Ray Barretto

Ray Barretto – Acid (Remastered 2024) (1968/2024) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · February 21, 2024 · Comments off

Ray Barretto’s career has been a long and varied journey. Born in Brooklyn on April 29, 1929, he is the quintessential Nuyorican, a Puerto Rican born and raised in New York City. By the age of two, his family had moved to Manhattan’s Spanish Harlem and by seven, the South Bronx.

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Ray Barretto – Indestructible (1973/2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · December 21, 2023 · Comments off

Indestructible is one of Barretto’s most solidly consistent efforts, a series of Afro-Cuban rhythms and song styles illustrated by a stomping band that knows how to move the classic material in a jazz manner into improvisation and then back again. The opener, “El Hijo de Oblata,” is a case in point: a piano line playing a steaming son line sets the base for the horn section to widen it; next comes the chorus on the vocal melody, propped up all around by an army of percussionists, and they all meld together before the tempo slows momentarily and slips into a five/eight Latin-tinged jazz number where the pianist takes a solo rich in arpeggios, and smooths the rough-edged rhythms out with large augmented and suspended chords. When the line begins again, it’s twice as fast and the percussion section moves into overdrive with the piano so that the vocalists can barely keep up! In addition, there are gorgeous merengues here; a rumba or two; and a few more sons. Most noteworthy is the lovely and shimmering “El Diablo,” with a call and response vocal that the claves and shakers and bata drums play counterpoint to. This is solid all the way through, and can only be called “salsa” in the most generic sense of that word — there is too much other stuff going on here, too many traditional moments being banded together with jazz to gentrify this music. A true find in Barretto’s vast catalog. – Thom Jurek

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Ray Barretto – La Cuna (1981/2013) DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

SACD / DSD By admin · August 25, 2023 · Comments off

Producer Creed Taylor has inspired everything from praise to anger among jazz fans. His work has been brilliant at times, detrimental at others (his worst flaw being a tendency to overproduce). Taylor plays a mostly positive role on La Cuna, a jazz-oriented effort uniting Ray Barretto with such first-class talent as Tito Puente (timbales) and the late Joe Farrell (tenor & soprano sax, flute). As slick as things get at times on La Cuna, Taylor wisely gives the players room to blow on everything from the haunting “Doloroso” and the driving “Cocinando” (a piece by Carlos Franzetti that shouldn’t be confused with Barretto’s major salsa/cha-cha hit) to a somewhat Gato Barbieri-ish take on Mussorgsky’s “The Old Castle.” Barretto successfully moves into soul territory on Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise” (which rapper Coolio recast as his hit “Gangsta’s Paradise” in 1994). Barretto may hate the term “Latin jazz,” but make no mistake: La Cuna is one of his most memorable contributions to that genre.

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Ray Barretto – Barretto Power (Remastered) (1970/2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · August 16, 2023 · Comments off

Early jazz crossover: Ray Barretto, one of the leading lights of the salsa explosion and of the Fania label, will have his Barretto Power album released in a 50th anniversary HiRes edition by Craft Latino on October 23.

Barretto Power was released in 1970, some two years into the conga player and bandleader’s long association with Fania. It began a succession of genre-straddling, Afro-Caribbean masterworks that the Fania All-Stars member released in the first half of the decade. This was the album on which Barretto crystallized the tight and funky sound that he became known for, primarily in the salsa idiom and with such top players as Orestes Vilató on timbales and the young Andy González on bass.

Highlights of the LP include the enduring hit “Quítate La Máscara,” which established Adalberto Santiago as one of the great Afro-Caribbean singers of his time, and Puerto Rican composer Tite Curet Alonso’s frenetic “De Qué Te Quejas Tú.”

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Ray Barretto – Que Viva la Música (1972/2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · June 23, 2023 · Comments off

Craft Latino releases the post-50th anniversary reissue of Ray Barretto’s classic salsa album, Que Viva La Música. A landmark title in the influential bandleader and conguero’s prolific catalog, Que Viva La Música features such favorites as “Cocinando,” “La Pelota,” and the title track – all performed by Barretto’s legendary original band (including Adalberto Santiago and Orestes Vilató). The long-out-of-print album was cut from the original master tapes (AAA) by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and is making it’s high-resolution digital debut.

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Ray Barretto – Latino! (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · April 15, 2023 · Comments off

Digitally remastered two-fer containing a pair of classic Jazz albums on one disc. Includes Ray Barretto’s complete original LP Latino! One of his earliest albums as a leader, it recreates in the studio the spirit of a Latin jam session, known as a descarga, featuring great Latin players such as José Chombo Silva on tenor sax, Alejandro El Negro Vivar on trumpet, Willie Rodríguez on percussion and, of course, Barretto on congas. As a bonus, we have added Eddie Lockjaw Davis’ complete LP Afro-Jaws, taped the previous year, which couples the saxophonist with a Latin rhythm section conducted by Barretto. Malanga.

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Ray Barretto – Eye Of The Beholder (1977/2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · January 10, 2018 · Comments off

Eye Of The Beholder is the 1977 classic by GRAMMY® Award-winning percussionist Ray Barretto. It features Barretto’s signature fusion of Latin-jazz. It includes the standouts “Here We Go Again,” “Tumbao Africano” and “Senor Funk.” It would reach the Top 40 on the Billboard charts. (more…)