The Saxophonist Gardener of Alhaurín de la Torre

"I overcame kidney cancer, they removed one and I was close to dying," explains Juan José González Sánchez, from Alhaurín de la Torre... and at 52 years old, he makes it clear that his motivations, when he becomes Juan Beny Sax, an amateur saxophonist with a long career, and starts recording an album are anything but financial. "We make music not to make money, but because we need to express things through music," he insists, to underline, "since then (the illness), things have changed."

He speaks in plural because, in reality, he is not alone when he plays the saxophone; his sons, José Antonio, 20, and Juan, 16, accompany him.

In 2024, the three dared to record their first album, titled 'Evolución'. It includes five original tracks and two covers: 'Beauty of Life', where the young ones accompany their father, each one on his piano; 'The Maiden of the Basement', with the older son; 'This is How Love Feels', with the younger; 'In the Eye of the Storm', with the eldest; 'Rockrose Flower', with the youngest of the house, and the classic covers 'Moonlight Sonata', Sonata 14 by Ludwig van Beethoven, and, to top it off, 'My Way', which Sinatra made essential.

"I've been playing all my life, although I only have the elementary degree from the conservatory. My children, seeing it at home, also became curious and learned to play the piano. That's the origin of this. It's a great way to be together, to connect... better than many people who go on vacation and end up fighting," jokes Juan Beny Sax, who, in reality, has a professional background that has little to do with the stages, although he has found the connection.

"I was a gardener for the City Council. Along with Vicente Llinares (known for his facet as a painter), we were the ones who designed the green areas of the town, when the housing boom began, between the nineties and two thousand. They would tell you 'here goes a garden' and you had to figure it out. That's how I learned to improvise, and the saxophone also involves a lot of improvisation," he maintains, this lover of jazz, devoted to Coltrane and Miles Davis.

Currently, he is a janitor at the Business Incubator, where, he assures, no one calls him Juan José, having popularized his alter ego, Juan Beny Sax

After his stint in municipal parks, he applied for another position and is currently a janitor at the Business Incubator, where, he assures, no one calls him Juan José, having popularized his alter ego, Juan Beny Sax, especially after the album presentation, with a cover gifted by Llinares, and which was a full house at the 'Vicente Aleixandre' Cultural Center. With the proceeds from the tickets, he decided to collaborate with the local association Vites, dedicated to international cooperation.

The warm reception of this new musical stage, which comes to the gardener saxophonist after a cathartic life episode and many shots taken after participating in groups like 'Big Band de Málaga', 'No Smoke Jazz Band' or the Fito tribute, 'Fitiband', encourages him, along with his sons, to embark on the second album which, he announces, will be "more complex" and of which he only reveals that the cover is the work of another artist, José Antonio Diazdel.

Indeed, he trusts that, as in the first work, recorded in the Alhaurin studio Impala, they will manage to register it "in one go, like when we rehearse at home." A fluency that, as he recalls, he owes to his teachers, José Antonio Leal, Enrique Oliver, and Pablo García Vega.