Gato Barbieri - Chapter One: Latin America (1978 Japanese Impulse! Vinyl LP)

Gato Barbieri - Chapter One: Latin America | Vinyl LP - 1978 Impulse!/ABC Japanese Pressing (YS-8514-AI, Nippon Columbia)

Gato Barbieri grew up in Rosario, Argentina, left Buenos Aires for Europe in 1962, and spent the rest of the decade in the orbit of the European and American avant-garde: Don Cherry, Carla Bley, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra. The Last Tango in Paris soundtrack in 1972 made him famous and gave him the budget to do what he'd been building toward. Chapter One: Latin America was the result: a return to Buenos Aires in April 1973, the same month Juan Cámpora's election ended seven years of military rule, to record with Argentine and South American folk musicians for the first time since he'd left the country. The ensemble is built around instruments from the Andean and Argentine folk traditions rather than the conventional jazz rhythm section. Raúl Mercado plays quena (Andean end-blown flute). Amadeo Monges plays Indian harp. Isoca Fumero plays charango. Antonio Pantoja covers a range of Andean wind and percussion instruments: anapa, erke, siku, quena and erkencho. Quelo Palacios plays acoustic guitar and Ricardo Lew plays electric. Adalberto Cevasco plays Fender bass. On "Nunca Mas," Dino Saluzzi, who later became one of ECM's most distinctive recording artists, plays bandoneon. Barbieri's tenor saxophone rides over all of it, sometimes leading, sometimes embedded in the ensemble texture.

Four tracks were recorded at Music Hall in Buenos Aires. The fifth, "To Be Continued," was recorded at Odeon Studios in Rio de Janeiro with the Brazilian percussionists Naná Vasconcelos on berimbau and Airto Moreira on percussion, both of whom had played in Miles Davis's electric bands. Ed Michel produced. Michelle Barbieri, Gato's wife, directed the sessions. The album was the first of four "Chapter" records for Impulse!, each one mapping a different region or approach within the Latin American musical world. All compositions are Barbieri's except "India," a Paraguayan guarania by J. Asunción Flores and M. Ortiz Guerrero.

This is the 1978 Japanese pressing (YS-8514-AI), manufactured by Nippon Columbia as part of the University Series Of Fine Recordings, with Japanese liner notes by Okazaki Masamichi dated January 1978.