By Rosine Alleva – Rock At Night EU Editor
The Blues Way is a musical project born about 10 years ago with the Italian singer and pianist SirJo Cocchi and the Spanish guitar virtuoso Balta Bordoy. Sometimes they perform as a duo or as a full-band. Two vibrant blues musicians with incredible and long musical careers.
SirJo Cocchi performed as backing vocalist, as lead vocalist/pianist in many genres; rock, soul, Pop, Jazz, reggae and opened for The Blues Brothers Band, Maceo Parker, Chaka Khan, Tower of Power and more.
Balta Bordoy is a self taught guitarist and is highly integrated into the regional roots music communities. He also has been regularly called to back American and European blues artists during their tours.
It’s with the whole band that The Blues Way played at the Jazz Festival. The sound check was more than promising, it immediately called to dance! The Concha Segura Theater somehow evoked the intimate atmosphere of one of those old Chicago blues clubs. The combination of SirJo’s excellent vocals and piano playing with Balta’s authentic guitar playing took us on a journey through the traditional electric blues of the 1960s and the golden age of rhythm & blues.
The interview took place just after the sound check.
Lineup
SirJo Cocchi – Piano | Balta Bordoy – Guitar
Pablo Di Salvo – Bass | Regi Vilardell – Drums
Nil Mujal – Saxophone
Interview
RAN– It’s a pleasure to meet you here at the theater. I just listened to the soundcheck and I couldn’t stop moving.
SirJo Cocchi– Oh, that’s good. Thank you
RAN– Really cool! I first would like to know how you met and when did you start that project, The Blues Way?
Balta Bordoy– We met for the first time like 10 years ago in Mallorca, the island where I’m from, (00:29) while SirJo was visiting the island with a friend of us, a trumpet player called Pepe Ragonese. So he introduced us. SirJo went to Mallorca for a few summers. He played over there. And then after the pandemic, we got in touch again and I invited him to play a few gigs in Barcelona. So we prepared some new songs and then we took advantage of it to record it.
RAN– And on stage, how did the chemistry between you evolve? When you’re on stage, you just look at each other in a glance just like this?
SirJo– Yeah, I mean, the communication is both with notes and with sight. It’s like now we try to use mainly notes to communicate, but we always try to look at each other and also the musicians and to always have this communication going as much as possible. And then depending on who’s, for example, who’s soloing if he’s taking a solo he’s in command of dynamics so he will take it where he wants it to go, you know, and so it depends on the moment. But we’re constantly engaged, yeah, yeah.
RAN– Your album “Heads Up”, released in 2024, had very very good critics. Do you already have the project for a second album? I mean, there’s a lot of songs, of course, on a new album.
SirJo– Not only do we have the project, we have recorded it already The second album is ready now. Yeah,
RAN– Yeah, perfect.
SirJo– We just need to mix it. And to master it. But then meanwhile, we also recorded a duo album because we also play as a duo quite a bit. And we realized that we didn’t have any material with the duo, like properly recorded. And so we also recorded a duo album. So actually, we think that the duo album is coming out first. And then the new album is coming out probably, yeah, sometime at the end of this year.
RAN– Yeah, that was part of my question, if you were doing things as a duo. But you both also have different projects that you’re working on independently?
Balta– Sure, yeah.
RAN– How do you organize all this? What are those projects?
Balta– It’s pretty easy. It’s just a question. “Are you busy that day?” If we are both busy, we can’t do it. If we are both free, we can do it. So it’s always looking at the calendar. So I have a project in Mallorca and another one in Barcelona. But also, mostly in Barcelona, I play with different bands that call me. And SirJo also has…
SirJo– I have another project which is different styles of project. The only blues project I have is with him. Then I have a funk project with some young guys from the coast near Nice, between Nice and San Remo, in Imperia. And then I have like a more songwriting thing that I’ve been doing since like maybe it’s like 15 years now. So and that, but that’s mostly like singles that come out and now I’m going out with the cello player but so we both have another couple of projects.
Balta– We can say the names of the bands so people maybe they want to know. Funkincasa is a project.
SirJo- Yeah, Funkincasa and Big G & the Funky Fellas is the funk collective, which is a collective people. And then the Samba Chronicles is the other project that I have.
RAN- And your project, your groups, Balta?
Balta– My band in Mallorca is called Los Peligrosos Gentlemen. That means dangerous gentlemen. Be careful, be careful. Haha! … But gentlemen.
RAN- Haha! I’m very scared, haha!
Balta– And my band in Barcelona is called Balta Bordoy and the Bad Boys.
RAN– It’s also a kind of bad boys thing….
Balta– I’m the good one.
RAN– Talking about blues, because today is blues that you’re going to play, what is the impact of the blues for you today?
SirJo– To me, the blues, they call it the devil’s music, but actually it’s to me, the music that puts more in contact with the material world and the magical world, or let’s call it the spiritual world. To me, I always viewed the blues and felt the blues as some kind of something magical that you cannot quite talk about, but either you feel it or you don’t feel it.
So to me, it’s important because it’s also with Balta’s knowledge of the blues. He made me listen to different kinds of blues that I didn’t know and to put it all together there’s so much variety in the blues and people think it’s only one thing but it’s so many things and it goes to the essence, to the bone, to the backbone of the music. So it’s very important because nowadays you can cheat a lot with music. You can use machines to make music now more than ever with artificial intelligence. So with the blues it’s hard to lie it’s impossible to lie it’s either you feel it it’s there it’s not there.
RAN– And you’ve been third at the blues challenge in Poland “bravo”! Do you have, lately, did you have nominations for other awards?
SirJo– Yeah, we have five Grammy nominations, Oscar nomination for the best song. No, no, no, not at the moment.
Balta– No, but thanks to the challenge that we did, this concert, we’ve been traveling back to Poland, Lisbon and Latores. So it’s been a nice year.
RAN– Oh yeah, of course. I’m sure It brought new opportunities.
Balta– New promoters are interested in us.
RAN– SirJo, you play various genres and my question to you; which one for you does represent you the most? If you would have to describe yourself, (8:00) in music, what would be the genre that would describe yourself?
SirJo- The thing is that the first scale that I learned in my life on the piano was a blues scale. And anyway, when I was listening to things, I was always looking for that quality. It had to have some blues in it. So funk has blues in it, and all the stuff I write, even when it’s not blues, always has some elements, so I would say that my main thing is blues, soul, and funky blues, but it all stands from it,
RAN– Balta, I read somewhere that you are called the veteran of the Spanish blues. Do you agree with this description?
Balta- I don’t feel that old. Haha! But it’s been 33 years now. So I guess I’m getting old.
SirJo – You’re experienced.
RAN– Yeah! With such a long music background!
Balta- In these 33 years I only stopped playing during the pandemic. I’ve been playing every week. More than a gig every week. And for 20 years we were the house band at the club. So we were not playing every night but maybe twice a week at the same club. And the rest of the week others played…
SirJo- What club?
Balta– Bluesville in Mallorca, but that’s gone. That was for 20 years, ’94 to ’14.
RAN– And the last question. Tonight you are accompanied by musicians. Are they always with you or does it depend on who is free, maybe?
Balta– Yes, it depends on many things. One is who is free, but also since the pandemic every time it is more difficult to travel with a lot of musicians. So maybe it’s easier to do it as a duo and then depending on where we play. We call one, I mean we have very good musicians from Mallorca. We have Pablo on the bass today, he lives in Mallorca. He’s been there for 20 years or something. He’s on the next record. Also with the drummer from Mallorca. So they play with us when we are in Mallorca and sometimes travel like this one. But in Barcelona we have two or three drummers and two or three bass players, depending who can play. And sometimes, now we’ve been in Hungary and in Warsaw, in Poland, and we played with some guys from Hungary. Because that makes it easier and makes it possible, sometimes, there’s no money for it.
RAN– I understand. And how does it happen then? Do you send them the songs?
Balta– Yeah, we send them all the stuff and we set a date the day before the concert, for some hours.
RAN– And I guess the musicians know enough to catch what you’re playing.
SirJo– Yeah, most of them…Well, this guy from Hungary, like the bass player and the drummer, had already played with us last year. All of them now have played with us quite a few times so they know they know the repertoire. The beautiful thing is that everybody plays it a little bit differently
Balta– But they all know the style but it’s very important like these different styles in the blues, different kinds of.
RAN– Well we’re looking forward to discover the rest of what we heard already earlier, thank you and I hope I’m going to find somebody to boogie with me.
SirJo- Sure. Yeah
RAN- Because, you know, I can’t help it to move on that type of music…
SirJo- I mean, blues was born as dance music. I mean Saturday night, small joints, no lights and people were dancing together.
Balta- And if you don’t find anybody, our sax player is a teacher, is a dance teacher.
SirJo- So you can come on stage and dance with them.
RAN- Don’t say that because you don’t know who you’re talking to . Hahaha! No, no, I wouldn’t do that. But it’s good to know, maybe after the concert!
SirJo– Yeah, yeah. Nil is a great dancer.
RAN- Thank you very much for your time
SirJo- It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for having us.
Balta- Oh, yeah. Thank you.
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM
Photo Gallery ©Tomas Martinez
From Belgian and Italian parents, I grew up with music, dance and big fun! I love singing since I'm a little girl, I still am, haha. When I was 14, I saw my first concert: T-Rex. Later it was FrankZappa, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Fela, Canned Heat, Little Feat, Bonnie Raitt, Earth, Wind and Fire ....
I dreamed to have a chat with each of them 😀 Before interviewing bands, I used to sing (and still do) and met lots of great musicians. I had the chance to be the support band to Joe Cocker in 2007. I love to communicate and meet people (Italian blood).
Working for magazine, a few years ago, l met José Oliveira! We were working at the same festival in Colmar. 2 people from the South with the same passion just recognized each other...and we stayed in contact since then. Here I am! Enjoying concerts, covering interviews and articles with José for Rock at Night!!
- Great discovery at the Yecla Jazz Festival: SirJo Cocchi & Balta Bordoy – The Blues Way - October 18, 2026
- Yecla Jazz Festival 2026: Meeting the Soul Diva Gisele Jackson and the Shu Shu’s - October 14, 2026
- RAINOVER, the Spanish band’s story and latest album “Between Dream and Nightmare” - June 3, 2026
