Biography

Arturo Puertas Cuarteto's biography

Arturo Puertas was born in 1961. His first chords on the electric bass revealed the influence by the Beatles, until the early 1980s when he discovered jazz and its emblematic double bassists: Ray Brown, Paul Chambers, Ron Carter, and many others. He studied classical double bass at the conservatories Manuel de Falla and Carlos López Buchardo. He has performed with the majority of local musicians as well as with some international artists, including Clark Terry, Gail Winters, Conrad Herwig, Walt Weiskopf and, in the previous edition of the Festival, with the outstanding Swedish soloists Peter Asplund and Jacob Karlzon. He was the double bassist of La Gran Banda, the big band which performed to great acclaim at the Teatro Margarita Xirgu. Arturo was also a member of Adrián Iaies Trío and Adrián Iaies Cuarteto, and played in the Jorge Navarro Trío and the Bergalli /Navarro quartet. At present, he is a member of Gustavo Bergalli’s quartet.
In 2004, he took part in the Argerich Festival at the Teatro Colón, playing Friedrich Gulda’s concert for violoncello and orchestra under the baton of Brazilian conductor Roberto Tibiriçá. He also leads an active career as a teacher.
In order to carry out his project as a leader, which led to the release of the highly acclaimed Siete Puertas (PAI, 2009), Puertas formed a quartet of highly experienced musicians with great technical competence. Such is the case of Fernando Martínez, a drummer with a career of over twenty-five years, who graduated from the University of Maryland and the Berklee College of Music and taught at the New England Conservatory. Martínez has performed alongside such greats as Joe Lovano, Charly Bird, Clark Terry, Tom Coster and Rebecca Parris. At the local level, he performed and recorded with many artists, including Andrés Boiarsky, Diego Urcola, Luis Salinas, Ernesto Jodos, Javier Malosetti and Adrián Iaies. He has published two books and a series of sampling CDs featuring drums and percussion loops.
The quartet’s saxophonist is Gabriel Santecchia, who boasts a career of over twenty years of teaching and performing alongside the main figures of local jazz. Santecchia won the first prize at the Jazz Contest organised by the company Metrovías and the second prize at the Sax Scorchers Study Competition in Birmingham (the United Kingdom). He published “Salón de destrabe” in the book Sax Scorchers: 20 Hot Studies for Saxophone. The band is completed by pianist Pablo Raposo (see his details on p. 74).

www.myspace.com/arturopuertas • www.myspace.com/gabrielsantecchia
www.myspace.com/elferfm