Gus Barraza started his steps in music when he was 7 years old, in his homecountry, Venezuela, of course by playing 'cuatro', the national instrument. While being on High School, discovered the guitar and got a quick grasp of it because of its similarity with the cuatro (first 4 strings). He graduated in 1988 and went straight to the Cecilio Acosta University to study Music Doctorate, unfortunately, life happened and had to drop after fourth semester, but during those 2 years had the opportunity to interact with the current generation of locals musicians in Maracaibo, Venezuela, such as, Alexander Corzo, Luis Fernando Borjas from Guaco (at high school), Agustin Espina, Franklin Pire, etc.
After being away from music, he started to direct a church band in Miami Fl, and came across with the chance to incursion on the bass, playing with Venezuela,Tambor y Canto, a large Venezuelan ensemble based in Miami also for about 2 years (1995-97). After going back to Venezuela he started to experiment with jazz with local musicians, now with some knowledge on Piano and Keyboards as well but playing mostly guitar. On 2000, came back to USA and continued playing with Venezuela Tambor y Canto, sharing stage with figures such as GUACO, Gran Coquivacoa, Un solo pueblo, Argenis Carruyo, and other Venezuelan artists in Venues such as Tamiami Park, La Covacha, Tropicana at Fountainblue Hotel, Hispanic Heritage Festival at Ft. Lauderdale, etc.
Gus moved to Canada in 2002, and had a break from music for almost 4 years, but during this time he devoted onto studying Jazz History, and this settled his musical influences definitively. He currently lives in Jacksonville FL., and plays bass with Strings of Fire (Flamenco/Fusion) with Guitarist Francisco Lobos, bass with YaGozo, and also plays guitar in an acoustic duet and is currently working on his own compositions as a full time musician.
Of course, I play every Friday at Aromas, Thursday at Ocean 60, and saturdays on Sawgrass TPC, all in Jacksonville FL.
Ilan Chester, Frank Quintero, Franco de Vita, Guillermo Carrasco, Louis Armstrong, Guaco, Yordano, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Lester Young, Ella Fitzgerald, Thelonious Monk, Django Reinhardt, Ruben Rebolledo, among others.
Ovation Celebrity Guitar, Antonio Hermosa Classical guitar, Behringer Electric Guitar, Epiphone El Segundo Acoustic guitar bass (4 strings), Douglas 6 string jazz bass w/active pick ups, Behringer Ultracoustic Amp, Behringer Effect Processor, GMX Recording Microphones,Tascam Digital 8 track recorder, Dell Laptop PC, Sony Amp and speakers, Yamaha Keyboard.
