Carlos Emilio Morales is a Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

n jazz guitarist

Jazz guitarist

Jazz guitarists are guitar players who play jazz music on the guitar using an approach to playing chords, melodies, and improvised solo lines which is called jazz guitar playing. The guitar has fulfilled the roles of accompanist and soloist in small and large ensembles and also as an unaccompanied...

.

Morales perfected the application of classical guitar

Classical guitar

The classical guitar is a 6-stringed plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones...

 techniques to a jazz witting and helped introduce global audiences to Cuban jazz sounds in the early 1970s, particularly for his contribution with the group Irakere

Irakere

Irakere is a Cuban band founded by Armando de Sequeira Romeu Music Director and composer, and by pianist Chucho Valdés in 1973...

. His technique reflects his careful study of the work of Andrés Segovia

Andrés Segovia

Andrés Torres Segovia, 1st Marquis of Salobreña , known as Andrés Segovia, was a virtuoso Spanish classical guitarist from Linares, Jaén, Andalucia, Spain...

, while his unique playing style has influenced not only Cuban guitarists but also many other instrumentalists of various generations of his fellow music players. Affectively nicknamed El Gordo (The Fat), Morales is regarded as the first to suggest to Cuban bassists

Bass (instrument)

Bass describes musical instruments that produce tones in the low-pitched range. They belong to different families of instruments and can cover a wide range of musical roles...

 that they could apply guitar techniques to the bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

 with gratifying results, instead of trying to play their instrument like a contrabass

Contrabass

Contrabass refers to a musical instrument of very low pitch; generally those pitched one octave below instruments of the bass register...

.

A native of Marianao, Cuba

Marianao

Marianao is a town and municipality in the province of the city of Havana, Cuba, 6 miles southwest of the original city of Havana, with which it is connected by the Marianao railway. , the municipality had a population of 133,016. Marianao is on a range of hills about 1500 ft. above sea level,...

, Morales was the son of a dentist

Dentistry

Dentistry is the branch of medicine that is involved in the study, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases, disorders and conditions of the oral cavity, maxillofacial area and the adjacent and associated structures and their impact on the human body. Dentistry is widely considered...

. He attended medical school at the Universidad de La Habana and worked as a travelling salesman of medical products for several years. But it did not take for him to find his true vocation.

Morales learned to play guitar himself at the age of 12, based mostly into the sound of the Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 guitar trio Los Panchos

Los Panchos

Los Panchos was an internationally famous Latin pop trio known for its romantic ballads and boleros.-History:...

, being already acquainted with Trío Matamoros

Trio Matamoros

The Trio Matamoros were one of the most popular Cuban trova groups. Formed in 1925 by Miguel Matamoros , Rafael Cueto and Siro Rodriguez...

' style, something that he heard daily at home. He received formal training in the 1950s with professors Clara Nicola, García Gattel, Jesús Ortega and Federico Smith. Expanding his knowledge, was later influenced by jazz guitarists as Charlie Byrd

Charlie Byrd

Charlie Lee Byrd was a famous and versatile American guitarist born in Suffolk, Virginia. His earliest and strongest musical influence was Django Reinhardt, the famous gypsy guitarist. Byrd became the American guitarist who best understood and played Brazilian music, especially the Bossa Nova genre...

, Tal Farlow

Tal Farlow

Talmage Holt Farlow was an American jazz guitarist. Nicknamed the "Octopus", Farlow's extremely large hands spread over the fretboard as if they were tentacles. He is considered one of the all-time great jazz guitarists. Michael G...

, Barney Kessell, Wes Montgomery

Wes Montgomery

John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily...

 and Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...

, before starting his professional career in 1959 with the Teatro Musical de La Habana orchestra, where classical guitarist Leo Brouwer

Leo Brouwer

Juan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida is a Cuban composer, conductor and guitarist. He is the grandson of Cuban composer Ernestina Lecuona Casado.-Biography:...

 was composer.

In 1967, Morales became a founding member of the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, an 18-piece big band

Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...

 conceived and directed by Armando Romeu, which featured players such as Chucho Valdés

Chucho Valdés

Chucho Valdés is a Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger. In 1972 he founded the group Irakere, one of Cuba's best-known Latin jazz bands. Together with pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Valdés is revered as one of Cuba's greatest jazz pianists...

, Paquito D'Rivera

Paquito D'Rivera

Paquito D'Rivera is a Cuban alto saxophonist, clarinetist and soprano saxophonist. The winner of multiple Grammys and other awards, D'Rivera has lived in the United States since the early 1980s. He has worked in a variety of contexts, but is perhaps best known for playing Latin...

, Arturo Sandoval

Arturo Sandoval

Arturo Sandoval is a jazz trumpeter and pianist. He was born in Artemisa, in the newest renamed Artemisa Province, Cuba....

 and Carlos Averhoff

Carlos Averhoff

Carlos Averhoff is a Cuban jazz musician primarily known for playing tenor saxophone. He has been called "Carlos Averhoff 'Sax'". He is currently based in Miami, Florida. In Cuba he initially had classical training...

, among others, who together with Morales founded the Irakere group in 1973.

Morales toured and recorded extensively with Irakere as well as occasionally with his own performance projects, including master teaching classes at Escuela de Superación Profesional. Though he never has recorded a solo album, his improvisational skills have being documented on many records as a sideman. He is currently living in Havana

Havana

Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...

.

Selected discography

• Irakere (1979)
• Havana Jam (1979)
• The Legendary Irakere in London (1987)
• Homenaje a Beny Moré (1989)
• Misa Negra (1992)
• Bebo Rides Again (1994)
• Cuba Jazz (1996)
• Night at Ronnie Scott's, Vol. 4 (1996)
• United Nations of Messidor (1996)
• Nu Yorica 2!: Further Adventures in Latin Music Chang (1998)
• Babalu Ayé (1999)
• Afro Cuban Jazz Now (2001)
• Afro Cuban Trombone (2003)
• Lost Sessions (2003)
• Arturo Sandoval & The Latin Jazz Orchestra (2007)
• Tata Güines (2007)
• Irakere 1978 World Tour (2008)
• Chucho Valdés and his Combo (2008)
• Fania All-Stars Havana Jam 2 (2009)
• Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna (2009)

Sources

• Cuba: A Global Studies Handbook – Ted A. Henken Ph.D. Publisher: ABC-CLIO, 2007. Format: Hardcover, 578pp. Language: English. ISBN 1851099840

• Cuban Music from A to Z – Helio Orovio. Publisher: Duke University Press, 2004. Format: Paperback, 248pp. Language: English. ISBN 0822332124

• My Sax Life: A Memoir – Paquito D'Rivera, Ilan Stavans. Publisher: Northwestern University Press, 2005. Format: Hardcover, 344pp. Language: English. ISBN 0810122189

• Now in Marianao: an interview with Carlos Emilio Morales – Latin Beat Magazine, October 1998, by Luis Tamargo

• All-Music.com discography [][]