Guitarist on Self-Guided Tour in the Music World

Guitarist Juan Carlos Quintero’s musical journey, one that has wound its way through Bogota, Boston and Brussels before settling in Los Angeles, has been one of discovery.

Quintero’s music, a hybrid blend of jazz, rock and the rhythms of South America, reflects that odyssey. Though he follows in the footsteps of a diverse group of pioneers that includes Miles Davis, Carlos Santana and Cal Tjader, the territory he’s staked is decidedly his own.

Quintero, who plays Saturday at the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library, was born in Medellin, Colombia. His father joined the U.S. Army to train as a doctor and was transferred to Belgium when his son was only 3. It was there that Quintero picked up the guitar.

“Like everyone else, I started out on the piano then switched to guitar shortly thereafter,” Quintero, 32, said by phone recently from his office in Redondo Beach. “The music I first worked out was rock ‘n’ roll, but the music I heard in our home was from South America.”

The family moved to New Jersey when Quintero was in high school. It was there that he discovered jazz.

“I started checking out Miles Davis; that’s one of the things that got me to branch out to other styles. As a player and developing student of music, once you get into Miles you get into a real complete picture of that music and its potential,” Quintero said.

“He made so many creative ventures into so many areas. To this day musicians argue about which Miles period they like the best,” he said. “The key is that he was always developing what he heard in the context of jazz.”

The summer before his senior year, Quintero was accepted into a composition program at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y.

“It was very intense,” he recalled. “They only accepted 50 applicants, many of which were young prodigies. It’s a mystery how I got in there. I wrote some pretty outrageous, atonal music so they figured we’d better let this kid in here and teach him something before he hurts someone.”

While there, he studied with Gene Bertoncini, a guitarist whose classically influenced stylings have been heard with Paul Desmond, Hubert Laws, Paul Winter and Wayne Shorter.

“He was touring with Benny Goodman in those days, and it was the first time I ever hung out with someone who played the music my father listened to. He opened my eyes to the jazz standard and the beauty of Cole Porter, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Bill Evans and Horace Silver. I came back to my last year in high school into something else. I wasn’t talking about Jeff Beck anymore. I was talking about Gene Bertoncini.”

After high school, Quintero enrolled in Boston’s fabled Berklee College of Music as a composition major. “I was too shy about my playing so that’s why I chose that major.”

Quintero, who studied with vibist Gary Burton, graduated in 1984, then enrolled at the New England Conservatory to study with respected composer George Russell.

“I thought Berklee was intense, but this was really intense. (Russell) has a very unique approach to composing. I studied about a year with him then realized it was time to move on. I was interested in getting a record deal and putting together a platform from which to write and perform. And they just don’t talk about the business side in music schools.”

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To accomplish that move, Quintero relocated to Los Angeles, encouraged by stalwart studio guitarist Tommy Tedesco, whom he’d met at Berklee.

“When I got off the plane in L.A., I didn’t know where anything was. But Tommy was a great help, I had showed him around the Berklee campus when he was there and he said he’d return the favor if I ever came to Los Angeles.

“He took me with him to MGM where he had a (movie soundtrack) session,” he said. “I spent a week observing him. He threw me some bones, got me some commercials and he gave me some advice: ‘Play as much as possible, anywhere you can. If you play and get mentioned in the jazz listings, the musicians will get to know your name.’ ”

Quintero spent the end of the ‘80s doing just that, playing all over Los Angeles, refining his direction and polishing his chops. Eventually, he said, “I got less interested in studio work and more interested in being a player and having a recording career.”

This led to a record deal with the Nova label, resulting in two albums, his 1990 debut, “Jose Carlos Quintero,” and 1992’s “Through the Winds.” Both reflect Quintero’s training as a composer as well as his exposure to South American music via his parents. The Latin influence developed slowly, almost subconsciously, and outside the classroom. “I didn’t get into my roots while at Berklee; I was learning to write in the jazz context, that Gary Burton-Pat Metheny approach. But after school, I got into the music of South America, putting the jazz influence in with that tradition.

“Cal Tjader was the first guy I heard who could combine Latin and jazz music. Before that, it was Santana, merging Latin and rock. Any guitar player who’s checking out the legends eventually goes through Santana. (Pianist) Jorge Dalto was also an influence, and (saxophonist) Gato Barbieri.”

Quintero said he’s now focusing on combining Latin and Afro-Cuban rhythms with the traditions of jazz.

“It’s those three ingredients, plus the fact that we’re willing to break the rules,” he said. “Like the Afro-Cuban tradition of the montuno , where the piano repeats a figure. But I’ll do it on the guitar. Instead of having a saxophone and trombone playing the chorus of a rumba, we do it among the guitar and the piano. We like to mix things up.”

Quintero’s current lineup includes bassist Eddie Resto--a veteran of stints with Eddie Palmieri, Mongo Santamaria and Tito Puente--pianist Joe Retondi, drummer Tiki Pasillas and percussionist Angel Figueroa, who’ll be leaving the band this summer to tour with Herbie Hancock.

The group is scheduled this summer to visit Peru, Ecuador and, in a homecoming for Quintero, Bogota. In the meantime, he’s shopping around for a new recording contract.

“The trick is finding a label that understands what I do, and will see me as a complement to their roster,” he said. “When we play, though, that whole industry thing falls apart. The folks like the music, they get into it. They aren’t worried about categories.”

* Juan Carlos Quintero plays Saturday at the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library, 31495 El Camino Real, San Juan Capistrano. 7 and 9 p.m. $5. (714) 493-1752.