Gato Barbieri Chapter Four

Chapter Three: Viva Emiliano Zapata is the third of the four excellent "chapters" in saxophonist and composer Gato Barbieri's four-part "Latin America" series for Impulse, and released in 1974 with the core of a band he would use for his live outing on Chapter Four: Alive in New York. Produced by Ed Michel, this is a large group that included bassist Ron Carter, drummer Grady Tate, percussionists Ray Mantilla, the ubiquitous - and brilliant - Portinho, Ray Armando, and Luis Mangual, guitarists George Davis and Paul Metzke, and a large horn section. The session was arranged and conducted by the legendary Chico O'Farrill. There are six tunes on the set, divided between four Barbieri originals, and two covers including the legendary "Milonga Triste," and "What a Difference a Day Makes"…

When Gato Barbieri signed to Impulse! Records in 1973 for a series of critically lauded albums, he had already enjoyed a celebrated career as a vanguard musician who had worked with Don Cherry and Abdullah Ibrahim (then known as Dollar Brand), recorded for three labels as a leader, and scored and performed the soundtrack to director Bernardo Bertolucci's film Last Tango in Paris. Chapter One: Latin America was a huge step forward musically for the Argentinean-born saxophonist, even as it looked to the music of his heritage. This turned out to be the first of four chapters in his series on Latin America, and for it he teamed not with established jazz musicians, but instead folk and traditional musicians from his native country, and recorded four of the album's five cuts in Buenos Aires - the final track, a multi-tracked solo piece, was recorded in Rio de Janeiro…

The second entry in Gato Barbieri's series of Impulse albums dealing with Latin America picks up where the first one left off, and in its way, follows its format closely yet not without some key differences. Based on the critical reviews of Chapter One: Latin America, he was emboldened to take some new chances on this, Chapter Two: Hasta Siempre (which translates to "As to Always"). The album was recorded between Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles with the set's final cut recorded in Buenos Aires, Barbieri's homeland.
The set kicks off with parts one and three of "Econtrol," a raucous, festive jam that marks the album's only real concession to American music because of an electric bassline by Los Angeles sessionman Jim Hughart…

Gato Barbieri may be one of those saxophonists whose sound is so closely associated with smooth jazz – and has been since the late '70s – that it's hard to imagine he was once the progenitor of a singular kind of jazz fusion: and that's world fusion, not jazz-rock fusion. Barbieri recorded four albums for Impulse! between 1973 and 1975 that should have changed jazz forever, in that he provided an entirely new direction when it was desperately needed. That it didn't catch certainly isn't his fault, but spoke more to the dearth of new ideas that followed after the discoveries of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Miles Davis. Barbieri, a Coltrane disciple, hailed from Argentina and sought to bring the music of Latin America, most specifically its folk forms, into the jazz arena.

In 1973, Argentinean saxophonist Gato Barbieri contemplated a move to a more commercially viable, accessible sound, one that appealed to both North and South American audiences. He moved from the jazz vanguard toward it's exotic center (and finally into the commercial world altogether) with a number of records, including this one, which explored the various rhythms, melodies, and textures of Afro-Cuban and Latin American sounds. Bolivia features Barbieri immediately prior to his Impulse recordings that resulted in the celebrated four-chapter Latin America series.