A teenage Ray Barretto was stationed abroad as a U.S. Army soldier when he first heard Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo’s “Manteca” — the first recording to explicitly blend Afro-Cuban music with American jazz. Though he had no formal training as a musician, Barretto knew immediately that when he got home, he wanted to make music like that: combining the many components of his experiences, growing up in the mid-20th-century Bronx as the son of Puerto Rican immigrants. “I was never taught to play drums,” Barretto later told the journalist Aurora Flores. “My teacher was the street.”
In the decades ahead, Barretto would traverse the fertile territory between jazz and Latin music more creatively than perhaps any other percussionist or bandleader. He became the first-call conguero for various jazz labels — indeed, he is now known as the most-recorded hand percussionist in jazz history — while making waves in New York’s Latin music world, particularly after taking over the conga chair in Tito Puente’s band from Mongo Santamaria.
The tune that made Barretto famous as a bandleader, “El Watusi” — written to match a dance that Barretto had seen young people doing at his shows — pushed the popular charanga style of the early 1960s into more rhythmically driving, R&B-inflected territory, helping open the door to what would become known as boogaloo. But it was his work from the later 1960s to the end of the ’70s that would enshrine Barretto’s legacy. In a long string of records for the famed Fania label (where he was also a figurehead of its supergroup, the Fania All-Stars), he led eminent, propellant bands that came to epitomize the sound of so-called salsa dura.
Below you’ll find a playlist compiled by expert musicians, writers and music historians, most of whom worked with Barretto or knew him personally. You’ll also find playlists of the chosen tracks — and if your favorite Barretto tune was left out, just drop it in the comments.
◆ ◆ ◆
‘Manteca,’ Red Garland Trio with Ray Barretto
Joe Conzo Sr., historian
Ray Barretto was basically a jazz player — but he grew up with Latin music all around him. When he came out of the service in the late ’40s, he went to play jazz. He wanted to be like Chano Pozo, Sabu Martinez: percussionists who blended Latin music into real jazz. He admired Art Blakey and all the other jazz drummers, too. I remember Ray from back in the charanga era: Everybody was playing the charanga — Johnny Pacheco, Machito, Tito Puente — and Ray became especially famous for it, thanks to the “Watusi.” But he did a lot of other great things. I think the most classic example of his jazz playing is on “Manteca,” with the Red Garland Trio, covering the tune that first turned him onto the idea of playing Latin jazz.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
◆ ◆ ◆
‘Arrepiéntete’
Harry Sepulveda, record collector and oral historian
I caught Ray’s band from the late 1960s and early ’70s many times, and it was the best band of his that I ever heard. Ray was very careful choosing his musicians, and he was choosy with his gigs. He didn’t want to work around what they used to call the “cuchifrito circuit”: the Corso, the Chita, the Ipanema. You know, places that would pay $45. Ray was very professional. He had worked with jazz musicians — he lived a double musical life — and he saw the big picture. The band claimed that they were not working as much as they should have, and they started doing a restaurant gig, once a week, in Midtown: It was the Ray Barretto band without Ray Barretto. Eventually they left and became Tipica ’73. But there was an album he made in 1971, before all that happened, called “The Message,” that catches that band at its peak. From that album, my choice is “Arrepiéntete,” which contains the solo that established Orestes Vilató as one of the greatest timbaleros in the music.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
‘Quitate La Mascara’
Cita Rodriguez, vocalist and educator
The ’70s were such a vibrant time musically speaking, and when I hear this tune, it takes me right back. I was alongside my father, Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez, for all the steps he was taking in his career, so even though I was really young, I was at all the Fania All-Stars rehearsals with Ray Barretto, all their concerts at Madison Square Garden. And I love that era of Ray Barretto’s music. I love the sound of his classic band, how everything blends so nicely. There are some congueros that don’t know how to accompany, and they’re doing 10,000 things when it’s not called for. But Ray knew how to adorn and decorate, exactly where he needed to. When your ear is open, and your heart and your soul are too, you pay attention. “Quitate La Mascara” was a popular tune in that era, and I still love it. And I just love Adalberto Santiago’s voice. His voice is strong but beautiful — such a round voice.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
◆ ◆ ◆
‘Sola Te Dejaré’
Adalberto Santiago, vocalist
The records that we made together in the late 1960s and early ’70s bring true nostalgia — for everyone who can recall the experience of hearing them back then, and especially for me personally. As a bandleader, Ray was very exacting, very demanding, but really he just wanted the best for everyone involved. “Acid” was an album that was made, in a sense, to meet the moment — when the “boogaloo” trend was big in the United States. But it was never just about a trend for Ray. He did what would make him and all the musicians in his band feel satisfied musically. This song, “Solo Te Dejaré,” was basically the “hit” on that album. It helped to open up the market even more for Latin music in the United States.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
◆ ◆ ◆
‘Indestructible’
Felipe Luciano, poet, journalist and activist
First of all, Ray was one of the most highly intelligent musicians in the Latin world. His extensive knowledge of jazz, its arrangements and its phrasings, was a thrill to witness. And he was a reader — very well aware of the political trends at the time, and very progressive. His was one of those facile minds that could pick up things immediately, and then apply them to the music. He also helped the Young Lords a lot: Most musicians at that time didn’t want to take stands for fear of retribution, but he didn’t care about that. When the group that he had been with for years decided to leave him, it really broke his heart. It took him almost a year to recover. But he came back with an album called “Indestructible.” And that became the theme song for Puerto Ricans: “We are indestructible. It doesn’t matter what happens to us, we come up shining.” It was an incredible record, and still is.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
◆ ◆ ◆
‘Ancestral Messages’
Danilo Navas, critic
“Ancestral Messages” is an original composition by Ray Barretto that places his conga voice at the center of a deeply rhythmic, spiritual framework. Rooted in the Afro-Cuban percussion traditions that shaped his artistic identity, the piece channels cultural memory — rhythms carried from the African diaspora through Cuba into modern jazz. Barretto often traced his awakening to hearing “Manteca,” a pivotal encounter that clarified his path. Written and recorded at a decisive turning point in the early ’90s — after stepping away from commercial salsa to devote himself fully to his jazz ensemble New World Spirit — “Ancestral Messages” signals a profound reaffirmation of purpose. Here, Barretto embraces Afro-Cuban jazz not as crossover, but as a calling. Both statement and synthesis, the track — and the album it anchors — encapsulate his lifelong commitment: honoring ancestral percussion lineages while advancing them through contemporary harmony, improvisational rigor and an unshakable sense of swing.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
◆ ◆ ◆
‘Adelante Siempre Voy’
Miguel Zenón, saxophonist
When I joined Ray’s band in the early 2000s, I quickly realized that jazz was his first love. His admiration for this music is evident throughout his vast discography, but perhaps the best example of how Ray was able to merge all of his musical loves (salsa, rumba and jazz, among many others) into a single artistic output is his 1979 masterpiece “Rican/Struction.” This album, on which he reunited with the vocalist Adalberto Santiago, is as progressive as a salsa album can get, while still grooving hard and delivering hit after hit. It compiles amazing arrangements, extended solos and fantastic songwriting, all paired with an all-star cast that included the pianist Oscar Hernández, the timbalero Ralph Irizarry and the trombonist Angel “Papo” Vázquez. Picking out just one track from this recording is no easy task, but I’d go with “Adelante Siempre Voy,” mainly because of Ray’s blazing conga solo and the amazing arrangement by Gil López.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
◆ ◆ ◆
‘Tumbao Africano’
Luis Perdomo, pianist
When I was growing up in Venezuela, my father had all Ray Barretto’s records. He and my brothers were always playing those recordings, but especially “Rican/Struction.” The final track, “Tumbao Africano,” was my favorite on that recording. I like the singing, and I really love the batá drums being featured here. And there’s a saxophone solo where the changes are more jazzy — it’s not the typical changes that you’d hear in salsa music — and you can become fascinated by those changes and their structure. Then at some point it just goes into a hard-core New York-style salsa, with all the singing. It’s a mini-suite, with a little bit of everything in there. Eventually, I moved to New York and I met Ray. He invited me to be in his band. I would look over to the congas and be like, “Man, that’s Ray Barretto! I can’t believe I’m on the stage with Ray.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
◆ ◆ ◆
‘Bumpin’ on Sunset,’ Wes Montgomery
Tomás Peña, journalist
If I had five minutes to make someone fall in love with Ray Barretto’s music, I would play “Bumpin’ on Sunset” from Wes Montgomery’s 1966 Verve album “Tequila.” Beneath Montgomery’s relaxed swing, luminous double-octave lines and plush orchestration, Barretto’s conga transforms the performance. His tumbao is supple and assured, fortifying the pulse and enhancing the groove without crowding the frame. He does not decorate the music; he steadies and deepens it. The track reveals what many listeners only later understood: Long before salsa stardom and Fania-era fame, Barretto had secured his place in New York’s jazz circles, fluent in the language of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and a first-call percussionist on major sessions. He understood that Afro-Caribbean rhythm did not need to dominate a performance to reshape it. In his hands, the conga became an instrument of integration, proving that Latin rhythm and modern jazz were one continuous conversation.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
◆ ◆ ◆
‘Boogaloo Con Soul’
Ed Morales, author and journalist
This boogaloo track from 1967’s “Latino Con Soul” is emblematic of Latin soul’s sultry promise, a chillout from a long, hot summer. Its opening Cuban piano tumbao peppered with plucked violin notes set up a two-trumpet attack with a languid “Mod Squad”-theme feel, quickly seducing the listener. Boogaloo, shingaling, it all means one thing, the singer Pete Bonet insists in English and Spanish: Here in New York, the people are cool vacilando. Suddenly, charanga violins and trumpets cue an explosive shift to the bridge, like the one on Joe Cuba’s “Bang Bang.” Barretto’s hard hands, a ravenous trombone and Adalberto Santiago’s blurting soneo take over, blowing your mind as your body follows.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
◆ ◆ ◆
‘El Diablo’
Tony Touch, disc jockey
“El Diablo” is a real banger from the classic album “Indestructible.” That whole album was a really revolutionary, “stand up, be proud” kind of record, with so many messages to it. Years ago, I sampled parts of that album for a piece that I did for a documentary about the Young Lords. This record resonates with that whole movement; it was kind of like their theme song. I connect with Ray Barretto in so many ways. This is an example of him at the height of his years with Fania Records, which was a movement unto itself. And he was kind of like the Voltron head, the spearhead of the whole thing. Before I even knew that being “Nuyorican” was really a thing, his music helped teach me what it was to be a Nuyorican.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
◆ ◆ ◆
‘Oye La Noticia’
Bobby Sanabria, percussionist and scholar
Ray and I are S.O.B.’s, sons of the South Bronx who grew up loving jazz and Latin music. That influence was in full force in his trumpet-based conjunto of the ’70s. It was primarily a dance band, but that didn’t stop him from featuring himself and his musicians as powerhouse soloists. His composition “Oye La Noticia,” from the 1970 album “Barretto Power,” exemplifies this. After Justo Betancourt and Eladio “Yayo El Indio” Peguero sing the melody in harmony (a nod to Cuban tradition), Adalberto Santiago declares to Ray’s jealous rivals that his band is a force to be reckoned with while deftly interjecting the moniker for Cuban music played with a Nuyorican attitude, “Salsa.” The pianist Louis Cruz, the arranger of the piece, is featured, followed by Ray exploding on the congas. The trumpeter Roberto Rodríguez soars with a bravura solo, bringing the dancers and listeners to ecstasy. It’s trad, it’s rad, it’s totally Ray.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The post 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Ray Barretto appeared first on New York Times.
