Spanish singer, songwriter, producer, guitarist and visionary Gecko Turner is part of a new generation of musicians whose imagination is unfettered by boundaries. His omnivorous appetite for the groove is evident on every track of Guapapasea! his stunning debut album. His unique blend of jazz, blues, samba, reggae, rock, Spanish and Arab music with songs in English and Spanish is unlike anything you’ve ever heard, and yet there’s something strangely familiar about it too. Journalists in Spain have dubbed it “Afromeño,” but it owes as much to North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe and the Arab continuum as it does to Africa.

“I have a passion for blues music and everything that’s derived from it - soul, funk and jazz,” Gecko explains in his almost accent free English. “It’s been filling my soul from the first time I heard it and it comes out when I do my own music. In today’s situation, the Internet makes it easier for everybody to have chances to get in contact with music from all over the world. There is a global culture emerging, not from the politicians but from the musicians and people who love music.”

Gecko’s global vision is evident on every track of Guapapasea!, an international masterpiece with an unstoppable groove. Gecko’s musical guests include drummer Emilio Valdés (son of Irekere pianist Chucho and grandson of Cuban icon Bebo); percussionist Rubem Dantas, longtime associate of both Paco de Lucia and Chick Corea, sax man Javier Vercher, and trumpeter Irapoan Freire from Caetano Veloso’s band. It’s an album full of unexpected juxtapositions and mixed up beats, none perhaps more surprising to American ears than the track that opens the album; his Spanish language re-make/re-model of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. A tropical flute blows long floating notes over a swinging one-drop reggae riddim. Then Gecko comes in with a sing/say vocal performance that maintains all the song’s wild internal rhymes, making a case for Dylan as an early rapper.

“[Subterranean] was Dylan’s first rock song,” Gecko says. “I was crazy about it since I was 15, so I played with the words and tried it with a reggae swing groove. The author, or his business people, approved it, so I was lucky.”

One has to wonder what Dylan thinks of his song’s radical transformation, but it’s hard to imagine any music lover not being knocked out by it. Other standout tracks include “Rainbow Country,” another clever cover, this time of Marley’s “Roots, Rock, Reggae.” It’s a paired down track that blends flamenco guitar and hand clapping with an acoustic reggae groove. “Limon En La Cabeza” is a wild pastiche of funky 70s wah wah guitar, rap, Brazilian percussion and dub heavy bass. “Dizzie” is a sizzling R&B homage to be bop pioneer Dizzy Gillespie with an elegant xylophone interlude. It’s sung in English by Gene Garcia, lead singer of Inlavables (The Unwashed), a boyhood friend of Gecko ‘s and a fellow musician. Gecko is currently producing Garcia’s first solo album.

The title track “40.000$ (Guapa Pasea)” rides a gently pulsing tide of Afro-Cuban percussion, accented by a big reggae bass line and a horn line reminiscent of Fela Kuti. But its celebratory groove is used to deliver a chilling message. “The English translation of the title is ‘45,000 Dollars, Beauty Walking’. It relates to the immigration mafia; people from Africa pay $45,000 to get into Europe with a phony passport, but no chances to get good work. They often have to work as hookers to pay back that $45,000. Guapa Pasea is an idiomatic expression for prostitutes walking.” (The song was recently used in the Spanish movie “Obaba”, a film nominated for 2005’s Best Non-English Language Oscar.)

Gecko writes and sings his songs in English, Spanish and Portuguese and is looking forward to bringing a scaled down version of his 12-piece Afrobeatnik Orchestra to The States to support Guapapasea! The band has members from Spain, Africa and the US Guapapasea! has already won Spain’s Premio Extremadura a la Creacion, given each year to writers and musicians who have created work that furthers the recognition of the Spanish language as a creative medium. With its US release, can a World Music Grammy nomination be far behind?

Gecko Turner has been making music for most of his life and his story is almost as colorful as the music he’s making today. Gecko was born in Badajoz, Spain, a small town 200 kilometers from Lisbon and 400k from Madrid. As a teenager he fell in love with The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, The Stones then led him backwards to Elmore James, Lead Belly, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Big Joe Turner and the other blues greats. He picked up the guitar in his teens and eventually formed a cover band that played an eclectic mix of American and British pop. “It was real melting pot. I played what I liked the most. I don’t know if I played it right but I liked it.”

Gecko soon after discovered jazz, particularly the Afro Cuban sounds of Dizzy Gillespie and eventually moved to London and began busking in tube stations with a borrowed guitar - soaking up London’s jazz scene. That time of his life ended however when, following the death of his mother, he returned to Badajoz, married and got a job in a bank. When his wife got sick and died after a long illness, Gecko quit the bank and went back to music full time. “I realized life was short and felt my purpose on Earth was to write songs and do music.”

His first band as a singer, guitarist and songwriter was called Animal Crackers, a noisy Joy Division meets Sonic Youth outfit. They made two albums but Gecko left to start an artsy project called Reverendos with his boyhood friend Gene Garcia. They played acoustic guitars and Garcia would give his impressions of a Southern American Baptist Preacher. In the mid-90s Gecko moved to Merida, a town known for its Roman ruins and tapas. He got a job in a 24 track, 2-inch tape analogue recording studio – the studio where the Animal Crackers albums were produced – and began learning to work the boards. He also founded a new band Perroflauta (Dog flute). Half the band was Brazilian and they played a blend of samba and reggae. “I got an education from the Brazilian guys and began writing in a style similar to the stuff I later did on Guapapasea! We made a couple of CDs and toured all over Spain. It was the first tine I got recognition for my songwriting.”

When Perroflauta broke up, Gecko decided to demo up a few of the new tunes he was writing that combined the Brazilian reggae he’d been playing with the funk, blues and rock he’d always loved. His girl friend (now his wife) lent him $1,000 and he booked time in a small studio in Madrid. He was able to finish the album, and enlist the some big names he had met in from his time at the studio to help him record.

Eventually, the demos that became GUAPAPASEA! were signed to the Spanish label, Lovemonk, and licensed to Quango Music Group in North and South America. A fitting home for the musically diverse project, Los Angeles-based Quango Music is regarded as a tastemaker label of exotic, forward thinking and globally open-minded music renowned for championing artist like Zero 7, Koop, Talvin Singh, and Kruder & Dorfmeister.