Jazz saxophonist, composer Gato Barbieri is dead at 83

Leandro "Gato" Barbieri, a jazz saxophonist and bandleader who won an Oscar for his soundtrack to Last Tango in Paris, died in New York City on Saturday, his wife, Laura Barbieri confirmed Sunday. He was 83, and the cause of death was pneumonia. Barbieri, born in Argentina in 1932, picked up the clarinet and then saxophone at age 12 after he heard Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time," and his musical career progressed from big band to free jazz to Latin jazz in the late-1960s. His last of roughly 40 albums, 2010's New York Meeting, was straight-ahead jazz versions of some favorite standards.

Barbieri got the name "El Gato" (the cat) in Buenos Aires in the late 1950s, because of the way he ran from club to club with his saxophone. He was awarded a lifetime achievement Latin Grammy in 2015 for having covered "virtually the entire jazz landscape" over his long career, creating "a rebellious but highly accessible musical style, combining contemporary jazz with Latin American genres and incorporating elements of instrumental pop."

It was his Latin sound and Argentine roots that drew director Bernardo Bertolucci to approach him for the soundtrack to the 1972 erotic Marlon Brando film Last Tango. "Always in the tango is tragedy — she leaves him, she kills him. It's like an opera but it's called tango," Barbieri told The Associated Press in 1997. "The lyrics and the melodies are very beautiful. It's very sensual." You can listen to his theme from Last Tango in Paris, orchestrated by Oliver Nelson, below. Peter Weber

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up