Gato Barbieri
Latino America

In the early 1970s, Gato Barbieri was a young tenor saxophonist from the Coltrane school rediscovering his cultural roots. Thanks to the support of producer Bob Thiele, Gato had the opportunity to record a series of extraordinary albums for the newly formed "Flying Dutchman" with jazz musicians of the caliber of John Abercrombie, Mtume, Stanley Clarke, Airto, and especially Lonnie Lyston Smith, also recording pieces by Latin American authors such as Jorge Ben and Atahualpa Yupanqui.

Later, upon moving to Impulse, Gato recorded this "Latino America" (originally released in two LPs) during some historic sessions in Brazil and Argentina with local musicians, ambitiously conceived as a journey into the Latin American musical continent. The journey begins in his native Argentina with two tracks inspired by Argentine folklore: "Encuentros" and "La China". It continues with a delightful duet with Dino Saluzzi's bandoneon ("Nunca Mas"). With "India", with its Amazonian flavor, our hero’s vibrato (sometimes soothing, sometimes furious) reaches heights of deep mysticism. "To be Continued" closes the first record: here Gato announces his transition to Brazil (Chapter two: Gato in Brasil), presenting one by one the various instruments (Queca, Tamborin, etc.) of the samba that opens the second CD ("Encontros", which reprises the theme of the first track). After a series of torrid sambas, it finally reaches the Cuban rhythm of the title track, a taste of the salsa rhythms of the following "Viva Emiliano Zapata".

However, a mere track-by-track description does not fully convey the strength, the warmth, the primitive beauty of these pieces, and the groove they manage to create: only listening can do justice to a wonderful album that every lover of Latin Jazz should own.