Latin music was a very natural gravitation for Juan Carlos Quintero when he first picked up the guitar at age eight:  “No matter what style I ever played in, I always came back to the Latin grooves.  Latin music crosses so many boundaries and its ability to seduce at the same time as it celebrates life and my culture background has always amazed me.  It’s got a strong natural appeal to me.  A few years before I picked up the guitar, I remember being mesmerized by a high school band that played next door to my elementary school in Brussels.  They were a cover band and I said, ‘Those are the guys from the radio!’ I was hooked from then on.”

Quintero was particularly inspired by Spanish flavored masters like Cal Tjader, Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Carlos Santana, but he felt that Chick Corea best brought out the excitement of bridging Latin music and American jazz.  Quintero took this lead both when he was attending Berklee College of Music in the early 80’s and when he launched his own solo career later in the decade.  He studied composition at Boston’s New England Conservatory, and then moved to Los Angeles, where he plugged into the city’s studio scene with the help of this mentor Tommy Tedesco.  While doing TV and soundtrack work by day, Quintero hooked up with some of his old Boston schoolmates and began gigging in Los Angeles and Orange County.  Opening for longtime hero Gato Barbieri early on convinced him whatever struggle he faced was well worth it. 

Quintero in recent years has also developed a career as a college professor at College of the Canyons in Valencia, California as well as California State University teaching music and business. He’s also spent time new shaping the concept for Moondo Records, which began as a platform for his publishing catalog; he now owns the rights to his music, which has been contracted out to numerous televisions shows, including Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Extra, Hard Copy and various programs in Europe and Japan.   

 “One of the greatest things is just being able to deep recording and playing my music while being able to realize my vision – through music and business,” he says. “Having my records in stores, getting airplay and performing concerts is a blessing – I’m living the dream.”

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