Splashing With Julio Barreto

I first heard the drum playing of Julio Barreto on the Gonzalo Rubalcaba album Diz. It's an album of songs that Dizzy Gillespie wrote or otherwise made his own over the years. The dynamics vary widely. On the uptempo numbers it sounds like the band taped the song chart to the wall and fired a musical shotgun at it. But believe me, it works. Rubalcaba and Barreto are equally out there on the ballads, but in a delightfully sedated, two bottles of Robitussin DM kind of way. Ron Carter stands in the middle with his bass, trying to hold the axes from spinning apart.

Oddly, I picked up this album at the same time I first learned what a splash cymbal was. So let me say some of Barreto's splash work on this record can make a grown man squeal.

Interestingly, most of Mister Barreto's recorded work the last six or seven years has been as a background vocalist. Since I have no idea what his voice sounds like, I haven't attempted to include any of those songs in this playlist.

Julio Barreto appears on five Gonzalo Rubalcaba albums. Only one of these (Diz) is currently Rhapvailable (but they're all on Blue Note: hint to the Rhapsodists). That'll do for today's purposes:

Splashing With Julio Barreto

Woody 'N' You
Bouncing With Bud
Smooch
A Night In Tunisia