Percussionist, bandleader, clarinetist Aleading force in contemporary Latin music for more than four decades, percussionist/bandleader has helped define and popularize salsa, the distinctive blend of traditional Latin dance music and American jazz. Along the way, Barretto ’s musical interests progressed from dance music to pure jazz. To the conga player, best known for his propulsive style as a performer, it was just part of a natural evolution. “It was time to move on, ” he told an interviewer for /Bay Area Salsa & Latin Jazz Online.

  1. Ray Barretto Viva Watusi Rar

“The Latin dance music changed, and I don ’t think for the better. It became very fluffy and corny, with little substance.

Barretto

Download Viva Watusi. Buy mp3 Viva Watusi album of Ray Barretto. Ray Barretto, Soundtrack: Carlito's Way. Ray Barretto was born on April 29, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was married to Annette Rivera. He died on February 17, 2006 in Hackensack, New Jersey, USA. Ray Barretto - 1973 [1993] 'Carnaval'. Ray Barretto made a slew of comparatively buttoned-up but highly sensual Latin jazz albums in the early '60s. (number 17 on the pop charts) the following year on Tico with 'El Watusi' (in tandem with a dance craze of the time). He tried to modernize the charanga sound with injections of.

Ray Barretto Viva Watusi Rar

So it came a time where I realized I had to take the next step. ” The son of Puerto Rican immigrants, Barretto was born on April 29, 1929, in,. After his father abruptly left the family when Ray was only four years old, his mother Delores moved her three children to the Bronx. She worked during the day and studied English at night so she could find a better job. For Barretto, an asthmatic, music was his only joy.

He spent long nights listening to the big band sounds of,,, and Harry James on the family radio. School was an ordeal for Barretto because he was a claustrophobic child who found it difficult to sit still in class. At age 17, he begged his mother to let him quit school and enlist in the Army, where he could escape the racial intolerance he had experienced in the streets of City. Unfortunately, the military proved no haven from bigotry. “The Army was still segregated at the time, ” he told an interviewer for Paris Free Voice. “Being a light-skinned Puerto Rican kid, I was put in the white section. I caught so much flak from mainly Southern GIs, inflicting their prejudices on me.

” While stationed in, Barretto found refuge in a nightclub run for and by black GIs. “All the talk was about Dizzy [Gillespie] and Bird [Charlie Parker] and bebop. It was very exciting. ” Particularly influential for Barretto was Gillespie ’s recording of “Manteca, ” which featured Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo.

“That song blew my mind, ” Barretto told the Austin Chronicle. “It was the basis of my inspiration to become a professional musician. ” When he was discharged from the Army in the late 1940s, Barretto bought himself some conga drums and began hitting jam sessions after hours in the nightclubs of Harlem and elsewhere in City.

Archive name and parameters software free download. Developing a distinctive style of his own, he rubbed shoulders with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Parker and Gillespie; for a few years he played with Jose Curbelo ’s band. In the early 1950s the mambo was taking New York by storm, rivaling the popularity of bebop. Barretto found himself drawn to the city ’s Palladium dancehall, home of ’s hard-driving Latin orchestra. He was particularly impressed with the work of Puente ’s Born on April 29, 1929, in Brooklyn, NY; son of Puerto Rican immigrants.

Barretto

Began playing the conga drums while stationed in Europe with the U.S. Army, late 1940s; returned to New York, played congas for free in local clubs until eventually landing a job with Eddie Bonemere ’s Latin jazz combo; later worked with Jose Curbelo ’s band; made recordings with such jazz notables as,, Wes Montgomery, and Red Garland; replaced Mongo Santamaria in ’s band, late 1950s; formed own band, 1962; recorded actively, 1960s-1980s; formed New World Spirit, a Latin jazz sextet, 1992. Awards: Grammy Award, Best Tropical Latin Performance for Ritmo en el Corazon (with ), 1989.