Gato Barbieri

Argentinean jazz saxophonist Gato Barbieri rose to fame in the early 1970s thanks to his sensuous, Grammy-winning soundtrack for "Last Tango in Paris," which marked the midpoint of his long career as both an avant-garde and pop-friendly musician. Born in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, Leandro Barbieri hailed from a musical family, but showed little personal interest in performing until the age of 12, when he heard Charlie Parker's rendition of "Now's the Time." He soon took up the clarinet before moving to alto saxophone after moving to Buenos Aires in 1947. In the mid-1950s, he was a prominent member of fellow Argentine jazz musician Lalo Schifrin's orchestra as well as a bandleader with smaller groups. Barbieri moved to Italy in 1962, where he met and played with avant-garde performers like Don Cherry; their influence would lead to collaborations with such adventurous jazz musicians as Carla Bleu and Charlie Haden's Liberation Orchestra. But by the following decade, Barbieri's music had returned to its Latin roots, which paved the road for his best-known work as soundtrack composer for Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial "Last Tango in Paris" (1972). The album was a hit with jazz fans and casual listeners alike, and led to a contract with Impulse! Records. His output for the label, and for A&M in the midpoint of the decade, hewed closer to commercial-oriented pop and soul. Conflict with A&M and the death of his wife took Barbieri out of the public eye for much of the 1980s and '90s, but by the end of the decade, he had returned to recording and touring. He explored smooth jazz sounds for his final albums, which included 1997's Que Pasa, a Top 5 LP on the contemporary jazz charts. Barbieri received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Grammys in 2014, one year before his death from pneumonia in New York on April 2, 2016.