Double Bass, Cello and Piano | 1935-2018

Jorge López Ruiz was born in La Plata, Argentina on April 1, 1935, started on trumpet, switched to double bass, and was playing in Lalo Schifrin's Buenos Aires quintet alongside Gato Barbieri by 1956. His debut as a leader, "B.A. Jazz" (CBS, 1961), again featured Barbieri as the lead voice. Astor Piazzolla recommended he study harmony and composition with Alberto Ginastera, and López Ruiz did: the orchestral jazz suite "El Grito" (1967) reflected that formal training directly. He served as musical director for CBS Argentina from 1967 to 1970, working with Sandro and Leonardo Favio, before forming a free jazz quartet with saxophonist Horacio "Chivo" Borraro that produced "Bronca Buenos Aires" (1971), recorded under the military dictatorship that had displaced two elected governments. He collaborated across his career with Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and João Gilberto, composed music for over sixty films and forty plays, taught at the Argentine Institute of Cinematography, held a doctorate from Columbia Pacific University, and maintained an academic affiliation with the London Institute of Applied Research and Social Sciences. His younger brother was guitarist and composer Oscar López Ruiz. Jorge López Ruiz died in Buenos Aires on December 11, 2018, aged 83.