Guillermo Barreto (born, Havana

Havana

Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...

, Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

, August 11, 1929 – died, 14 December 1991) was a Cuban

Cubans

Cubans or Cuban people are the inhabitants or citizens of Cuba. Cuba is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...

 drummer

Drummer

A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...

 who also played timbales

Timbales

Timbales are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing, invented in Cuba. They are shallower in shape than single-headed tom-toms, and usually much higher tuned...

 (a traditional charanga

Charanga

Charanga is a term given to traditional ensembles of Cuban dance music. They made Cuban dance music popular in the 1940s and their music consisted of heavily son-influenced material, performed on European instruments such as violin and flute by a Charanga orchestra....

 instrument played with sticks and hands) who was a major figure in the Cuban music scene for more than fifty years and is, debatably, the one who pioneered Cuban "Be-bop" jazz drumming.

Early career

As a young man, Guillermo was an excellent interpreter of Cuban pailas (founding and playing in the group "Los Amigos") as well as a skilled interpreter of the swing music of American jazz, and as a composer and drummer with the orchestra "Obdulio Morales". He was so highly regarded that during a visit to Cuba by Stan Kenton

Stan Kenton

Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....

's orchestra, Guillermo replaced an ill Buddy Rich

Buddy Rich

Bernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.-Early life:...

 for one night's performance.

Inspired by bop drummers like Max Roach

Max Roach

Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...

 and Roy Haynes

Roy Haynes

Roy Owen Haynes is an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Haynes is among the most recorded drummers in jazz, and in a career lasting more than 60 years has played in a wide range of styles ranging from swing and bebop to jazz fusion and avant-garde jazz...

, by the early 1950s, Guillermo would organize the Sunday afternoon jam sessions (or, "descargas") at the legendary Tropicana

Tropicana

-Hotels and venues:*Tropicana Resort & Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada*Tropicana Casino and Resort Atlantic City, Atlantic City, New Jersey*Tropicana Club, a nightclub in Havana, Cuba and New York City*Tropicana Casino *Tropicana Casino and Resort...

, often doing the transcription (music)

Transcription (music)

In music, transcription can mean notating a piece or a sound which was previously unnotated, as, for example, an improvised jazz solo. Further examples include ethnomusicological notation of oral traditions of folk music, such as Béla Bartók's and Ralph Vaughan Williams' collections of the national...

 necessary to explain American jazz music for his band mates to play.

Career

As the Cuban jazz scene grew, Mr. Barreto went on to play with such popular groups as: Grupo Cubano de Música Moderna, "which quickly gained stature as a benchmark in Cuban Latin Jazz history."

During the next four decades, "Barretico" played with many of the great Cuban musicians of each decade, including:

Bebo Valdés

Bebo Valdés

Bebo Valdés is a Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger. He was a central figure in the golden age of Cuban music, led two famous big bands, and was one of the 'house' arrangers for the Tropicana Club.Valdés started his career as a pianist in the night clubs of Havana during the 1940s...

 (piano); Virgilio Vixama, Rafael 'Cabito' Quesada, Gustavo Mas (saxophone); Alejandro 'El Negro' Vivar, Luis Escalante (trumpet); Generoso Jimenez

Generoso Jimenez

Generoso "Tojo" Jiménez was a famous Cuban trombone player and a pioneer of Cuban popular music. He was also the trombonist for the Cuban bandleader and singer, Beny Moré....

 'El Tojo' (trombone); Enrique 'Kike' Hernandez (bass guitar); Rolando Alfonso (congas), Amelita Frades, Amado 'Guapacha' Borcela, Eddy Alvarez, Fernando Alvarez, Miguelito Cuni, Omara Portuondo

Omara Portuondo

Omara Portuondo Peláez is a Cuban singer and dancer whose career has spanned over half a century. She was one of the original members of the Cuarteto d'Aida, and has performed with Ignacio Piñeiro, Orquesta Anacaona, Orquesta Aragón, Nat King Cole, Adalberto Álvarez, Los Van Van, the Buena Vista...

, Orlando Vallejo, Pacho Alonso

Pacho Alonso

Pacho Alonso was a Cuban singer and bandleader from Santiago de Cuba who is attributed with creating the musical form Pilón....

, Pío Leyva

Pío Leyva

Pío Leyva was a Cuban singer and the author of the well-known guaracha El Mentiroso . Leyva was part of the Buena Vista Social Club, and composed some of Cuba’s best known standards....

, Rolando LaSerie, Celeste Mendoza

Celeste Mendoza

Celeste Mendoza , was a Cuban singer.-Biography:Celeste Mendoza was born in Santiago de Cuba in 1930...

 (vocals), Tata Güines

Tata Güines

Tata Güines was a Cuban percussionist on the tumbadora, or conga drum, as well as a composer. He was important in the first generation of Afro-Cuban jazz....

 (tumbadora), Papito Hernandez (bass), Gustavo Tamayo

Gustavo Tamayo

Gustavo E. Tamayo is a Colombian ophthalmologist known for developing a refractive surgery method known as Contoured Ablation Patterns , which enables doctors to make surgeries faster and at an easier rate. Tamayo has also developed a procedure to treat presbyopia, which is at the moment being...

 (guiro), Frank Emilio Flynn (piano), Orlando Lopez (bass), Guillermo Valdes (tumbadora, bongo), Carlos Emilio (electric guitar).

Friends with another younger Cuban drummer, Hilario Duran

Hilario Durán

Hilario Durán is a Cuban jazz pianist.Durán studied at the Arnadeo Roldan Music Institute in Havana, studying tumbao with Evaristo Aparicio, composition and conducting from German Pifferrer, and orchestration from Guillermo Barreto. He formed a group in the 1970s called Los D'Siempre, which melded...

, (Hilario worked with Guillermo in the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna) in 1991, he introduced Hilario to the Canadian flautist

Flautist

A flautist or flutist is a musician who plays an instrument in the flute family. See List of flautists.The choice of "flautist" versus "flutist" is the source of dispute among players of the instrument...

 Jane Bunnett

Jane Bunnett

Jane Bunnett is a Canadian soprano saxophonist, flutist and bandleader known for her Afro-Cuban jazz melodies.In 2004, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada...

. Both men then went on to appear on her famous Afro-Cuban

Afro-Cuban

The term Afro-Cuban refers to Cubans of Sub Saharan African ancestry, and to historical or cultural elements in Cuba thought to emanate from this community...

 inspired recording "Spirits of Havana".

Guillermo also influenced Cuban drummer, Conrado "Coky" García, amongst many others.

Partial discography

• Complete Recordins Of Frank Emilio Flynn (2007)
• Los Amigos featuring Cachaíto López - Warner Jazz (2007)
• Bossa Cubana - Los Zafiros
  Los Zafiros
  Los Zafiros were a Cuban close-harmony vocal group working from 1961–1970. The group was part of the filín movement, inspired by American doo-wop groups such as The Platters...
  
   at EGREM Studios, 1963-1967 (1999)
• Jane Bunnett: Spirits of Havana (1991)
• The Best of Bebo Valdés (1952–1962) – CCD 904\
• Frank Emilio/Guillermo Barreto: Algo Bueno – CCD 515
• Mongo Santamaría
  Mongo Santamaría
  Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría Rodríguez was an Afro-Cuban Latin jazz percussionist. He is most famous for being the composer of the jazz standard "Afro Blue," recorded by John Coltrane among others. In 1950 he moved to New York where he played with Perez Prado, Tito Puente, Cal Tjader, Fania All...
  
   and His Afro-Cuban Drum Beaters – CCD519
• Combo Sibony: Descarga Latina (1966 Recordings) - CD Discmedi 059
• Tumbao Cubano: Cuban Big Band Sounds, Palladium PCD 5160
• Grupo Cubano De Musica Moderna: EGREM
  EGREM
  is the oldest Cuban record label, it is located in Havana. It was founded in 1964 following the Cuban Revolution...
  
   LP 3101 (1959)

Tributes

• Havana Drum Festival, 2002: Celebration of the drum in memoriam of Guillermo Barreto. Nov 5 - 10, 2002 Amadeo Roldán Theater
  Amadeo Roldán Theater
  The Amadeo Roldán Theater is a theater in Havana, Cuba built in 1929. The theater was destroyed in 1977 by a pyromaniac; it was re-open in 1999 as the head office of the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba which performs seasonal every Sunday at 11:00PM....
  
  

External links

• YouTube: With Orq. Musica Moderna 1966 "Mano a Mano" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw_TObcp_Ik