Ray Barreto: living by the beat of the drum

Latin Beat Magazine, May, 2003 by Rudy Mangual

One of the architects of the "Salsa Explosion of the 1970s" in New York City, Ray Barretto is one of the original Latin legends of this music, having recorded dozens of classic albums throughout his career. What many of his fans and salsa aficionados may not know, however, is that he was initially a jazz musician. With a career that began in the '50s and continues to reach for new heights and sounds even today, Barretto's conga playing has graced both the Latin and jazz worlds. Few congueros have contributed to more recording sessions than the great Ray Barretto.

Latin Beat Magazine had the opportunity to get a first-hand look at the history of Barretto's multi-faceted career and get a glimpse of what is still to come from this master drummer.

Rudy Mangual: Where are you originally from?

Ray Barretto: I was born in New York City of Puerto Rican parents, raised primarily by my mother in the South Bronx after my father returned to Puerto Rico. So it was my kid brother and sister, mom and myself in the household. My mother would go to night school every evening to learn English and I guess the radio was our babysitter. Therefore, I spent a lot of time listening to the radio as a child and when mom was home we would listen to the victrola and her Latin 78 vinyl records.

RM: What type of music did you listen to on the radio?

RB: It was mostly jazz and the popular music of that era, but really mostly jazz music. So as a kid, I always loved music. Back then, after 6 p.m. daily, all the Spanish broadcasting stations would go off the air anyway. So after my mother would leave for night school, I would turn on the radio to keep us company. Nightly, the big band sounds of Harry James, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington became part of my everyday life. On the other hand, during the day, the music heard around the house was that of Daniel Santos, Bobby Capó, Trio Los Panchos; later on that would all change for the music of Machito, Marcelino Guerra and Arsenio Rodríguez, and this is how we entertained ourselves and coped with living in the ghetto.

RM: What changed your life to get you out of that inner city routine?

RB: At 17, I wasn't doing well in school and I saw no future for me in the South Bronx of anywhere in the city of New York for that fact, so I decided to go into the Army. After joining the occupational Army, I was shipped to Munich, Germany, during the end of World War II. Then I heard something that was a revelation to me. After years of listening to the great Latin sounds of the Machito and Marcelino Guerra orchestras and the big band sounds of Count Basie and Benny Goodman, I saw both of these worlds come together in the music of Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo. It rapidly became clear to me that this new sound Dizzy was experimenting with was what I really wanted to do myself. So after completing my tour in the Army, not quite 20 years old yet, upon returning to New York I quickly purchased a small drum and started to go to every jam session in town that I could find.

RM: What type of drum did you get?

RB: Well, first I got a set of bongós, but I was not happy with the sound I was getting out of them, so I went to a bakery on 116th Street in the barrio (Spanish Harlem) that sold cheap Cuban conga drums for about $50 to $60 and got my first conga drum.

RM: A $50 conga drum! Did it sound good?

RB: It wasn't the greatest conga drum, but it got the job done. Anyway, I was learning how to play myself and a better drum wasn't going to make that much difference. As a matter of fact, that same bakery later on started bringing in from Cuba better quality conga drums, Vergara conga drums, and I was able to buy one of the last sets of drums they sold before the Cuban embargo. Those are the conga drums on the cover of my Charanga Moderna album. Anyway, I continued going to jazz clubs in Harlem and sitting in with many jazz groups and artists, meeting the great Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach and Roy Haynes, among many other giants of the jazz bebop era.

RM: So you played jazz music before playing Latin music?

RB: Yes, absolutely!

RM: Why did you elect to play the conga drum rather than the trap drum set, which is more suitable to jazz music?

RB: Because of Chano Pozo, my musical hero. He was my inspiration and main reason for becoming a musician. He was a conga player and so I would be too.

RM: Did you find yourself limited or restricted by playing conga drums?

RB: Well, here's what really happened. The discipline in my life was pretty much minimal because my mother was alone with three kids and it was a struggle for all of us to survive. There was no father image or anyone to lay down the rules or simply guide me towards selecting the right instrument to play or not to play. At age 20 it felt kind of late for me to start playing the piano or even thinking of a way to get one. The conga drum was probably the path of least resistance for me in many ways, and again, the instrument of my mentor, Chano Pozo. With my little conga drum I set out to be the best I could. Little by little I was able to forma style of playing it in a way that did not get in the way of the jazz drummers and they felt comfortable with my playing. You see, playing conga drums within a jazz format is very different to playing them in Latin music. In this way I'm blessed and have been very fortunate to be able to understand perfectly the jazz idiom and all its deviations. By having listened to so much jazz music as a child, whenever on stage and someone called a tune such as Sweet Georgia Brown or All The Things You Are or Blues, I knew the form, all the changes and even the lyrics to most jazz standards.