Carlos del Puerto

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Carlos del Puerto (* 1951 in Havana ) is a Cuban jazz musician ( double bass , also electric bass ) who became known as a founding member of the Irakere group .

Live and act

Del Puerto's father played the tuba (before the revolution) in the orchestra of the Banda Militar de Artillería and was a double bass player in the orchestra of Obdulio Morales and the Quintana Melody Boys . From 1963 Del Puerto initially received a classical training as a double bass player, but also got to know jazz in the group of Felipe Dulzaides. Occasionally he played as an assistant in the band of Chucho Valdés . In 1967 he joined the Orchestra Cubana de Música Moderna (as an electric bass player) , a group that included saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera and later trumpeter Arturo Sandoval alongside pianist Chucho Valdés. Together they founded the legendary group Irakere in 1973 with drummer Oscar Valdés , one of the most important bands in the recent history of Cuban music, which, for example, received the Grammy in 1980 for the best Latin American record of the year. In this band, to which he belonged until 1997, he used the bass not only for accompaniment, but as an important part of the melodic development of the arrangements. He had previously taken part in the recordings for Chucho Valdé's central album Jazz Bata (1973), in which only Cuban rhythms were used.

Then del Puerto played on the recommendation of his son Carlitos del Puerto in Cubanismo , with whom he recorded the album Reincarnation and was on tour for two years. In 2000 he began working with the Bass Collective in New York, a school that John Patitucci was running at the time.

As a session musician, he has already performed internationally at important jazz festivals and has played with people such as Chick Corea , Herbie Hancock , Jaco Pastorius , the Brecker Brothers and Dizzy Gillespie , among others . In 2000 he took part in Bass Day 2000 with leading bassists such as Percy Heath , Marcus Miller , Gary Willis , Anthony Jackson , Billy Sheehan , Will Lee , Oteil Burbridge , Joe Osborn and John Patitucci. The discographer Tom Lord records 26 recordings of Del Puerto between 1975 and 2019.

Del Puerto has already worked as an instrumental professor in Cuba. Together with Silvio Vergara, he wrote the influential textbook The True Cuban Bass . He has been awarded various prizes as a teacher of his instrument and for his contributions to the development of Cuban music and culture: in 1992 with the Order for National Culture from 1992 and in 1994 with the Diploma for Educational Merit of the Republic of Cuba.

In the last few years del Puerto lived with his second wife Malene (also bassist) and his daughters from their second marriage in Turku , from where he worked as a music producer for the Viking Line . In 2001 he founded his project Cuban Impact , with which he released an album of the same name in 2005; he also played the album Symmetry with Heikki Sarmanto . He continues to work as an endorser for Yamaha .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b biography
  2. ^ Tom Lord The Jazz Discography
  3. ↑ entry (Schott)
personal data
SURNAME Puerto, Carlos del
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Del Puerto, Carlos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban jazz musician (double bass)
DATE OF BIRTH 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Havana