Paté de Fuá

Paté de Fuá is a Mexican jazz group active since 2006. It is associated with cafón, foxtrot and tango-influenced music, and its work also draws on cabaret, world music and related fusion styles. The group is based in Mexico and includes Jorge “Luri” Molina among its members.

Style and instrumentation

The group develops a mixed repertoire built from older dance and popular forms, including dixieland jazz, musette waltz, fox-trot, tango, tarantella and paso doble. Its writing and arrangements emphasise original material, careful repertoire selection and a largely acoustic approach. The instrumentation is unusually broad, with accordion, bandoneon, cavaquinho, banjo, cornet, alto horn, guitar, vibraphone, marimba, contrabass, drums and voice all used across the project, and the musicians play more than one instrument.

Origins and members

Paté de Fuá is founded in Mexico by Guillermo Perata and Yayo Gonzalez. Perata handles cornet, banjo, cavaquinho, alto horn, composition and musical arrangements, while Gonzalez performs on guitar and voice and writes songs and lyrics. Other members named with the group are Víctor Madariaga on accordion and bandoneon, Alexis Ruiz on vibraphone and marimba, Jorge “Luri” Molina on contrabass, and Gabriel Puentes on drums.

Songwriting and background

The group’s original compositions are by Perata and Gonzalez. Both musicians come to the project from different musical backgrounds, with connections to jazz, tango and classical music helping to shape the group’s identity. Their approach is described through the blending of these styles rather than through a single fixed genre.

Key members

Guillermo Perata is born in Buenos Aires in 1973. He studies classical trumpet with Pascual Mazzitelli of the Teatro Colón Orchestra, develops improvisation in an autodidactic way, and has played in a range of groups since 1992. He works as a leading instrumentalist and arranger with Los Rolling Stompers from 1998, forms the 2-Trumpet Quartet in 1999, takes part in the Argentinian Jazz Orchestra the same year, and travels in 2000 to the 34th Montreux Jazz Festival with the Buenos Aires Jazz Orchestra as a main soloist. He moves to Mexico City in 2003 and works on projects including Tijuana Trash, Arte 01 Big Band and La Tricota del Ritmo before forming Paté de Fuá in 2005.

Yayo Gonzalez is born in Buenos Aires in 1977. He is a composer, singer and guitarist who studies at the Escuela Popular de Música del Sindicato Argentino de Músicos from 1997 to 2002 and at the Conservatorio Nacional Juan Manuel de Falla from 1998 to 2003. He also takes courses with Eduardo Kacheli, Juan Benítez, Armando De la Vega and Gustavo Mozzi. Before Paté de Fuá, he plays in Plaque Trío, a tango guitar trio, from 1998 to 2002, performs with Yayo y los Gonzalez from 1999 to 2003, and is a founding member of Cuatro de Copas and Duo Los Mareados. He later lives in Mexico City.

Víctor Madariaga is born in Mexico City and studies accordion at the Escuela Nacional de Música de la UNAM. He spends two years at the Gniesin Institute in Moscow, becoming the first Latin American scholarship student there in the accordion department, and he also takes masterclasses with Aldo Rizzardi, Claudio Jacomucci and César Olguín. As a soloist, he performs in Mexico City and elsewhere in Mexico, appears on radio and television, represents Mexico at an international accordion competition in Caracas, and also works with theatre and dance groups in Uruguay, Argentina, Venezuela, Italy, France and across Mexico.

Alexis Ruiz is a drummer and vibraphonist from Mexico City. He studies musical theory and piano at the Centro de Investigación y Estudios Musicales, harmony with Margarita Vega, and recording techniques in Canada. As a drummer he plays with Jessy Bulbo and Titán, and as a vibraphonist he works with Los Chamberlains, Los Shajatos and Paté de Fuá.

Jorge “Luri” Molina is born in Mexico City and begins studying classical contrabass and jazz at sixteen at the Escuela Superior de Música with Nikola Popov. He performs at jazz festivals in Germany, France, the United States and Mexico, records more than 15 releases with leading Mexican jazz musicians, and plays with Fernando de la Mora, Eugenia León and Francisco Céspedes, among others. He also works with the Zinco Big Band, La Tricota del Ritmo, Ricardo Benítez Jazz Quartet, the Perata-Molina-Kaut trio, Magos Herrera and Gonzalo Romeo, and is a founding member of Paté de Fuá as contrabass player and dancer.