During recent decades a number of high-caliber jazz musicians have opted to develop careers primarily in their homelands, rather than in the world’s most influential “cultural capitals”. Portuguese double-bass player Carlos Barretto is a case in point. Born in 1957, he fell in love with that instrument during the early editions of the Cascais Jazz Festival (occasion on which Charlie Haden openly contested the dreaded Salazarian regime in 1971!). Before graduating with maximum qualification from Lisbon’s Conservatorio Nacional de Musica in 1979, Barretto got initiated into the mysteries of a more liberal craft as an alumnus of the country’s first school of jazz – Hot Clube de Portugal – led by Ze Eduardo, a celebrated bassist himself. Following into the steps of many of his countrymen, the young musician underwent two periods of “exile”: first he perfected his classical knowledge with professor Ludwig Streicher in Vienna; then he moved to Paris for almost a decade, where he accumulated decisive musical expertise by collaborating with such luminaries as Horace Parlan, Mal Waldron, Lee Konitz, Barry Altschul. After his return to Portugal in 1993 he got involved into a series of neo-bop discographic projects with likeminded local colleagues, but also strived for on-stage experiences with notorious Americans the likes of George Cables, Steve Lacy, Cindy Blackman, Gary Bartz, Brad Mehldau, Art Farmer, Joe Chambers, Jack Walrath, John Betsch, etc.  A few of these efforts are documented on records (Serene/1991 with Mal Waldron/Thierry Bruneau Quartet, Alone Together/1995 with the George Cables Trio, Jumpstart/1999 with the Bob Sands Quartet).

            In 1999 the Carlos Barretto Quartet recorded the album Olhar (UpBeat /Lisbon), a most convincing musical transfiguration of the impetus driving Portuguese jazz into the 21^st century. With this showcase of musical synergy the bassist and his companions – Bernardo Sassetti/p, Mario Barreiros/dr, and Spanish saxophonist Perico Sambeat – achieve the rare feat of bridging the fateful chasm that divides conservative and progressive art/jazz audiences. Gradually, Barretto’s awareness of the necessity to find his own path in today’s aesthetic Babilonia has yielded ever more personal artistic statements. In an interview following his first recital in Romania, he expressed insatisfaction with “a certain classicism into which mainstream jazz has crystallized.” It is the predictability of the chord sequences and rotation system of soloing that he finds “a bit reductive”, despite his admiration for “such valid, rigorous, and hard to be achieved musicianship.” Besides, he feels that for a European jazzman “playing this music according to the most classical model means entering into direct competition with the Americans, who know how to do these things better than us. I believe that a musician must study and practice be-bop or hard-bop only as means for attaining other ends – in consonance with the cultural diversity characteristic of our continent.”

            The full-bodied, mature tones distilled by Carlos Barretto from the bass, his ability to instantly switch from delightful comping to deliquescent soloing (absorbing and reacting to his cohorts’ ideas) have been highlighted in recent years by his Trio, in association with funambulesque guitarrist Mario Delgado and highly-inventive drummer Jose Salgueiro. This well-balanced interplay is described by the Trio’s leader as “an adventure without safety net. My writing is purposely vague, diluted, all of us provide ideas to the arrangements. We are three equal voices in simultaneous communication.” The C. B. Trio’s album Radio Song, issued on CBTM in 2002, seamlessly integrates French clarinet maestro Louis Sclavis into the group’s aesthetics.

            “I have dedicated a great part of my life to erudite music and jazz. As an artist I feel like an eternal student” – confesses Barretto. “There are certain rules for improvising that must be practiced and expanded as years go by. In order to continue my development I have to break these rules, to liberate myself from the constraints of form, to overtop common places or limitations of the jazz idiom. That is why I go on studying, in order to reach total freedom. Fortunately, I studied the rules to better break them.” Needless to say that Barretto has also favoured encounters with other artistic fields – dancing, poetry, painting… His relentless explorations into the universe of the double-bass have led him to duo performances with Carlos Bica (another top-notch Portuguese bassist from the same generation) and to equally intense solitary improvisations entitled Solo Pictorico, inspired by his own paintings. Although firmly established on the local scene – where he also acts as teacher and artistic director of the Tomar Jazz Fest – Carlos Barretto still remains a Talent Deserving Wider Recognition Abroad. We’d have a much happier (jazz)world if such personalities, living all over it, would be given greater exposure.