Impulse Records
2006
The Impulse Story
About This Album
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. He was wildly successful aesthetically and critically if not commercially -- though the first album, Chapter One: Latin America, sold well enough (it is currently available as half of a two-disc set called Latino America [IMPD 236-2], which includes Chapter Two: Hasta Siempre, restores all cuts to their original lengths, and adds bonus material). But there's more to it than his adding folk musicians -- not studio pros -- to the mix.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,5,7 and 9)

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