
Gato Barbieri (Spanish for "Barbieri the Cat") is an Argentine jazz tenor saxophonist and composer who rose to fame during the free jazz movement in the 1960s and from his latin jazz recordings in the 1970s. Born to a family of musicians, Barbieri began playing music after hearing Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time." He played the clarinet, then the alto saxophone while teaming with Argentine pianist Lalo Schifrin in the late 1950s. By the early 1960s, while in Rome, he played tenor saxophone, also with trumpeter Don Cherry, (stepfather of Nenah and Eagle-Eye).