Argentinian tenor saxophonist, Gato Barbieri, has been entertaining jazz fans for over half a century. Gato Barbieri is Spanish for “Barbieri the cat”; his real name is Leandro Barbieri. Gato’s career has spanned from free jazz, to Latin jazz, to jazz pop and in 2002, Gato released his 50th studio album. He first took up music with the clarinet, at age 12, after hearing Charlie Parker’s Now’s the Time.

Gato Barbieri began his professional music life playing the alto saxophone with pianist Lalo Schifrin in Argentina during the 1950s. While in Lalo’s band, Gato would get the chance to play shows with some of jazz’s greats, like Coleman Hawkins and Dizzie Gillespie. In 1962, Gato moved to Italy, the homeland of his first wife, and took up the tenor saxophone.

In Italy, drawing influence from John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and Pharoah Sanders, Barbieri began collaborating with trumpeter Don Cherry. As a sideman for Don Cherry, Gato Barbieri played on two free jazz albums, Complete Communion and Symphony for Improvisors.

In 1969, with the release of The Third World, Barbieri began his career as a band leader. His music began to show a South American influence and garnered him enough recognition that he landed the job of composing the film score to Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris. His success on that film score landed him a Grammy award and a recording contract with Impulse Records. It also launched a profitable side-career for Barbieri; he scored over a dozen films in three different continents.