Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla Master Zakir Hussain, 73, Succumbs to Illness
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
Conguero Ray Barretto, one of the leading forces on the Latin Jazz scene, died Friday morning at at the Hackensack University Medical Center in Hackensack, N.J. Barretto had suffered a heart attack in January, shortly after he received the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship. He was 76.
The son of Puerto Rican parents, Barretto was born in Brooklyn on April 29, 1929, and grew up in the Bronx and Spanish Harlem. While he was reared with Afro-Latin music, he became involved with jazz in the late ‘40s by sitting in at various sessions. After a tour with the U.S. Army in Europe in the early ‘50s, he became a music professional in 1954. He first worked with Jose Curbelo for two years, then joined Tito Puente, replacing Mongo Santamaria. Following four years with Puente, he left to join Herbie Mann, then formed his own band after four months.
Barretto had also been working and recording as a first-call Latin percussionist with jazz players such as Red Garland, Gene Ammons, Lou Donaldson, Cannonball Adderley, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard and others. His leadership credentials were cemented by the 1963 crossover hit “El Watusi” and he has continued to lead groups since that time, including New World Spirit, which he formed in 1992, the most directly linked to his Latin-jazz roots.
“Watching people like Max Roach or Elvin Jones and seeing how they utilize the whole drum kit in a very rhythmic and melodic way and how they stretched time — that was a huge inspiration to me,” Hussain said in DownBeat.
Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
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