Adams or Sheila Jordan, and great musicians of the moment as the pianist Brad Mehldau.
They have also gone through the coffee heterodox more or less close to jazz such as Javier Colina, Silvia Pérez Cruz, Chano Domínguez or the great Javier Krahe. Always, with an enthusiastic public response.
Although the club’s address is looking for a place that replaces it, the void that leaves this closure in the music scene of the city center is huge. Central Café had the good taste of maintaining its original decoration through the decades, which together with its great and demanding program earned him to be recognized by Down Beat magazine as one of the best hundred jazz clubs in the world. The British newspaper The Guardian placed it in the Top 10 at European level. Among other awards, Central Café has won the Prize for the Dissemination of Music of the Academy of Music in 2005.
The closure involves the loss of thirty -five jobs, many of them with a long career. To celebrate its legacy, in these months a special program is going to be made with artists who have marked their history. Email (email protects) has been enabled to address suggestions on which musicians should close this stage, and also proposals for premises that could take over. Hopefully it will be soon.
www.cafecentralmadrid.com
