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Andrés Soto is the newest member of Mestizo playing the Bari Sax and flute chair. Andrés is a life long resident of Richmond/San Pablo and first started playing music at helm's Junior High. At Richmond High, Andrés played in the award winning Richmond High Jazz Band, Symphonic Band Marching and Pep Band and the Saxophone Quartet. In the early 1970's, East Bay Funk and Latin Rock was exploding at the time with groups like Tower of Power, Cold Blood, Malo, Santana, Sons of Champlin, the Uptights. Andrés was a founding member of Natural Impulse and started playing clubs, concerts and festivals throughout Northern California. By 1973, Andrés was also playing in the Contra Costa College Big Band. The disco craze killed live soul bands in the late 70's, so Andrés shifted to Latin Jazz and Latin Rock playing with Sonora Maravilla, Orquesta Alegría and Salsa Unida though the mid 1980's. The late 80's saw Andrés playing with Los Universales playing a wide variety of Chicano music around the state. The 1990's saw a revival of soul music and Andrés joined up with some of the felllas from Natural Impulse and created GTS, playing classic Soul, Funk, and R&B to this day here in the Bay. Andrés also played with the Richmond Community Band playing saxes, flute and clarinet chairs. In 1996 Andrés joined the Junius County Jazz Orquestra, where he currently plays Lead Alto Sax. In the new millenium Andrés has continued to diversify his music playing Rock with Cold Turkey, reggae, hip-hopLatin and funk with The People, and Latin Rock with Lava and Mestizo. Music has opened the doors to the world for Andrés: performing in Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; Paris, France; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Berlin, Germany; and Salvador, Bahia, Brasil. Andrés has also had the honor of jamming and sharing the stage with musicians such as Flaco Jimenez, Stanley Turrentine, John Handy, Mic Gillette, Pete and Juan Escovedo, John Santos, Denise Perrier, Craig Handy, Carlos Federico, Chuy Varela and Mark Levine. In his other lives Andrés has two grown sons, Ché, a recent graduate at UCLA in International Development, and Alejandro, currently attending law school in Washington, D.C. Andrés is an internationally recognized leader in the gun control movement, thus a nemesis of the National Rifle Association and other practitioners of violence, an advocate for peace and justice in the community of Richmond and a bon vivant who is known for his cuisine and love of travel. |