Giraldo Piloto Baretto - Biography


In Spanish

Klimax_cd1.jpg (10429 bytes)Among those strongly innovating Cuban son excels Klimax, the group created by Giraldo Piloto Baretto. Nephew of the great percussionist Guillermo Baretto, Giraldo Piloto recognizes his uncle's style and touch as the main influence and the spine of his music. A music which is charancterized above all by its jazzy accent, not in the way as in Irakere but perfectly integrated in the typical timba sound that prevails in Cuba nowadays . That's what makes Klimax very special, differents from the rest of the Cuban groups.

Graduated in percussion at the Cuban National School of Art in 1980, Piloto initiated his professional carreer as drummer of the orchestra of the Tropicana night club, a superb school too start the trajectory in which he has showed his talent as musician, arranger and composer of several cuban groups.
Exceptional musician could be a correct qualification, nevertheless it doesn't do justice to Piloto's other qualities. Added to his talent as musician, arranger and musical director are his accurate and prolific work as a composer, which causes his themes to appear in the discography of various orchestras that cultivate salsa in Cuba and other countries of the world.

He reaches his greater splendor as a musician in 1988 when he joins NG La Banda, the group of José Luis Cortes, one of the Cuba's most important ones. As a member of that group Piloto makes himself known as composer and arranger and his themes, after being released, monopolize the hit parades on the cuban radios. It is also in this orchestra where he starts to create themes for Issac Delgado and where they make the disc Dando la hora, which received the Egrem category prize, and where three of his compositions became great successes on radio and television.

In 1992 Giraldo Piloto decides to join the group of magnificent singer Issac Delgado, assuming the musical leadership. Years of intense artistic work as musician, director and composer causes him in '94 to become musical producer of the disc Con Ganas, in the hard working company of cuban jazz musician Gonzalo Rubalcaba. This work reaches the great Egrem prize in 1994 and due to their commendable way of composing they cause Issac Delgado and his group to reach consecutive primacy among the main orchestras of the country for three years.

1995 is the year in which all Piloto's experience and profits as well as his artistic maturity are concentrated and in this year he forms his own group Klimax, with musicians of proven talent belonging to a generation of graduates from Schools of Art and coming from several Cuban orchestras.

Klímax brings out its first cd Mira si te gusta in 1996. A sweeping disc in which Piloto demonstrates his great class as a modern sonero. Diego Manrique has called Klímax "the most powerful locomotive of the Caribbean, the most beautiful machine arisen from the tropical belt of the planet. Klímax tightens and slows down and again accelerates, but it's never, never derailed".

After that first disc, in 1997 Klímax brings out its second cd Juego de Manos which confirms its power in the Cuban panorama: a powerful cd which combines timba, jazzy arangements and romantic salsa. The disc includes a salsa version of the theme Cuba which the Gibson Brothers made popular as a disco hit in the seventies.

Klimax is an artistic-aesthetic project directed by Piloto, an option that includes all sorts of Cuban music and also jazz and other Caribbean rhythms. Klimax has in addition, an own seal, typically Cuban, that offers the most genuine and contemporary of Cuban popular music.


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Last modified on 5.12.98