Kenny’s Sound

Stanley Turrentine (tenor sax), Kenny Burrell (electric guitar), Major Holley (double bass), Bill English (drums) and Ray Barretto (congas). From the album Midnight Blue (1963).

Ray Barretto was an American percussionist of Latin jazz and jazz of Puerto Rican origin. In addition to being an excelent studio musician, he has also led different Latin jazz bands throughout his career. His albums are more tense, adventurous and eclectic than those of conventional salsa groups. Nor is he afraid to use electronics or innovative instrumental or structural combinations. He came to Latin music from jazz, that is, he learned to play swing before mastering Latin rhythms. Barretto’s parents migrated from Puerto Rico to New York and he was born in this city in 1929.

In 1946 he enlisted in the army and was assigned to Germany. When he heard there Dizzy Gillespie’s “Manteca” with arranger Gil Fuller and conguero Chano Pozo, he knew that his vocation was to become a professional musician. He learned to play the conga in a self-taught way and in 1949, when he returned to New York, he played with American jazz musicians, including Charlie Parker. He then worked with the Eddie Bonnemere’s Latin Jazz Combo and four years with the Cuban pianist José Curbelo.

English makes a small introduction and the rest of the group joins in to expose the theme, which has a bit of a strange part. The first one to make his solo is Burrell at medium-fast tempo while Turrentine makes a sound mattress underneath. His phrases emerge from his guitar gushing in a dynamic and consistent way. Turrentine follows him with a moderate melodic line with good ideas and very well conceived. Burrell returns to swap four-bar solos with English alternating with Turrentine. Then they exchange the solos, but this time with Barretto, who boasts of his extraordinary manner of playing congas. To close, the group reexposes the theme ending abruptly.